Genealogy Tip of the Day

It is easy to search without looking to see if the record even exists. Ancestry.com "let" me search the 1810 census for a man wh...

If you need maps of county boundary changes, complete with animations, try this site hosted by Chicago's Newberry Library. http://publ...

If you can't find an ancestor who should be a head of household in a pre-1850 United States census, consider that he could be living wit...

I was asked to give people a little advance notice about our next offering of " Organizing Your Genealogical Information ." Our ...

Don't stop with asking one relative about the family. Ask as many as possible. Even siblings close in age may remember different aspects...

Chances are you are not the only descendant of your "brick wall" ancestor. Have you attempted to locate as many descendants of you...

Have you done Google and other searches to see if others are researching first (and more distantly related) cousins of some of your "lo...

A relative giving information for a record could easily get similar (or not so similar) names confused. Any chance a relative got the name...

Half of our ancestors are female and yet researching them adequately (or even not so adequately) often takes more than half of our time. ...

Please let your genealogy friends know about "Genealogy Tip of the Day." Old tips are on our blog at: http://genealogytipofthed...

Estimate dates of events when possible, and include your reason for the estimation. When researching a family in Michigan in the 1860 census...

The individuals that may help you track your ancestor may not always be direct ones. In trying to research on relative who moved from Canada...

When you are including information about yourself in your genealogical information, consider including a list of things for which you are th...

Here is wishing a "Happy Thanksgiving" to our readers regardless of their location. Don't neglect your living relatives while ...

Have you considered contacting the funeral home who handled your ancestor's funeral to see if they have information that could aid you i...

If you know the siblings of your ancestor, have you looked at who performed the marriages for all of those siblings? There may be clues in t...

One never knows when a date may crucial to your research. In analyzing a claim for a personal horse that was requisitioned by the United Sta...

The United States took federal census records other than those counting the population. These non-population census schedules that mention i...

If you have an 1856 marriage record for an ancestor, have you searched for everyone listed on the document in the 1850 and 1860 census, incl...

When you create charts and forms for your own personal use, do you use color as a means to organize the information? In their informal notes...

We're a little bit ahead this year to get you ahead in your genealogy research. We're going to be doing other things over the n...

Do you always read the outside and inside of those "packet wrappers" used to enclose loose court papers, estate papers, etc.? Some...

The Daily Genealogy Transcriber is sponsored by GenealogyBank. GenealogyBank offers a variety of digital images and databases by subscripti...

Sometimes we tend to favor the most recent set of transcriptions of a set of documents, tombstones, etc. Be aware that an earlier transcri...

In looking at print material, do you make certain there is not some sort of addendum stuck at the end of the book? A book of marriage bond t...

If your missing ancestor went to or attended college are there clues about their life hiding in college alumni newsletters? Alumni offices, ...

Off and on for the past year, we've offered free downloads of the first and second installments in my "Brick Walls from A to Z...

Share your discoveries with relatives as the discoveries are made. While it can be frustrating for someone to tell you "yeah, I already...

There are still records that exist only in their original form. They have not been transcribed. They have not been microfilmed. They have no...

Just because duplicate sources agree does not mean that they are correct. My great-aunt has two tombstones--both indicate a year of birth of...

My great-aunt is buried in Idaho. She has two tombstones--one a military one and other a joint stone with her husband. The dates of birth ...

[I'm posting this notice on all my blogs--please forgive the cross posting as I rarely duplicate in this fashion.] All the content on ...

Constructing Database Searches: A Short Course This three-session course will meet on three Saturdays in December of 2012. For more detail...

A burial location is a burial location, not a death location. In most cases, people do die near to where they are buried, but not always. Th...

You may think divine providence caused you to obtain that picture of great-grandma or that family bible, but provenance is what we usually c...