Going through Town Records

When you think of doing local family history, you probably think of records held at the county level. This is especially true for many of the Midwestern and Western states, where records are kept in county and state archives. However, in other parts of the United States, such as the New England area, local records were originally kept at the...

Finding Your Ancestors Using Court Records

Note: This article by James Tanner was published previously in the Genealogy’s Star blog site and is used with the author’s permission. Palace of Justice, Brussels, Belgium Genealogists rely on a variety of court records for research beyond the popular census and vital record sets. Attorneys who practice law in the court system take years of study to master the...

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...

Family Roots Conference Goes Virtual

The Family Roots Conference 2020 is coming up later this month, on October 23-24. Last year it was held in St. George, Utah; this year it’s a virtual event, with 40 classes, two keynotes, and 26 presenters. It also includes a Youth Event on Saturday the 24th. Here are a few important links to note for the Conference: General Registration...

Amazon Prime Day: An Opportunity for Support

One of the busiest shopping days of the year is quickly approaching: it’s Amazon Prime Day, starting on Tuesday, October 13 and running through Wednesday, October 14. In addition to grabbing some great bargains, Amazon Prime Day is also an important opportunity to contribute to The Family History Guide Association, through the Amazon Smile program. When you sign up for...

New Pages for 4 England Counties

We’ve just added Goal pages in The Family History Guide for four additional England counties. These counties each have their own page with a single goal that covers Basic Research. Choices include Do basic research Explore church and cemetery records, Explore historical maps Learn about additional resources for research There are also QUIKLinks to records for each of these counties,...

Exploring the DPLA (Digital Public Library of America)

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is an all-digital library that collects information (metadata) from libraries, museums and institutions around the country. It enables you to search millions of records from partner libraries and organizations at once. The DPLA is free and does not require a library card, so the possibilities for online family history research are extensive. Here...

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,...

The Updated Trainers Menu

We’ve done a bit of a makeover on the Trainers menu in The Family History Guide, simplifying the entries and adding a new Prepare a Class page. Here’s a summary of what’s new and improved in the Trainers menu. Prepare a Class The Prepare a Class page helps you with step-by-step instructions for preparing the classes you want to teach,...

What’s New in The Family History Guide

There are plenty of new items in The Family History Guide as of late. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve recently added, sorted by date: 9-27: Updated the Trainers menu and added new page for Prepare a Class (see this blog post). 9-26: Added links for American Ancestors and Family History Fanatics videos. 9-21: Added extra videos and resources for...