Category: Country Research

More Countries, More to Discover

The Countries page in The Family History Guide is divided into two basic sections. At the top is the familiar list of countries that have their own pages or groups of pages. Below that is a “More” link that opens up a list of the “smaller” countries in the world, or those that don’t have sufficient genealogy information for a...

Genealogical Research: How far back in time can you go?

Note: This article by James Tanner appeared previously in the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission. Why You Can’t Trace Your Lineage Back to Adam It has been quite a while since I posted this video to the Brigham Young University Family History Library YouTube Channel. The video has had about 4,000+ views but the subject...

The Sixth Generation Barrier

Note: This article by James Tanner was previously published on the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission. A complete pedigree of six generations, counting yourself as the first generation, would have a total of 62 people including your parents and not counting you. If you count your parents as the first generation the total number...

Languages, Scripts, and Genealogy

Editor’s Note: This article by James Tanner was published previously on the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission. The United States is a nation of immigrants. About 1.6% of the population are Native Americans. If we persist in doing genealogical research we will all find ourselves trying to read difficult to decipher handwriting and nearly...

Where was the event? Where are the records?

Editor’s Note: This article by James Tanner appeared previously in the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission. The questions in the title of this post are two separate but closely related issues. To start, I will repeat a general guideline for all genealogical researchers: The place of an event in an ancestor’s or relative’s life...

Putting Your Ancestor into Historical Context

In my last blog post, I used several examples from my research of Gideon Tripp and his father-in-law Benjamin Watts, along with both of their families. I worked on these two families as part of a research project for a class I took earlier this year. As I was researching their residence in Sangamon County, Illinois from the mid 1830’s...

How to Analyze Genealogical Sources: Part Five

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by James Tanner in the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission. Analyzing genealogical records and documents boils down to making decisions about the accuracy of the records and documents. One of the most common categorizations of documents makes a distinction between an original document and a copy. This...

The New Africa Country Pages

You’ve probably seen the South Africa country page in The Family History Guide. Now it is being joined by four new country pages: Democratic Republic of the Congo Ghana Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire) Nigeria You can access these pages from the Countries menu by clicking All Countries and selecting them from the list; or, you can select Asia/Pacific/Africa and then...

Introducing Goals for Geography, Culture, and History

Geography, culture, and history are three important but often overlooked aspects of family history. Together, they can provide a wonderful sense of context for your ancestors’ lives. Geography puts the physical framework around the places and events; culture clarifies the traditions that drive behaviors and choices; and history helps us see how external events push and pull the timelines of...

The World at Your Fingertips

From Bob Ives, Executive Director of The Family History Guide Association: What to do … what to do … what to do? If you are self-quarantined and have kids and youth to entertain, The Family History Guide can help. Did you know that you can go on a world tour, right from your own home or apartment? Kids can visit...