October 18, 2024 As I discussed last week, governmental vital records such as birth, marriage and death are important to building a family tree. Unfortunately, they’re often unavailable. In the United States these records have only been kept for the last century or so. Fortunately, for earlier ancestors, there are other records that can substitute …
Vital Records – Trickier to Obtain than you Thought
October 11, 2024 Vital records – birth, marriage and death information – are the roots of any family tree. Beginning genealogists often assume that finding these records will be as simple as ordering certificates from a state or county health department. For some ancestors, ordering those kinds of records can be that simple. For …
Black Sheep Ancestors
October 4, 2024 Recently I’ve heard several genealogists bemoan the fact that their ancestors are boring. These folks say their ancestors didn’t do anything exciting. They were born, married, had children, and died. Genealogists want a few “Black Sheep Ancestors”- those characters that bent the rules and broke the laws and were anything but boring. …