Finding your ancestors in newspaper articles is in my opinion – an art, not a science. You must be clever and resourceful to get around the quality limitations in old newspapers A “feature” of older newspapers is the use of the hyphen. Hyphenated words were often used heavily to save space and due to the […]
Category: QuickSheets
Google Search has become so ubiquitous that “Google it” is a part of our everyday language. Searching using Google has a variety of options that many researchers are not familiar with. Here are 20 different ways to use Google to search; some are especially helpful when doing genealogy research. Download the Quicksheet PDF To obtain […]
I have always been mesmerized by my ancestors’ photographs. Just to see what they looked like and to compare their facial features with those of my close relatives has been a very interesting endeavor. But as I have been able to collect these old photos, I have also been quite interested in the surrounding “information.” […]
When researching our ancestors, one of the most important events, especially if they immigrated to America in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is their immigration and naturalization. The laws have changed multiple times and can be confusing if your ancestor is a woman or is non-white. The first Naturalization Act was passed in 1790. […]
The fact is that all old newspapers ever published in the United States are not online. Much less than you might think. So let’s just say for now that 15 to 30% of all U.S. newspaper pages have been digitized. Personally, I think that’s a very high number, but…… That leaves about 70-85% that are […]
Determining a “Cousin” Relationship between two people is quite easy if you have a proper chart. Many of the charts can be confusing. To obtain a one-page Quicksheet pdf of an Easy Cousin Relationship Chart, download it by clicking on the Download button: For all the previously published Quick Reference Guides, click on QuickSheets. Genealogy QuickSheets […]
In old newspapers, abbreviations were used to save space. Abbreviations were used to shorten many words – the most notable being given names as well as addresses. Remember that your search criteria are just a series of letters that are matched against a search index that was created from the scan and OCR process applied to the subject newspaper page. […]
One of the more interesting parts of our ancestors’ lives that we often discover only via their obituary, is their membership or attachment to a fraternal, ethnic, religious, or service organization or society. The Quicksheet contains 25 of the more common ones in the United States. Download the Quicksheet PDF To download a one-page Quicksheet […]
When searching old newspapers and census records, we are often faced with unusual names of occupations, and we have no clue as to their meaning because the terms are not in use today. I have collected a list of about 280 old occupations and their meanings from a variety of sources. Dan Burrows and Jan […]
There are several ways to enhance your ability to find obituaries in old newspapers and other sources. This Quicksheet describes several of the most important techniques. Download the Quicksheet PDF To download the 9 Ways to Effectively Find Obituaries in Online Newspapers Quick Sheet PDF, click on the Download button: For all the previously published […]