Whether you want to build your family history with as many names and dates as possible, or choose to instead focus on discovering the stories and details of your ancestors' lives, there's no right or wrong goal. It's about choosing what's important to you.Choosing How to Build Your Family HistoryAs project managers, one of the questions we ask our clients is whether they want us to build their family trees as quickly as we can, only including biographical material if it is of unusual … [Read more...]
“Did My Ancestor Serve in the American Revolutionary War?” Research Steps to Prove a Family Legend
We frequently have clients contact us wanting to know, "How do I prove a family legend is true (or untrue)?". In this article, we highlight research that was completed to find out whether the family legend of an ancestor serving in the American Revolutionary War is fact or fiction. Many of us want to learn about our ancestors’ lives, and this is a key motivator for completing family history. Yet some people also want to know what role their ancestors played in history, and if certain … [Read more...]
Preserving Living Genealogy: How to Conduct a Family History Interview
Summer is coming! Anticipated vacations are being planned, and family reunions are in the works. Now is the perfect time to begin arrangements for capturing the memories and stories of older generations. Here are some suggestions for conducting a quality family history interview to preserve the stories of your loved ones.Preparing for a Family History InterviewSet a specific time, date, and place for the interview. Plan to spend about an hour to an hour and a half, with options to meet … [Read more...]
Bridging Generations Through Heritage
I remember being a young girl and sitting at the kitchen table with my great-grandfather. It must have been a Sunday because he was wearing his suit and the smell of meatballs filled the air of my grandmother’s kitchen. I remember asking him question after question about life in Italy, about our family members who were still there, what it was like coming to America and seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time, why we always got together on Sundays and ate macaroni, and on and on. … [Read more...]
Disease, Epidemics, and Your Ancestors
It does not take long delving into the world of genealogy to see that death and high mortality rates were more intimate and frequently encountered facts of life for our ancestors than for us in modern times. Lacking much of the knowledge and technological advancements of later eras rendered even everyday life more dangerous, and learning about disease and its impact on history can provide great insight into our ancestors – their habits, fears, superstitions, diets, religious beliefs, and … [Read more...]
Tips for Using Compiled Sources in Family History Research
Knowing what records yield the proper information to build a family history can be a challenge. Where do I begin? How do I start? What is right and accurate and how do I know? So much is available online, but who has the right answer?Family history begins with what you know about your family and extends backwards from there, so from the start, it is important to collaborate and work with others who know about your family in its more recent generations. In addition to the family members you … [Read more...]
9 Tips for Interviewing Relatives
My grandma June was a lively, intelligent woman who loved to share memories of her past. Back in college as I worked on my degree in Family History, I came to her house one day to interview her about her life history. She told wonderful stories about her childhood, her parents and siblings. I am so glad I captured everything on a cassette tape and was required to transcribe it for my project. I did this with several other relatives as well to fulfill various assignments.Many years later, my … [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...]
7 Things To Understand About Professional Genealogists
Most people don't have a lot of experience working with professional genealogists. These seven tips will help you make the most out of your genealogy research experience.One of our most popular blog posts to date has been 7 Reasons to Hire a Professional Genealogist. As a refresher, here are those seven very good reasons to let us at Legacy Tree investigate your family history: You don’t have the time or the skills to do it yourself. You need a fresh perspective on your “brick … [Read more...]
Using History to Tell Your Family Story
Everybody loves a good story. Here is one experience where genealogy was brought to life by developing and understanding local history and culture of the time. Everybody in my family - at least on my dad’s side - is a storyteller. Every event in their lives was and is a story. You never simply got up and went to school. Every day was a potential epic adventure. To hear my dad tell it, his life as a boy on the farm was one narrow escape after another, followed by record-breaking … [Read more...]