NGS Monthly

When I started in genealogy, I thought I was being organized and mindful if I saved a record I discovered to the appropriate folder with an appropriately descriptive file name. But I didn’t abstract those records as I went along. Big mistake. In certain instances, I’m still trying to dig myself out from under a […]

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) —Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” 51 In May’s issue, I wrote about the importance of starting your research plan with a focused question based on known information.[1] Doing so significantly increases the chances you’ll achieve your research goal as […]

I’ve mentioned this record before. It’s the family record my great-grandmother Anna created and distributed in 1979 that identified the children, siblings, parents, and grandparents of her and her recently deceased husband. Being twelve years old and having never wondered about any of these people, I was thrilled to suddenly consider them. Being twelve years […]

Sometimes the exigencies of life preempt the most well-laid plans, and genealogical plans are no exception. I had planned out what I wanted to accomplish in 2019 for my own (non-client) family history. But then my Uncle Bob was diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer, and all those plans were thrown out the window. As the […]

For most of us, we’ve already gathered some information and records before we decide that we want to write. Once we make that decision, though, the amount of data, paper, and electronic images in front of us can be overwhelming. Where do we start with this? The first thing to do is to decide exactly […]