Family historian Leslie Albrecht Huber wrote a book called The Journey Takers, a story about her search for information about her German, Swedish and English ancestors who left their homes behind and sailed for a new life in a new land. After reading her work, I developed a great need to know who the journey takers were in my family tree. The actions of one such individual can affect hundreds or even thousands of his or her progeny, as a journey taker determines where future generations will … [Read more...]
11 Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Family Biographies
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 Tree Genealogists, we have a lot of experience writing – not just on the part of our researchers, but also by our project managers and editors, who look over each report and … [Read more...]
Bridging the Gap: Writing a Family Biography Others Will Want to Read
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 share what you've learned with others, it can be overwhelming to know where to start.It can also be confusing to find the best way to share the information you’ve spent so much time gathering. If … [Read more...]
Where do You Come from? The Joys of Genealogy
Who are you? Where do you come from?More and more people are asking themselves these questions as they get bitten by the genealogy bug. Young people, old people, career people, stay-at-home moms and dads—it doesn’t matter who you are, you can become addicted to searching out your family tree.Find Your AncestryHave you ever enjoyed certain family stories that have been passed down from generation to generation? Maybe you have a grandparent who traveled to the United States as an … [Read more...]
Do Family Legends Have a Place in 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 community, a connection to somebody or something famous, or the mischievous deeds of the ancestral black sheep.These stories are fun and fascinating … [Read more...]
7 Reasons to Hire a Professional Genealogist
With so many technological advances and record availability these days, one question we get fairly often is, “Why should I hire a professional genealogist? What can you do for me that I can’t do myself on [insert the name of any online genealogy site here]?”There’s really no quick answer to these questions, but there are a lot of reasons people hire a professional. Some of them include the following:Time. Learning more about your family tree can be extremely time-intensive. It’s not as … [Read more...]
Write a Captivating Family History with the 1900 Census
What were you doing at the turn of the century? Watching the Times Square Ball drop as Dick Clark prattled on? Were you hiding in a closet, worried about how Y2K would wreak havoc on your life? Were you partying like it was 1999?Author Ian Frazier masterfully wove together the happenings of the previous turn of the century with his own genealogical findings in the opening of his book, Family: “The Twentieth Century began on a Tuesday. On that day, all my great-grandparents but one were … [Read more...]
Does Our Family Have a Coat of Arms?
A coat of arms can be a neat thing to display on a wall or at a family reunion, and many people wonder if their family has one. Although selling coats of arms by surname has become a popular business, coats of arms in most countries were originally granted to individuals and were not inherited exactly as they were granted. They could be transmitted from father to son (and also to wives and daughters), but a coat of arms could only be used by one person at a time, and when it was transmitted it … [Read more...]
Writing Family Histories
Perhaps you’ve spent years gathering materials and information about your ancestors. You might have boxes of old photos, file folders of records, and a computer database bursting with names. Or maybe you are just getting interested in genealogy and would like to get to know your ancestors better. Writing a family history is a wonderful way to collect and organize genealogy information, share what you have learned with other family members, and become acquainted with your ancestors and their … [Read more...]
