Feb 2021
The Other Side of DNA Testing
“You see all these ads, so much marketing from the DNA industry, showing that this is a happy, joyous occasion when your results come in, but there’s this other side,” said investigative journalist Samuel Burke in a recent CNN/PBS interview with Christiane Amanpour. “Eleven percent of people who take a DNA test find out that […]
Jan 2021
Assess Thyself
Most of us who have worked in the business world are pretty familiar with self-assessments. They’re generally the first step in an annual performance review with your manager that directly impacts your compensation and position or title for the following year and longer. The fundamental concept is that reflection on the recent past and an […]
Jan 2021
Highlights from the 2021 Family History Conference Program
The Family History Conference this year marks the first conference since the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) merged with NGS, and the slate of events for the conference reflects the combined organization’s purposes. See this month’s first news item (immediately below) to find out more about the events scheduled for the week of 17–21 May. […]
Dec 2020
Alternatives to Onsite Research
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 simply not been open and available to researchers since March. Do we just stop our research and wait? […]
Dec 2020
Municipal and County Clerks’ Records Online
Having just sung some of FamilySearch’s praises, I’m now going to pivot to say, “Don’t depend on FamilySearch too much.” I typically begin my online town- or county-level research at FamilySearch and, of course, can generally get a great deal of information there, but it’s not the end-all-be-all. We know to consider archives, libraries, and […]
Nov 2020
Genealogical Fraud
We see errors everyday in the course of our research. There may be mistakes included in a family tree posted to Ancestry or FamilySearch by well-meaning but misinformed researchers. There may be honest mistakes in published transcriptions. There may even be occasional mistakes in our most esteemed journals; ergo the existence of a (generally) annual […]
Nov 2020
History Hub
I was about to write an opening sentence along the lines of “The National Archives are a national treasure.” But then I thought How stupid. Of course it’s a national treasure. Everybody knows that. It’s the kind of statement that’s so painfully apparent it’s not worth putting into print, like announcing that “The universe is […]
Oct 2020
Looking in the Right Place: Some Concepts
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 looking in the right place. Fine. Great. I’m looking in the wrong place. How, exactly, do you propose […]
Oct 2020
Looking in the Right Place: A Case Study
In researching the English ancestry of Esther (Smart) Guise, 1823–1872, Arlene V. Jennings, CG, was initially directed to the wrong place. The 1923 Kansas death certificate of Esther’s daughter Marilla (Guise) Bush suggested Esther was born in London, but she was not. Instead, it was an unsourced family tree online that first suggested to Jennings […]
Sep 2020
Where and How to Find Records of Defunct Funeral Homes
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. Having found one or more of those records, we generally stop there. Even more experienced researchers often forget […]