An unusual name may catch your attention—but it doesn’t prove you’ve found your ancestor. One of the easiest genealogy traps is assuming that an uncommon surname or distinctive given name must belong to your ancestor. At first glance, the logic seems sound. If the name is rare, there can’t be many people with it. Unfortunately, […]
Author: Kenneth R Marks
Kenneth R Marks was born and educated in the San Francisco Bay Area, receiving a BS in Mathematics in 1968. His career was in Information Technology; with the last 20 Years as a software executive with Boeing, Pearson, and NASA. His genealogy career began in 2004. He is an expert in newspaper research for genealogy, as well as additional genealogy topics. He regularly conducts webinars on the subject and has authored three genealogy books. See the About page for more details.
The Ancestor Hunt, founded in 2008, is focused on helping genealogy and family history researchers of all skill levels to achieve their goals, by providing links to free online genealogy collections, and search tips and techniques, largely via easy-to-understand Quick Reference Guides.
Are you doing New York genealogy research and looking for Free Online New York Genealogy Records? Click on a link for your desired category’s free collection links: NewspapersYearbooksBirthsMarriagesDeathsBMD RecordsAlumni RecordsCemetery RecordsChurch RecordsCoroner RecordsCriminal RecordsDigital ArchivesDirectoriesDivorce RecordsImmigration RecordsInstitutional RecordsMilitary RecordsMortuary RecordsNaturalizationsObituariesPhotosProbate and WillsSchool RecordsTax RecordsVoter Records Good Luck and Happy Hunting! Want All of New York’s […]
Genealogists often assume that important life events will appear in predictable places. Obituaries should be in the obituary section. Wedding announcements should be in the society pages. Funeral notices should appear near the death notices. Newspapers, however, did not always follow modern organizational rules. Editors frequently placed personal news wherever space was available, causing family-related […]
Your ancestor’s biggest clue may have been living right next door. Genealogy research often focuses so closely on one individual that everyone around them is overlooked. Yet neighbors, witnesses, godparents, traveling companions, and nearby families frequently provide the very clues needed to solve difficult genealogy problems. Families rarely lived in isolation. They migrated together, married […]
Are you doing North Carolina genealogy research and looking for Free Online North Carolina Genealogy Records? Click on a link for your desired category’s free collection links: NewspapersYearbooksBirthsMarriagesDeathsBMD RecordsAlumni RecordsCemetery RecordsChurch RecordsCoroner RecordsCriminal RecordsDigital ArchivesDirectoriesDivorce RecordsImmigration RecordsInstitutional RecordsMilitary RecordsMortuary RecordsNaturalizationsObituariesPhotosProbate and WillsSchool RecordsTax RecordsVoter Records Good Luck and Happy Hunting! Want All of North Carolina’s […]
Are you doing Wyoming genealogy research and looking for Free Online Wyoming Genealogy Records? Click on a link for your desired category’s free collection links: NewspapersYearbooksBirthsMarriagesDeathsBMD RecordsAlumni RecordsCemetery RecordsChurch RecordsCoroner RecordsCriminal RecordsDigital ArchivesDirectoriesDivorce RecordsImmigration RecordsInstitutional RecordsMilitary RecordsMortuary RecordsNaturalizationsObituariesPhotosProbate and WillsSchool RecordsTax RecordsVoter Records Good Luck and Happy Hunting! Want All of Wyoming’s Genealogy Resources in […]
GenealogyBank, a subscription newspaper site, has announced its updates for last month. There are 25 New Titles and 6 Titles that have had issues added in the previous month. From GenealogyBank: Here are some of the details about our most recent U.S. newspaper additions: To see our newspaper archives’ entire title list of more than […]
Not all newspaper distortions occur within the body of an article. Some appear in headlines, memorial notices, advertisements, and decorative boxes where editors used ornamental typefaces and extended dashes to attract attention. While these designs looked elegant in print, they often confuse modern OCR software. Names surrounded by decorative symbols, stretched across a page, or […]
The most important clue in the record may never have been transcribed. Genealogy websites make it easy to search millions of historical records using transcriptions and indexes. These summaries are invaluable because they help researchers locate records in seconds. But a transcription is only a summary of the original document. It may omit important information, […]
In digitized newspapers, text doesn’t always stay in its proper place. When columns are close together—or when there are borders, rules, or advertisements—OCR software can mistakenly pull words from a neighboring column or ad and attach them to the wrong article. This creates “phantom” names: people who appear in a story but who were never […]