If you are trying to add to your ancestor’s life stories, what better way than interesting newspaper articles about their lives? Absent direct accounts from your living relatives, seeking these hidden gems in old newspapers will tell you things about your ancestors that there is no other way, absent a biography or autobiographical book, that […]
Category: QuickSheets
There are several ways to enhance your ability to find what you are looking for in an online newspaper collection. Then again, there are also several ways to mess it up. In the Quicksheet is a list of 21 Do’s and Don’ts that, if followed, will improve your success rate dramatically. Download the Quicksheet PDF […]
Historic Map Works is one of the most genealogy-friendly historical map sites available online. Unlike general map collections that focus on cartographic history, Historic Map Works is built around place-based discovery—making it especially valuable for genealogists who want to locate where an ancestor lived, owned land, worked, or interacted with their community. While some high-resolution […]
Finding information and articles in newspapers about your ancestors is incredibly rewarding. And the amount of information about your ancestors in old newspapers is likely more than we can find. But what about the paid newspaper subscription sites? I have used the three large ones in the U.S. (Newspapers.com, NewspaperArchive, and GenealogyBank). There are other sites […]
In my opinion, online newspaper research is more of an art than a pure science. However, that does not mean that it should be undisciplined. On the contrary, the best way to waste your time is to perform research with no discipline. Sure, when you get a new name in your tree (or not yet […]
School exams, student evaluations, and educational records are rarely consulted by genealogists, yet they contain rich personal details about children, families, neighborhoods, and communities. These records were created by teachers, school boards, state departments of education, and local districts to document academic performance, attendance, progression, and special circumstances. For genealogists, they reveal information not found […]
There are a number of approaches, strategies, tips, and techniques to succeed at old newspaper research. Here are 10 that will be extremely helpful in your research. Download the Quicksheet PDF To obtain a one-page Quicksheet PDF of this information, download it by clicking on the Download button below: For all the previously published Quick […]
Old telephone directories and telephone exchange records are overlooked but powerful tools for tracking ancestors between census years, identifying residences, confirming occupations, and locating relatives and associates living nearby. These materials can help genealogists follow families as they moved, discover name and address changes, and reconstruct neighborhoods or business networks. This Quicksheet explains how to […]
Most genealogists know WorldCat only as “a library search tool,” but in practice, it is one of the most important engines for discovering hidden offline and online genealogical resources. WorldCat connects thousands of libraries, archives, and historical societies into a single database, allowing you to find books, manuscripts, maps, microfilms, and digitized materials that never […]
HathiTrust is one of the most powerful and overlooked genealogy tools on the internet. Containing millions of digitized books, journals, government documents, local histories, city directories, school reports, and genealogical society publications, it rivals — and frequently exceeds — Google Books in usefulness for family history research. What makes HathiTrust exceptional is its focus on: […]