Category: Country Research

New QRB Videos: Maps and Surnames

We have recently posted three new Quick Research Basics videos on our YouTube Channel. These are by Miles Meyer, Education Director for The Family History Guide Association. They have subtitle captions in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino, and they cover the following topics:   Using Historical Maps—Learn how historical maps can help you locate your...

The FamilySearch Wiki and The Family History Guide

As you might expect, we are sometimes asked what the difference is between the FamilySearch Wiki and The Family History Guide. You may have wondered that as well, so this article will point out some similarities and differences between the two that may be helpful. Similarities: Both help with family history research. As a side note, the full name of...

Finding Your Ancestors in Poor House or Poor Farm Records

Note: This article was published by James Tanner on the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission.   Frederick County Poor Farm in Virginia, United States, By AgnosticPreachersKid – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48996373Poor houses and poor farms, which go by many different names, have a long history in English speaking countries. Quoting from the History.com article,...

Christmas Traditions in the UK

There are many Christmas traditions that we hold dear in Britain. Yet, many of us do not know where these traditions came from. We’ve been having a closer look at the origins of some of our most beloved traditions and we think that what we’ve found out might just surprise you. Christmas Markets A Christmas Market has become a staple...

Using the Countries Menu

The BYU Family History Library has an extensive collection of genealogy videos on its YouTube Channel. Topics include FamilySearch, Ancestry, international research, and much more. Many of these are linked from The Family History Guide. Recently, Rayanne Melick added a BYU Family History webinar featuring the Countries menu and country pages in The Family History Guide. It’s about 16 minutes...

Underused Genealogically Important Websites: ArchiveGrid

Note: This article by James Tanner was published previously on the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission.   https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/ Quoting from the OCLC Research webpage, ArchiveGrid is a collection of over four million archival material descriptions, including MARC records from WorldCat and finding aids harvested from the web. It is supported by OCLC Research as the...

Genealogists! Free Yourselves from the Paper Prison

Note: This article by James Tanner was previously published on the Genealogy’s Start blog site and is used with the author’s permission.   Regardless of how tech-savvy genealogists may be,  collectively, we seem to acquire huge piles of paper. We can scan the documents, letters, certificates, photos, and other important paper-based items but we feel duty-bound to keep everything. Granted,...

Jewish Holidays and Family History

One of the significant benefits of dong family history is the opportunity to learn about cultures and traditions. For our Jewish friends and ancestors, this past weekend introduced the High Holy Days, with two of the most significant holidays on the calendar. Rosh Hashana was celebrated from September 18-20, and Yom Kippur will be coming up September 27-28. Here’s a...

Discovering History in Geography

A crucial part of genealogical research is knowing the history of the location where your ancestors grew up. As a student majoring in family history at Brigham Young University, one of the many requirements that I have to accomplish in order to graduate is to take several history courses. The first few courses cover a brief overview of U.S. and...

When Is a Brick Wall Not a Brick Wall?

Note: This article by James Tanner was published previously on the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission.   As I have written and presented previously, the concept of a “brick wall” in genealogical research is not very helpful. Here is a video I did a couple of years ago about how to resolve the problem....