DNA testing for genealogy is more common than ever, but it’s also expensive. Although we’ve seen prices drop quite a bit in recent years the cost is still too much for many to justify. If you’ve been holding off on testing your own DNA, or on expanding your testing to relatives whose information may help your research, the information in this article will help you overcome this cost-hurdle.
Genealogy organization. How important is it? If you’re trying to build an accurate family tree, the simple answer is very. Here’s how to accomplish it with one smart tool.
Unlike many of the resources we cover here on Family History Daily, such as these free US state genealogy resources, ArchiveGrid does not provide direct access to records online. Instead, it is a catalog of catalogs.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was an online research site that allowed you to easily search for records about your ancestors from repositories across the USA? One that linked to actual records that you could view online? Wouldn’t it …
How To Quickly Find Free Genealogy Records Through the Digital Public Library of America .
The first thing most family history researchers do when they encounter a genealogy website is to begin searching for their ancestors in the general (main) search form provided by the site – which is often located on the homepage or in another easily accessible area. All large genealogy research sites center around these main search forms which are designed, generally, to look for records in all searchable collections at one time.
General search forms that dig through millions, or even billions, of records are certainly handy. If you have never used a site before – or have not searched for a specific ancestor – these forms can be a great way to gather the low hanging family history fruit, so to speak. They provide a fast way to turn up easy-to-find records with little effort. But, despite this obvious convenience, they may often be stifling your efforts.
From online databases to image archives, researching our family history has never been easier. However, there is one problem that digitization and online databases cannot fix: historical handwriting. From words no longer used to character formation, cursive style and even sentence structure, it can be very frustrating to the genealogist when deciphering old family documents or official papers. To assist you in this process, let me share some tips and tricks that I have learned in my own research.
While the official study of historical handwriting is known as Paleography, there is a lot more to it than you might think. Some basic themes and issues that you might encounter first are abbreviations and styles.
Need help figuring out how you are related to a distant cousin? You’re not alone. This simple, visual family relationship chart for genealogy will help.
By Tony Bandy From official documents and family snapshots to handwritten letters and more – incorporating scanned images and documents into your genealogy research can be rewarding on many levels. However, the process of digitizing them can often be difficult. …
Digitizing Family Photos and Records: What’s the Best Format to Use? .
From Conestoga wagons on long, dusty trails to pioneers struggling for success on a homestead in Oregon – America’s westward expansion in the latter part of the 1800’s has long held promise for genealogists. There’s a lot to consider when investigating your ancestor’s movement into the American West, primarily because no singular resource or database has it all. In fact, the sheer number of options in this category can make for some very trying research, especially if you are new to the topic.
Finding death certificates for our ancestors is a critically important part of family history research. These important records contain information about when and where our ancestor lived and died and often include names of a spouse, parents, witnesses and, of course, a cause of death.
But the causes of death on death certificates are notoriously hard to read. Certainly, the more we research the better we get at deciphering the meaning of these sloppily written medical texts, but, very often, we are still left scratching our heads. Luckily there is a “secret” code on many of these documents that can help you make sense of this information and more fully understand how your ancestor passed.