If your family tree has German immigrants, include American church records in your genealogy research efforts. Do you have German ancestors who lived in the Midwest? Were they Protestants? If you answered yes to those questions, then you need to know about the German Immigrants in American Church Records (GIACR) series. Compiled by Dr. Roger P. Minert of Brigham Young University, the first volume of the series was published in 2005 and has since expanded to include 18 volumes, the most … [Read more...]
Hidden in Plain Sight: A Guide to Image-Only Record Collections
For the countless hours spent looking for records to prove or provide a family relationship, Image-Only Records collections that have not yet been indexed may hold the hidden answer to century-old questions. Here is how to use these records, and tips on maximizing your time. If you’ve plugged your family names into the search databases of the major genealogical websites and didn’t find the answer you needed, consider that your search is not done! Did you know that there are millions of pages … [Read more...]
2 Guidelines for Resolving Conflicting Information in Sources
The conflicting information in sources can be a brick wall in your genealogy search. If or when you run into this unfortunate situation, here's some tips to help resolve those conflicts! We’ve all been there – tracking down an ancestor and finding an answer we've been looking for on a document, only to find another record that says something different! The death certificate has a different date of death than the headstone, a census gives a different place of birth than a marriage record, … [Read more...]
Using Local Libraries and Historical Societies for Genealogy Research
One of our genealogists shares examples of how local libraries and historical societies can be a great asset for genealogy research. The Hoyt Public Library in Saginaw, Michigan In family history research, when it is discovered that a family lived in a particular town for an extensive length of time, contacting the local library and historical society can be a great investment of a genealogist's time and potentially yield great dividends. For instance, when we found … [Read more...]