Every year more and more records are made available from archives worldwide and family history industry partners continue to deliver technologies to make the research process more effective. These technologies range from using artificial intelligence to enable full-text search of handwritten records, to improved tools for analyzing DNA results to identify an unknown parent or break through a brick wall. Notwithstanding all these developments, genealogy research often still requires painstaking … [Read more...]
Top 10 Genealogy and Family History Articles of 2023
We’ve compiled a list of our best genealogy and family history articles for the entire year of 2023 based on your interests and needs. Every week, one of our professional genealogists writes an article to help you navigate your family history research and get through any brick walls. From DNA to dual citizenship to regional specialties, our genealogy articles cover every nook and cranny! Here are the most popular articles of 2023! 10. How DNA Can Transform African-American Family History … [Read more...]
5 Keys to Finding Scottish Ancestors with Genealogist Jamie Kay
We sat down to learn more about finding Scottish ancestors with one of our professional genealogists, Jamie Kay. Here's what we learned about Jamie and how to research your own Scottish heritage. The Challenges of Finding Scottish Ancestors I grew up around the corner from Aunt Dorothy, our family genealogist, and loved to hear our stories and see the photographs she had collected. My great-grandparents came to the United States from Scotland in the 1870s, so a quarter of my heritage is … [Read more...]
How Genealogy Research Provides Comfort After a DNA Surprise
A DNA Surprise is an event in a person's life where they find out their parentage is not what they had always believed. In this article we talk with Right to Know founder Kara Rubinstein Deyerin about her own DNA Surprise and how genealogy research and other tools can provide comfort during this challenging experience. Tell us how you felt when you had a DNA surprise. I felt like a unicorn. Who grows up thinking they are half Black and learns they're not? I felt very much alone when I … [Read more...]
Legacy Tree Onsite in Istria, Croatia: One Peninsula, Three Identities
Legacy Tree Genealogists works with researchers from across the globe to access records for our clients. We asked one of our onsite researchers located in Istria, Croatia, to share some of the nuances of genealogical research in Istria. Istria is a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea belonging to Croatia, Slovenia and Italy. Its name derives from the name of the tribe Histri. When the Roman army invaded their capital in 177 BC, the Histrian king Epulon, his guard and their families committed mass … [Read more...]
The Genealogy Research Process: 5 Steps to Maximize Your Research
We outline the 5 steps in the genealogy research process that will help you maximize your research efforts. When researching your family history, have you ever asked yourself: “Where do I even start?!” Or, in the thick of researching have you ever thought: “What do I do next?” or “How do I know what I’ve found is correct?” These are questions we’ve all asked ourselves in one form or another at some point. Genealogy can be overwhelming and sometimes that feeling of being overwhelmed turns … [Read more...]
How Do I Determine Genetically Equivalent Relationships?
An understanding of genealogical relationships is necessary before diving into genetically equivalent relationships in your family history. This article will provide an overview of both concepts. Correctly evaluating shared DNA within the context of genetically equivalent relationships first requires mastery of genealogical relationships. Here we review important genealogical relationships based on some of the pertinent variables. For the sake of simplicity, we limit our analysis to biological … [Read more...]
Putting the “Story” Back in Family History
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 History As 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...]