One of the most difficult tasks in creating a family tree is following up leads in your Native American ancestry. Many modern tribes today do not keep records that go back very far.  One of the first places you should begin to look is the Bureau of Indian Affairs.   The BIA was established in 1824 [...]

Reconstructing the lives of your dead ancestors is a bit like piecing together a large and complicated puzzle. Luckily, little bits of information are available in many different places if you know where to look. As the old saying goes, two things in everyone’s life are inevitable: death and taxes. By researching these two aspects [...]

Have you ever wished you could ask your Great-Uncle George how soldiers felt about World War I or your Great-Aunt Georgina how she weathered the Great Depression? Or perhaps you rue the loss of your Grandmother Gretel’s recipe for delicious German strudel? Family traditions and lore can be completely lost in a generation or two [...]

As a genealogist you have probably heard that a trip to any courthouse should be a last resort. This advice is passed along as a result of a bad experience or multiple bad experiences in visiting the courthouse. However, that is just not true; a trip to the local courthouse can result in a great [...]

If you are into genealogy, you will at some time or another hit a dead end. It is just a fact that dead ends are a part of this hobby, and they are frustrating. However, you will want to have strategies that will help you to get over, around, or through these dead end obstacles [...]

Census records may be the single most utilized search tool online for family tree research.  From 1930 back to the founding of the country, the records of every census are available online.  By using census records you may be able to trace your family tree back to when your ancestors first came to this country, [...]

For anyone into genealogy there is nothing more frustrating than doing hours and sometimes day’s worth of research only to find that you have been looking at bad information or even in the wrong family. It is a problem that plagues everyone who has ever dabbled in genealogy and one that you should try to [...]

Deciding to create a family genealogy requires knowing where to search and how to find accurate information.  One of the problems that will occur when recording family history is finding leads that do not hold true about your history.  Because of this, it is important to know when you have a true lead in your [...]

Family mementoes can be a useful tool in your ancestral search.  You can use just about anything that has been passed down from an earlier generation.  One of the most common things to use is a family bible.  Many family bibles have family names, children’s names, family churches and a host of other information.  Sometimes [...]

Using church records to trace genealogical information is a great resource that is rapidly being discovered by those who are tracing their family tree information.  Your church or the church that your family belonged to in the past may have extensive records.  Many do.
The most well known church records for genealogy research are those of [...]