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The Real Lessons of Genealogy
Published on 2011-10-14 16:35:32
When I was in the third grade, I rode my bike to school, and all the way there my mind roamed the universe—castles and knights, cowboys, sports, outer space and comic book characters--but not one thought was given to school. I wasn't interested in school. It was only an irritant and a constant interruption of [...] > read more
My Cousins and the Pogo Stick
Published on 2011-06-08 13:58:53
I'd only seen them in comic books, but to my ten-year old mind, they were the coolest form of transportation known to man. It was my birthday, and my taste in toys had gotten so weird that my mother had no idea what to buy me for a gift. I really didn't have any ideas [...] > read more
Misleading Genealogy Advice for Beginners
Published on 2011-04-02 18:15:44
Confusion. Busywork. Chasing your tail. Scattering your focus. Too many choices. Frustration. Loss of patience. These are things that continually plague new family tree researchers, and it's not altogether their fault. The blame lies with the do-it-yourself instructions being handed out (or sold) by pseudo-experts, and sometimes by real experts. It's not so much that [...] > read more
The Twin Hats of a Genealogist
Published on 2011-03-22 15:39:15
Genealogists wear two hats. First hat is that of the rational, fact-finding researcher. This is the no-nonsense hat of the person who scours the information repositories, who photographs and scans, who copies, transcribes and indexes, who pins down significant dates and places, and who footnotes and documents every source. But there is another hat, that [...] > read more
Lazy Genealogists: How to Make Your Ancestors Come to You
Published on 2011-03-10 17:08:47
If a genealogist from the past were to dog our steps these days, he would pound his fists while imagining how much more research he could have accomplished if he'd had access to a computer, and he could have done that research without having to travel. Travel? How about without leaving home? Or without even [...] > read more
How Insider Genealogists Obtain Census Information Before It Is Released
Published on 2011-03-01 14:58:15
Genealogy is a waiting game—at least as far as U. S. Census records are concerned. Take the 1940 Census, for instance. Everyone knows it won't be available to the public until the second of April in 2012. That's because census information is kept secret for 72 years after it is taken. To protect the privacy [...] > read more
Are You Tweeting Your Descendants?
Published on 2011-02-25 14:09:43
Nothing excites a family history researcher more than discovering letters from an ancestor. Why is that? Well, for one thing, letters usually contain names and dates, mention relatives and explain relationships, but they also offer a much deeper layer of information from the standpoint of genealogy. Letters convey the mood of your family member at [...] > read more
Dad Versus the TV Repairman
Published on 2011-02-21 17:27:08
Television was a big deal in the 1950s. Evenings started to revolve around whatever was on TV. Little TV tray tables were invented so families could eat TV dinners in the living room, while they watched family programs in front of the set. The only problem was when the television went on the blink. My [...] > read more
The Social Security Death Index—How Do You Use It for Genealogy?
Published on 2011-02-18 19:24:20
It's true that the name seems a little grim and impersonal—a government index of death—but what else are you going to call it? The name, Social Security Death Index is accurate, blunt and to the point. Back in 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, and that led to the Social [...] > read more
How Does a Genealogy Pedigree Chart Work?
Published on 2011-02-12 16:07:24
A pedigree chart is a symbolic way of drawing a family tree, sort of like a stick figure is a symbolic way of drawing a person. There are plenty of notions about its invention and history, one theory being that the chart was developed in sixteenth century England by the College of Arms in London [...] > read more