Oct 18
Anyone who has started genealogical research has hoped to come across a famous ancestor. Maybe Daniel Boone was a third great granduncle or Martha Washington was a distance cousin. It is fun and a bit intriguing to think of the possibilities. Then there are the family legends and tales handed down over the generations of being related to a well-...
Oct 18
Everyone has collateral lines in the family tree. Those are the relatives who are not part of direct lineage, but of the same ancestral line. Such ancestors would be the uncles, aunts, granduncles, second cousins and in-laws of the family. When completing a family tree it is the direct lineage that is recorded, such as parents, grandparents,...
Oct 18
In the early stages of researching your ancestors, you keep with the direct lineage, those parents, grandparents, etc. However, you can early on run into a roadblock on a certain relative. There is a grandfather on your mother’s side in which you can not locate any of the basic data. Change the approach and look at other branches of that generati...
Oct 18
A family’s ancestral home can be a rural village, a small town, a medium-sized city or a large metropolis. Learning about the particular location; its people, occupations, traditions and history can give a researcher enormous insight into their own family. Traditionally individuals and their descendants remained in a given region for decades ...
Oct 18
Family history researchers with the same surname you’re investigating can produce some of the most valuable sources by reaching out to link up. Between family heirlooms, diaries and Bible records to the research done by other people, a wealth of information can be learned and shared. The following are some of the most fruitful places to start ...
Oct 18
After you have started investigating into your family history, you could develop a kindred feeling or spiritual bond with a certain ancestor. You may have known them when you were younger or they could have lived years before your birth. It is this unusual connection and longing to learn as much as possible about a particular relative that almost...
Oct 18
Many hours are expended gathering the names, dates and locations for your family pedigree chart, along with verifying the information. However, there are always a few blanks, those relatives for whom all you know is the name; “Grandpa Frank.” Or worse, you have no name of any form, just a total blank in your lineage. There are also the situatio...
Oct 18
The use of one, two or even three and four given names added to the family surname for a newborn baby is a fairly recent family tradition. The naming of a baby is not taken lightly, but rather is a matter of tradition, heritage, and respect to another person, relative, virtue, religion or institution. Centuries ago when a person might be named b...