Category: Country Research

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...

Inside the Guide: Property, Land, and Probate Research

Where there’s a will, there’s a way … and that’s also true for probate records, deeds, and land records! Probate, land, and property records are an essential part of genealogy research, but sometimes they can be difficult to locate. These records are naturally linked to geography and history, so it’s important to understand the “where” and the “when” of these...

Overcoming Myths and Mistakes in Your Family History

Years ago, I was working on some of my New England genealogy with my cousin. One of the things I was proud to relate to others about my family history was that we were Mayflower descendants. And then the “unthinkable” happened: my cousin, who was a more experienced and careful researcher than I, sent me an email saying that we...

Inside the Guide: Asking the Right Research Questions

Family history research is a journey of discovery. In a way, it’s like being in your own classroom with a great teacher and a vast array of resources. Picture yourself there. Would you say to the professor, “OK, tell me all I need to know about geography (or history, or whatever)”? Or would you take the time to think about...

Inside the Guide: Using Newspapers for Family History Research

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! If you looked through old newspapers, you would find startling headlines, amusing anecdotes, and a glimpse of everyday life for the people who lived in the particular place and time period. Old newspapers are not just full of stories about abstract people and events; they are also a valuable genealogical tool that you can use...

Inside the Guide: Tips for Basic Danish Research

My paternal grandfather crossed the ocean from Copenhagen, Denmark to North America with his family when he was only two years old. Family tradition states that he got so sick on the voyage, that the crew thought they should just throw him overboard to the fishes. While I am eternally grateful that didn’t happen, I’ve considered doing the same thing...

Inside the Guide: Merging Duplicates on FamilySearch

Merging duplicates on FamilySearch is an important process that should be done very carefully and thoroughly. Before merging, you take two separate entries and analyze them to see whether they represent the same person. If you merge two entries together who were not the same person, that can be fixed; however it can also create discrepancies in your FamilySearch Family...

Link Sites and The Family History Guide

Almost every family history website, including The Family History Guide, has links to other helpful sites and resources. Based on the number of those links, you could categorize a “link” site as small, medium, large, or extra large. Although The Family History Guide is not primarily a link site, it would likely fall into the “medium” class, with a few...

Inside the Guide: Research Logs

Research logs are very important tools for successful family history research. However, they are certainly not every family historian’s favorite thing. I know that when I’m in the zone of doing family history and finding all sorts of interesting things, it can sometimes be a hassle to take a step back and enter my searches and findings into a research...