The Legacy Tree Genealogists Blog

Hand-picked, tested and trained, our professional genealogist team knows how to find your story. We search the world for answers. Find the un-findable. And we’re experts at everything from tracking down rare international records to analyzing DNA test results. Based near the world’s largest family history library in downtown Salt Lake City, we also work with researchers and archives around the globe. Contact us today if you would like help discovering your ancestors!

5 Reasons to Hire a Genetic Genealogist

December 21, 2020 by Brandt - Legacy Tree Genealogists Researcher 3 Comments

Have you hit an impasse in your research? It may be time to turn to a pro. We share our top 5 reasons for hiring a genetic genealogist.When does it make sense to hire a genetic genealogist? What can a genetic genealogist do for me? While the reasons for seeking the help of a DNA expert can vary, here are some of the most common scenarios we've seen from our clients: You’ve taken a DNA test at a major testing company, and now you’re sitting there looking a list of people who you are apparently related to, but you don’t know how. You were adopted early in life, and now you want to know more about your biological ancestry. You’ve tested at all the major testing companies, but your ethnicity results are different at all of them, so you’re not sure where your ancestors are even from. Or perhaps one company updated their ethnicity estimates, and you’ve seen major changes in your numbers and want to know what it means for your ancestry. You’ve begun corresponding …

Meet Allison, Project Manager for Legacy Tree Genealogists

December 15, 2020 by Legacy Tree Genealogists Leave a Comment

Meet Allison, one of Legacy Tree Genealogists talented project managers!Allison McCord started her career in Family History seated next to her grandma as they thumbed through a 5-inch-thick genealogy book that held the fruit of her grandmother’s research. It was then that she realized she wanted to learn more about her progenitors. Even as a young girl, Allison sensed that in between the lines of all those pages of ancestral life sketches and pedigree charts and family group sheets were hints of the essence of people who long ago led interesting and worthwhile lives. As she grew older, Allison wondered where all those facts and dates on the pedigree charts came from and if any of it could be verified in primary sources.This led to the study of genealogical research at the university level. Allison studied in Jerusalem at the BYU-Jerusalem campus, completed an internship at the Joseph Smith Papers in Salt Lake City, and finished a second internship at the Church History …

Secrets of Murder: Uncovering a Family History Mystery

December 11, 2020 by Jessica - Legacy Tree Genealogists Researcher 9 Comments

People often ask professional genealogists why they chose genealogy as a profession. What was the catalyst that started their journey into family history? Mine was simple: my grandparents grew up during the Great Depression in rural Alabama, and they chose not to relive those experiences and never passed on their family history to their children or grandchildren. I had been interested in my family history from a young age, but efforts to glean any information about my grandmother Marie’s family was akin to an act of Congress. I would ask her about her family, but all efforts to sweet talk her, beg her, or otherwise barter information about her family went unanswered. That woman was stubborn as the day is long (I see some of her stubbornness in my own children today). I gave up and began researching on my own after school and on the weekend. A Surprising Revelation...As she got older, Marie developed Alzheimer’s disease and her mental filter slowly started to wane. She …

A Step-by-Step Guide to Researching Historical Newspapers

December 6, 2020 by Jim - Legacy Tree Genealogists Editor 2 Comments

For many record groups used by genealogists, there are intuitive molds of sorts for getting started. The U.S. Census is taken on the “0” year every decade. American vital records are usually documents controlled on the state level. The type and availability of church registers is determined by a denomination’s beliefs.But historical newspapers? Well, they break the mold as a record group—with not only diversity of content but also a multitude of sources that need to be used harmoniously for a researcher to feel confident that all the bases have been covered and enough evidence has been gathered to constitute genealogical proof.Framing the SearchThere’s been an absolute explosion of historical newspaper pages being made digital (and searchable with optical character recognition or OCR technology), but there are offline resources, too, and getting the maximum out of newspapers requires some savvy and planning.Like any genealogical search, it starts by formulating a specific …