If there’s one thing we’ve learned this year, it’s that there are actual, functional alternatives to the normal way of doing things. Libraries and archives are some of our favorite (and most useful) resources, but most have

We see errors everyday in the course of our research. They may be mistakes included in a family tree posted to Ancestry or FamilySearch by well-meaning but misinformed researchers. They may be honest mistakes in published transcriptions.

It doesn’t make sense. They should be there. They’re supposed to be there. What’s the problem? Why can’t I find them? More often than not, the answer to that line of questioning is pretty simple: You’re not

Searching for vital records is usually the first step we take in researching an ancestor. For death records in particular, we often search first for death certificates, then for religious burial records, obituaries, cemetery records, or gravestones.

As genealogists, we strive to gather any and all information we can that might have a bearing on the research question at hand. Sometimes that information includes conflicting data that must then be resolved. And sometimes that