Apr 4
The super popular genealogy based TV show, “Who Do You Think You Are?” has returned! Season 6 released its first episode on April 3, 2016. Each episode will be one hour long, and there are a total of six celebrities who will have their family history featured. You can find out more about the show, and each episode, on the TLC website. “...
Apr 3
The British were noted for transported prisoners out of England to be made to work at their numerous colonies. From 1615 to 1870, more than 200,000 criminals were conditionally pardoned, exiled, and transported to penal colonies. Before 1775, more than 50,000 prisoners were sent to America—primarily to Virginia and Maryland. With the American R...
Apr 1
As you go through gathering information for your family tree, somewhere along the way you may well come across ancestor or two who were either military soldiers or sailors during the American Civil War (1861-1865). If they supported the North - the Federal Union they were recognized by 'Blue' for their uniform. If they supported the Southern region...
Apr 1
The newest season American version of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' (WDYTYA) starts Sunday, April 3rd at 9 pm E / 18 pm C. It is on the TLC channel. The show helps celebrities find their family background - family history. In turn it shows the general public different methods for locating their ancestors. The names of celebrities to be fe...
Mar 31
When doing your family history research you look for primary vital records. Those are the birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers and death certificates official filled out at the time of each event by a government agency. These are also known as primary sources, the best for getting accurate information of names, places and dates. K...
Mar 31
MyHeritage has introduced something new. It is called Record Detective II and it is a significant upgrade over the original Record Detective. Genealogists who use MyHeritage can use Record Detective II to advance their family history research further than ever before. Record Detective the original, was launched in 2013. It was described as a “...
Mar 30
Volunteers at FamilySearch have been working very hard at digitizing the records from the Freedman's Bureau. In February of 2016, the digitization project reached its halfway point with more than one million records transcribed. More help is needed to finish the project! The Freedman's Bureau Project was designed to bring thousands of records ...
Mar 29
Using the death index / records can be of great assistance in making sure your family history has as much of the details as possible. Death records are kept in with state that an individual died in. Even if they never lived in a certain state, if they died there, records are kept. However, such records started to be kept at different times in eac...
Mar 29
Genealogists have access to many different direct-to-consumer genetic testing kits. Pick the company you like best, send out a DNA sample, and you might learn about something in your genes that could increase the risk of developing a certain disease (or passing that disease onto your child). Don't be surprised if your doctor doesn't care about th...
Mar 28
MyHeritage is a well known genealogy website that can be used for free. (Those who want access to additional things can pay a subscription). Like many other websites, MyHeritage has its own mobile app, which they update with new features from time to time. Now, you can record your relatives with the MyHeritage App. In January of 2016, MyHeritage...
Mar 27
There are nearly 18,000 records for state rosters of American Revolutionary War soldiers and sailors from the states of Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, and Virginia available on FamilySearch.org. It covers the years of 1775 to 1783. Each of the six colonies or territories are different in the type of information p...
Mar 25
FamilySearch.org has indexed an additional 3.7 million Cook County, Illinois death records. These records date from 1878 to 1939 and 1955 to 1994 (although the records are missing for the city of Chicago death records for the years 1910 to 1915). This collection can be searched by first name, last name, gender and race. Access is free. Mos...
Mar 25
You think a pedigree chart is only names and dates for each of your direct lineage of ancestors? No, if can take on many different forms. A different idea was developed by Genealogist J. Paul Hawthorne, one that you demonstrate the variety locations your ancestors were born. Of course in many cases, it will also show how family roots remained in on...
Mar 24
RootsTech, as you may know, is the biggest genealogy and family history conference in the world. The annual event is hosted by FamilySearch, one of the most well known genealogy websites. Videos from RootsTech 2016 are now available. RootsTech takes place in Salt Lake City, Utah, every year. The conference is a multi-day event that includes w...
Mar 23
Just placed on the Florida Memory Archives site is a database of the scanned pages of the earliest auto tag registrations in Florida, covering 1905 to 1917. The beginnings of placing an auto license tag on the new 'horseless carriage' - an automobile, began in some parts of France in August 1894, then appeared in one section in Germany by 1896. I...