Blog Content
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Family History Vignettes
Dec 11
A 'vignette' is a short story, description, account, or episode. It is generally between 800 and 1,000 words in length. The word 'vignette' comes from the French word “vigne”, which means “little vine”. In a vignette, one would express a certain moment, mood, aspect, setting, character, or object. Most of all, it should be short, but descri...
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MyHeritage Introduces the Family Discovery Kit
Dec 11
MyHeritage has introduced the MyHeritage Family Discovery Kit. It is brought to MyHeritage in partnership with Project Life by Becky Higgins. Use the MyHeritage Family Discovery Kit to capture your family's unique story. The MyHeritage Family Discovery Kit involves more than DNA. It is aimed at family historians who want to record their family'...
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One Photo Story
Dec 9
Be ready for the Christmas season with relatives by locating one or two special vintage photos of a family member who would be present with the rest of the family during the holiday. It might be your Mom, a great uncle, a cousin, or an older brother. Find a special older photo of that person, more of a casual and candid shot, doing anything. In fa...
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Facial Recognition of Civil War Military
Dec 7
You might have a photo of an ancestor who served during the American Civil War taken years after they served in the 1860s. Wouldn't it be great to locate a photo of that ancestor in his uniform? It does cross-referencing to serve up a slate of possible matches and names. You need to try 'Civil War Photo Sleuth' whose purpose is to rediscover the l...
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ClinGen Receives Recognition from FDA
Dec 7
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has formerly recognized the ClinGen database that contains information about genes, genetic variants, and their relationship to disease. This is the first time the FDA has done so. This FDA recognition will facilitate genetic test developers. The FDA's purpose is to drive the efficient development of novel ...
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Swastika in Your Family History?
Dec 5
You would never want to find your ancestor was a supporter of Nazi Party and their symbol of the swastika. The world knows the terror of the 1930s-1940s of the German Nazi Party and the fear of seeing a swastika brought. Even today, that swastika still represents those supporting the values of the Nazi Party. In 1925, Adolf Hitler in his writings o...
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23andMe Works Toward Improving Diversity in Genetic Research
Dec 5
23andMe has put in effort toward improving diversity in its genetic research. This includes their Global Genetics Project and their Populations Collaborations Program. The goal is not only to help diversify 23andMe's research database, but also to drive inclusion of understudied populations. 23andMe points out that currently, more than 90 percen...
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Spark Your Family’s Interest
Dec 3
Generally, it is one or two members of a generation who are interested in doing the research and documentation of your ancestors. Yet the fun aspect is sharing your findings. Most of your relatives might not be interested in your research process, successes and failures. Instead, letting them know the great stories of your ancestors will capture t...
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Journals
Dec 1
Journals are not just the written thoughts of an individual as you would think a diary is for sure. There have been many professional journals on all types of topics and time frames. Found on the online Internet Archives site, you have access to thousands of such journals, over 1.7 million. When researching your family, select topics such as their...
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Handling Family Photos from Black Page Albums
Nov 29
So popular … all family albums were long narrow black sheets of paper with the treasured photos totally pasted to a page or later the use of the four corner small tabs to whole a photo in place without placing paste on the back. The album covers were leather or thick cardboard material. These type of albums dating back to the 1870s and for 50 to ...
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AKA – Nicknames
Nov 27
This is such a popular item in families today and has been for a number of decades, but not for forever. AKA – "Also known as", was used to introduce pseudonyms, aliases, nicknames, working names, legalized names, pen names, and maiden names. Now nicknames have really grown to be very popular. You need one as a Password online or video gaming....
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Jefferson Health to Offer Free Genetic Testing to Employees
Nov 27
Jefferson Health is partnering with the genetic testing company, Color, in a pilot project that will give its 30,000 employees the ability to access their genetic information, including their hereditary risk for medical conditions such as cancer and heart disease. The genetic testing capabilities provided by Color will come at no out-of-pocket c...
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Finding Other Family Members
Nov 25
One of the greatest assets for adding to your family history is locating any previously unknown family members – such as distant cousins. They just might be able to provide some information, documents, or photos previously unknown to you. It was common practice decades ago to communicate with all of one's family branches – share photos, send p...
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Remembering Events of November 22nd
Nov 22
Doing a recollection of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, is important, not because one's experience was in any way special, but because that life experience was in many ways typical, and because most Americans alive today have no memory of that terrible event. Many people do remember the terrorist attacks of Sep...
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The Puritans Gave their Children Religious Names
Nov 22
The Pilgrims broke away from the Church of England and the Catholic Church before embarking upon their journey to America. They had very strong religious beliefs that not only influenced their decision to leave England, but also what names to bestow upon their children. They fled England and moved to Holland, in search of religious freedom. Ther...
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Genealogy 101
The study of birth, marriage and death records to discover family relatives. more »
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