An old proverb states that “the eyes are the windows into the soul.” A genealogy corollary is that “a photo is a window into the lives of your ancestors.” Old photos are important to complete research, whether they are portraits of your ancestors or historical photos of the period when they lived. It is important […]
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.
In order to succeed at newspaper research, you must search in the right location, and you must search in the appropriate date range. You MUST know before you search if the database includes titles in the locations that you are searching. You must know where to find the titles to match the correct locations and […]
Every year, in August, the National Endowment for the Humanities announces the digitization award grants to states that are a part of the National Digital Newspaper Program that contribute to the Chronicling America database. The total awards this year are $3 million. Here are the 2025 awards and prior award years: State / Territory Year […]
Institutional records are another class of collections that should be part of one’s genealogy research repertoire. Although most of your ancestors may not have spent time in an institution, I’ll bet that almost every family tree has several that have. So they are worth your effort to research. Here are a few good primers for […]
MyHeritage continues to add or update its record collections at a fast pace for us to search. For August 1-15, 2025, there are 1 new and 18 updated collections. The new and updated collections are: I hope that some of these are what you have been waiting for! Good Luck and Happy Hunting!
City and business directories are available online from all over the U.S. and are another important source of information that can assist you in advancing your family history and genealogy research. This activity of presenting links is a collaborative effort between The Ancestor Hunt and Miriam Robbins. For years, Miriam has made available the Online Historical […]
City and business directories are available online from all over the U.S. and are another important source of information that can assist you in advancing your family history and genealogy research. This activity of presenting links is a collaborative effort between The Ancestor Hunt and Miriam Robbins. For years, Miriam has made available the Online Historical […]
Hello to The Ancestor Hunt readers! Here is the latest Monthly Newsletter. It includes links to all of the articles published since the previous newsletter and articles that I think you might find interesting from other authors. It also includes research tips, a joke or two, and other interesting genealogical stuff. I hope that you […]
Ancestry.com continues to add or update its record collections at a fast pace for us to search. For the period of August 1-15, 2025, the new and updated collections are: I hope that some of these are what you have been waiting for! Good Luck and Happy Hunting!
FamilySearch continues to add or update its record collections at a fast pace for us to search. For the period of August 1-15, 2025, the added/updated collections are: For a complete list of all added/updated collections, go to https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list I hope that some of these are what you have been waiting for! Good Luck and […]