It’s an exciting time to research your genealogy. These days records and information from around the world can often be quickly accessed online with a few strokes of a keyboard. Major subscription databases like MyHeritage, which has well over 6 billion historical records so far, are actively growing their online records collections. FamilySearch continues to put more and more Family History Library microfilms online and recently released a new collection of 4.2 million images of civil … [Read more...]
The Importance of Oral Histories
A compilation of information to prepare you for recording meaningful oral histories. I recently had the privilege of attending the Foundation for East European Family History Studies (FEEFHS) Conference in Salt Lake City. While there were many helpful courses, the one that stood out to me most was an oral history class presented by Ina Navazelskis, a journalist of 30 years and a current interviewer for the United States Holocaust Museum’s Oral History Branch. Ms. Navazelskis taught us … [Read more...]
11 Do’s & Don’ts of Writing Family Biographies
Our team has completed thousands of hours of writing client biographies. Review our tips for writing family biographies that will help make your ancestors come to life! Recently, we published a post on tips for writing a family biography that others would want to read. Perhaps that article inspired you to begin your own, or to dig up an unfinished manuscript and take a closer look. Maybe you’ve got the organization part figured out, but your writing itself needs some polishing. At Legacy … [Read more...]
Bridging the Gap: Writing a Family Biography Others Will Want to Read
Writing a compelling and interesting family history biography is one of the finest examples of experienced genealogists. Review our outline that will help share the stories of your ancestors. Sometimes as genealogists we get so caught up in collecting all the details about our ancestors that we forget the other important side of family history – sharing it with family members! If you have a closet overflowing with old documents or a database full of facts, and you decide you'd like to … [Read more...]
Do Family Legends Have a Place in Genealogical Research?
Does your family history include a family legend (or two?) Here's some of the family legends we've encountered while conducting genealogical research. Every family has a storyteller or two – an uncle who brings out the same old stories at every family dinner or a great-grandma who shares cherished memories of her childhood with her grandchildren. The best stories, of course, are the ones that are passed down from generation to generation: reverent retellings of an ancestor’s importance in his … [Read more...]
Tragedy and the Importance of Historical Context
Encountering tragedy is common in family history research, and understanding the historical context can make the events even more personable to us. Learn how to research beyond names and dates to discover the stories of your ancestors. In doing genealogical research, it’s extremely important to look beyond the bare-bones names and dates of your ancestors, and learn about the culture, history, and events that took place during their lives. If we neglect this vital piece of the puzzle, there will … [Read more...]
It’s a Small Genealogy World
As professional genealogists, we help people learn about and connect with their ancestors every day. But did you know that we also help people connect with living relatives? One case we worked on involved a family of eleven children who were split up after a tragedy in the early 1900s. The children of the youngest daughter, only a toddler at the time, had grown up never knowing they had a large extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins. We were able to trace almost all of … [Read more...]
Biological vs. Cultural Heritage
Biological vs. cultural heritage, also known as nature vs. nurture, is a question withstanding the test of time. If DNA testing reveals surprises in your family tree, consider what "family" means to you. Genealogy is full of surprises. As I was wrapping up a large pedigree project for one of our clients recently, a couple of birth records that had been lost in the mail finally arrived. They revealed that the man the client had always known as her paternal grandfather was not actually … [Read more...]
Walking in Their Footsteps: Italian Immigrant Ancestors
In preparation for an upcoming heritage tour to his ancestral homeland, our client enlisted our help to learn more about his Italian immigrant ancestors. One of my favorite things about being a Project Manager for Legacy Tree Genealogists is witnessing how our work directly affects our clients. We recently wrapped up a project for a client who will soon be traveling to Italy. After tracing her Italian immigrant ancestors through the United States Federal Census records in the early … [Read more...]