Are you hesitant to document personal stories for one reason or another? Are you afraid your life is too ordinary? Are you worried that future generations will judge you for being human? In this article, we'll help you find the confidence and tools to become a good ancestor as you document your life authentically and accurately. Let’s face it: being remembered as a “great ancestor” is a high bar to set. It’s not like most of us are conquering kingdoms or discovering continents. But there’s … [Read more...]
How to Write Compelling Family Biographies from Genealogy Research
How do you make your genealogy research come alive and transform it all into compelling family biographies that will inspire generations to come? In this article, one of our expert researchers will give you some tips and tricks to make the writing process more straight forward. Biography is a genre of history that overlaps with genealogy. It’s not reserved for only those who were famous or significantly impacted history. The art of biography is trying to find meaning in a single … [Read more...]
How Knowing Family Stories Helps Overcome Challenges
Embracing Your Family Stories The genealogy journey is one fraught with unexpected discoveries and stories. As you delve deeper into family history and past stories, there can often be positive and negative surprises that shift your perspective of yourself and the world around you. As you learn about the past, you can choose to create a future that your descendants can be proud of and, in so many ways, come to understand yourself better and grow as an individual. Growing From Your Ancestor's … [Read more...]
How To Plan a Successful Heritage Tour Experience
Have you been considering planning and going on a heritage tour to expand your family history experience and knowledge? Read on for expert tips from our partner at Norfolk Tours to make sure you don't go unprepared! Tourism and travel have always been essential to the world economy, with tourism reaching record levels in 2023 worldwide. However, a new segment of the travel industry, heritage travel, is considered one of the fastest-growing segments in the industry, equating to a $171 billion … [Read more...]
7 Ways to Share Family History with Your Grandchildren
What are the stories you remember about your grandparents that make you smile, laugh, or even cry? Is it the poem your grandmother wrote in grade school about trees, or maybe her tap-dancing practice that kept her parents up at night? Perhaps it’s the stories of the hard times your grandparents went through, like losing daughters to unexpected illness or the loss of precious generational ranch land after the death of a husband. To keep these stories of joy, sadness, and strength alive, they … [Read more...]
Family Reunion Ideas: Sharing and Preserving Your Family History
It's difficult to come up with family reunion ideas year after year. People have been holding family reunions for generations to reconnect with relatives, introduce the newest members to the family, and remember their shared ancestors. As a genealogist, a reunion is an excellent time for a captive audience to share and preserve your family history for future generations. Here are a few tips and tricks to prepare you for your next reunion. Family Reunion Ideas: Sharing Your Family … [Read more...]
Digging for Deaths: Understanding the Census Mortality Schedule
This is the first article in a series meant to introduce mortality schedules and the information contained within them. The follow-up article will include examples of interesting tidbits and intriguing stories that these records have helped to uncover. Across most of the United States, consistent, statewide registration of vital events, such as births, deaths, and marriages, did not begin until the twentieth century. For genealogists, this creates a gap that is sometimes difficult to … [Read more...]
15 Steps to Finding Your Immigrant Ancestors
Immigration ancestor research can be very rewarding as you discover the story behind your ancestor's journey across the pond. In this guide, we share 15 steps to discovering your ancestor's story of their journey to the United States and help you retrace their steps to find the records and data to verify your heritage. If you live in the United States and your ancestors aren’t Native American, then your ancestors crossed the pond at some point. Depending on the time period and proximity to a … [Read more...]