Category: Country Research

5 Steps to Improving Your Family History Experience

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by James Tanner on the Genealogy’s Star blog site and used with the author’s permission.   When you are working on researching your family history, you can easily get sidetracked by failing to focus on the fundamentals of historical research. Sometimes finding an obvious match for your ancestor will send you off on...

A DNA Test May Not Automatically Overcome a Brick Wall Situation

Editor’s Note: This article was previously posted on the Genealogy’s Star blog site by James Tanner and is used with the author’s permission. The term “brick wall” as used in the genealogical sense refers to an end-of-line situation where the next generation ancestor or even some other relative cannot be easily found. Of course, this could be the researcher’s parent...

New from the FamilySearch Learning Center

FamilySearch has added quite a few training videos in the past few months to their Learning Center. We have gone through the list and selected over 50 new videos to link from The Family History Guide. As you would imagine, we have placed them on our site with “just-in-time” learning in mind—you find them where you need them. Below is...

Introducing the Countries Knowledgebase

In a recent blog post we announced the first Knowledgebase for The Family History Guide. It covers general and United States-specific research, and as we mentioned, it is a work in progress. There are currently about 60 entries, with many more to come. You can access this Knowledgebase from any of the Partner menus (FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, or Findmypast) or...

The Value of Church Records in Family History

One of the most rewarding things about doing family history research is the things you can actually discover from all kinds of records.  The facts recorded in birth, marriage, and death records on one family can really paint a picture of what life was like for those who have gone before.  Some call it “putting the flesh on the bones” when we can acquire information that goes beyond names,...

The Benefits of Discovery in Traveling to Your Ancestors’ Homelands

If you haven’t ever traveled to do genealogy and your family history I would highly recommend it.  My husband and I have traveled quite a bit in the last 10 years. We have had a yearning deep within us to go and see the places where our ancestors lived.  We have had marvelous experiences both in and out of The United States. The trips...

The Family History Guide: Essentials for Everyone

One of the reasons for the remarkable growth of The Family History Guide is that it offers something useful and important to just about everyone. We’ve done a bit of thinking on this topic and come up with a list of 10 family history “audiences” and what might appeal to them in The Family History Guide. Some of us, of...

What’s New in The Family History Guide Facebook Pages

As you are probably aware, we have two Facebook pages: one is for the Main page of The Family History Guide, and the other is for the Trainers, Consultants, and Directors page. The latter is a closed Group, but anyone with an interest in family history training is welcome to join. Below are some of the features we have instituted...

Inside the Guide: Organizing Your Research

Doing family history research can sometimes be like turning on a fire hose, as a flood of information comes pouring in to your room. Some of it is essential, and some is nice-to-know, but anything thing worth keeping is worth organizing so you can find it quickly in the future. This article provides a few tips on organizing your research,...

Inside the Guide: Warming Up to Research

For many of us who are new to genealogy, the thought of diving into research can be a bit intimidating. And what some people experience by “diving in” is that the research waters are too deep, too cold, or too far across. What we might need is an experience that feels more like a heated lap pool, rather than the...