Not long ago I attended a genealogy conference in Mesa, Arizona. An overwhelming number of courses were offered at the same time, and it was a challenge to decide which to attend. I ended up asking one of the volunteers to determine my fate. That he did, and I headed off to room 201, “Find […]

Top African American Genealogy Resources to Follow on Social Media
“Finding your roots is the ultimate mode of self-knowledge, writes Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., host of PBS’s popular genealogy show “Finding Your Roots.” Scant recordkeeping prior to the end of the Civil War makes researching genealogy a challenge for family historians. To help, FamilySearch has focused on creating a massive archive of African […]

The Family History Library Announces Free Classes—November 2014
During the month of November, the Family History Library will be hosting a number of family history classes. These classes and events are free to the public. Information about specific classes is listed below, as well as information on how to register for specific classes. Nov. 1: Recursos en linea adema̍s de […]

Great Web Tools for Searching Historic Newspapers
Countless millions of historic newspapers all over the world are now revealing their secrets as they are being digitally published online. And that means they are much more accessible to family historians—if they know where and how to find them. That was the essence of Lisa Louise Cooke’s message in her presentation “Tech Tools that […]

Understanding Domain Names and URLs
Some of the most mysterious features of the Internet are domain names and URLs. Many people recognize that you have to know a website’s “address” in order to connect with the site, but where these addresses come from and how to obtain one is a lot less understood. Unfortunately, the term “domain” is not simple […]

Online Resources for Learning About Creating Oral Histories
With the advent of inexpensive digital voice recorders, it is now possible to make a direct digital recording of your relatives’ stories and family history. Digital voice recorders are so small and unobtrusive that they can be carried in a pocket and used when the opportunity arises. But before you sit down with a relative […]

Books Online — Free, Borrow, Purchase
Unless you monitor the Internet almost continually, you are probably unaware of the huge number of books online including literally millions of books containing genealogical information. For example, if you go to Google Books and do a search for “genealogy” you will get over 6 million results. If you add the word family then you […]