Category: Country Research

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...

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:...

Update: New Online Tracker Sheets

Work on the new Online Tracker Sheets continued this past week, and we now have a number of new Google sheets for countries research, as well as an update to the previously finished Platforms sheet. Here’s are the new Countries sheets, each with links to Class Outlines, Choices, Practice Exercises, and more: US, Canada, and Mexico British Isles Scandinavia Europe...

New QRB Video: Starting Your Research in South Africa

We have a new Quick Research Basics (QRB) video on our YouTube Channel, titled Starting Your Genealogical Research in South Africa. It helps you build a strong foundation for South African research, including history, language, geography, record sources, and more. You can watch the video on our YouTube Channel or in Goal 1 of the South Africa country page. It’s...

New Practice Exercises for The Family History Guide

We have been working hard on adding new Record Search Practice Exercises to the website. We now have over 540 of them, with more to come. Using Practice Exercises is a great way to sharpen your skills with using record collections from around the world. You can easily locate the Practice Exercises using this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G8YRrJXc1ofmzF2YGu1FL1plt0qzTG4o-rW4RBvS5lc Countries and Territories with...

New QRB Video: Research in Switzerland

We recently added a new QRB (Quick Research Basics) video to our YouTube Channel: “Starting Your Genealogical Research in Switzerland.” Narrated by James Tanner, this brief video is a good introduction to help you get started researching you Swiss ancestors, including essential history, geography, and record collections for your research. You can watch the video on our YouTube Channel, and...

Updates to Country Pages and Menus

We recently revised and expanded the Countries menu in The Family History Guide. Here’s a summary of the changes that were made: Mexico has been added to the top area. New sections include Caribbean, Central America, and Africa. The North America section has been removed, since it is covered by United States, Canada, and Mexico in the top area, and...

New 5-Minute Feature Video: Navigating Country Pages

We’ve added a new 5-Minute Features video that helps you find and use the Country page resources in The Family History Guide. The video covers how to use the various menus to find country pages for research, as well as the “smaller” countries that typically have fewer records. You can watch the video on our YouTube Channel using the link above....