Author: Bob Taylor

Discovering Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness

Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness sounds like a good idea—and it is. It’s actually a free website at RAOGK.org. As the name implies, it’s all about offering services to those doing genealogy research. Let’s take a look at what this amazing website has to offer, using the tabs at the top of the home page: Volunteer Directory: You can enter...

David Rencher: Lifetime Genealogy Achievement Award

Just six weeks ago, David Rencher led off our series of live interviews for the Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid project. Two weeks ago he was in the news, receiving a Lifetime Genealogy Achievement Award from the International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences (ICGHS). As noted in a recent FamilySearch blog article, “the ICGHS 36th annual congress was held in...

What’s In a Name?

How much do you know about your name, first or last? The Family History Guide has a wealth of information that can help you understand the origins and meanings of names, whether for you or for your ancestors. Here’s a quick list of resources and links found in The Family History Guide that can help you get started with understanding...

Free Genealogy Websites – and The Family History Guide

We like to spread the word that The Family History Guide is an industry-leading website for research—and it’s free. But it’s even better when others help us get our message out, and that’s certainly the case with this recent FamilySearch blog article by genealogy experts Kathryn Grant and Sally Odekirk: Free Genealogy Websites to Elevate Your Research. The article begins...

Training for the National Genealogical Society

This past week I met online with 50 leaders from the National Genealogical Society, through their OrgConnects! program. OrgConnects is a new venture that enables their leadership to meet and discuss important topics across organizations. Thursday evening was a presentation on how training tools in The Family Histgory Guide can help leaders and members accelerate their training and learning efforts...

New Practice Exercises Are Here

Recently we have added more Record Search Practice Exercises to The Family History Guide, mostly for U.S. states. You can see the entire list of exercises here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G8YRrJXc1ofmzF2YGu1FL1plt0qzTG4o-rW4RBvS5lc The tab for U.S. States at the bottom of the spreadsheet gives you a handy look at the states and record types that have practice exercises available (links are noted in blue)....

Becoming a Patient Genealogist

As the well-known saying goes, “Patience is a virtue”—and that is certainly true in genealogy research. But is patience in genealogy only about enduring pain? If so, that would explain why a lot of people decide not to test the family history waters. Indeed, the Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions of “patient” seem to prominently highlight the “pain” concept: bearing pains or...

Update: More Countries Quizzes

Last week we introduced eight Countries Quizzes, alphabetically from Argentina to England. Since then we have added 16 additional quizzes as follows: England Part 2: Civil Registration Iceland Part 1: Research Iceland Part 2: Researching Records Ireland Part 1: Research and Records Ireland Part 2: Researching Irish Records Italy Part 1: Starting Your Research Italy Part 2: Researching Records Mexico:...

Introducing Quizzes for Countries

For several years we have had a number of interactive quizzes in The Family History Guide, collected on the Quizzes page of the Trainers menu. These also include a number of quizzes for United States research topics, based on articles in the Choices. We are now adding quizzes for country pages, based on the QRB (Quick Research Basics) videos by...