Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Beginning Genealogy


I'm posting this in the hopes I can help someone who is just starting to figure out how to research their family history. While I know a person new to genealogy may not know that there are blogs to help, I believe that same person is likely to do a Google search to find out how to begin. Of course, everyone will have their own recommendations of how to start tracing your genealogy. This is the way I'd recommend.

Step 0: Maybe you won't actually do this step until you've found some information. Regardless, it's important that you do it if you intend to do genealogy as a hobby. Find a piece of software to document your family history in your own database locally on your computer. I don't recommend storing your original research online. You can read about my opinion here. Store it locally and backup your information. You can then upload it to other websites to share your information.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Ancestor Appreciation Day

Sunday, September 27, 2015 is Ancestor Appreciation Day.

To go along with a post I made a while back about being proud of your ancestors, here is a poem asking another question.

Would They be Proud of You?

If you could see your Ancestors all standing in a row,
Would you be proud of them or not – or don’t you really know?
Some strange discoveries are made in climbing family trees
And some of them, you know, do not particularly please.

If you could see your ancestors all standing in a row,
There might be some of them perhaps you wouldn’t care to know.
But here’s another question which requires a different view:
If you could meet your Ancestors, would they be proud of you?

--Author Unknown

Friday, September 18, 2015

DNA Test Request

Are you related to me? Is it old news that we share an ancestor, whether that be a parent, grandparent, great-grandparent or further back? If so, this post is for you.

I am looking for cousins and aunts (since all my uncles are deceased) that would be willing to take a DNA test to help us track down our family lines. No matter if you're on my mother's or my father's side of the family, no matter if you are an aunt, first, second or third cousin, getting a DNA test done will really help!

I'm sure some of you are asking "How could a DNA test possibly help us find our family? You already had a test done and that didn't help. Why would it help if I had one done?"