Family History Fanatics

Need help busting through brick walls? Wonder how to begin researching Scottish or Polish Ancestors? Are you confused on how many genetic ancestors you’re reliably related to? These questions and more are discovered in this weeks collection of genealogy videos on YouTube. Check them out! Genealogy Research Tips: Several YouTube channels released great videos this […]

Many people take a genealogy DNA test to find cousins. GEDmatch has released their Genesis upgrade with a host of great tools you’ll want to use to find your cousins. One tool to try is One-to-Many tool on GEDmatch Genesis. When you log into Genesis, the One-to-Many tool is going to be down under DNA […]

In rounding up genealogy videos from YouTube this week, we discovered new genealogist who launched their own channel. Be sure to scroll down and check her out. We scoured YouTube looking for genealogy and family history videos and rounded them up for you. How to Support the Genealogy Video Creators: Watch the videos Press the […]

If you’ve looked at Ancestry recently, then you may have noticed that your ethnicity results have changed. Does that mean that you’ve changed as well?

Have you wanted to take a DNA test? Are you worried the tests are a scam? If the same person tests at with the same company and two different times with two different names, will their results be the same? I love the comments and the questions we receive on our YouTube channel, through social […]

Many folks involved in genealogy research love to help you with your reserach questions. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to ask for that help. The following is not it and I’ll explain why. “Hello, I have posted once before and no one responded. This is my second post. I am […]

Need help busting through brick walls? Wonder how to begin researching Scottish or Polish Ancestors? Are you confused on how many genetic ancestors you’re reliably related to? These questions and more are discovered in this weeks collection of genealogy videos on YouTube. Check them out! Genealogy Research Tips: Several YouTube channels released great videos this […]

In rounding up genealogy videos from YouTube this week, we discovered new genealogist who launched their own channel. Be sure to scroll down and check her out. We scoured YouTube looking for genealogy and family history videos and rounded them up for you. How to Support the Genealogy Video Creators: Watch the videos Press the […]

Ancestry.com member trees provide a useful platform to share genealogical data. However, not everything in an online tree is accurate and you shouldn’t accept information without validation. What do you do when you encounter individuals who post inaccurate information in online trees? Double check the accuracy of all information before you add it to your […]

Peer reviewing is the most important part of analyzing the research that you encounter or receive from others. However, it’s important that you evaluate your own work before you head off on a research quest. In the video Developing a Research Question, I explained the need to add specifics to your research question so you […]

Genealogists like to say that the hobby is as popular as porn or gardening. They couldn’t be further from the truth!

Question: What is your methodology for tracking down a birth date for an ancestor? – Newbie in Crawford, Nebraska Answer: Great question. Additionally, you don’t have to be a newbie to wonder about the best procedure for tracing down a fact like this. Before I answer the question, ask yourself, how deep do you want […]

How can you go to a specific place if you have not determined the destination you’re headed toward? In genealogy, your research should be headed somewhere if wish to conduct quality research. The destinations you head toward always begin with a research question. The fundamental step in quality genealogical research is to develop a research […]

Viewer Question: What do you do, when researching an ancestor, and you find his birthplace listed as a certain town that you know for a fact the town was not even established till a good 20 years or so after their birth? When researching your family history, you will run into errors and you have […]

Perhaps you want to find a document that mentions the birth, marriage, or death your great-grandmother. How are you going to go about this? As a beginning genealogist, you may think that vital records were always available because they are so commonplace today. However, birth, marriage, and death records are a modern invention Depending on […]

Have you ever thought about writing a family history? Do you fear that no one will want to read it? You are not alone, but that shouldn’t stop you from writing a family history. Many of you have asked me at conferences, emails, and other social media this one question, “Why write a family history […]

Writing a family history that has excitement when you don’t feel like a creative writer is challenged. However, you can enrich your family history projects through pictures from the past, such as post cards! My Geiszler and Brown family lines have resided in Ohio for at least 100 years. A few years back, I wrote […]

Question: I noticed that you added a historical fact about Stalin banishing Trotsky to the marriage story of your ancestor who married in Utah. If she wasn’t Russian and not connected to Stalin or Trotsky, why on earth would you add this fact to your family’s history? ~ Maralee, Cypress, Texas Answer: Social and Political […]

Reader Question: Where should I put the photos in my writing? Should I put the images next to the paragraph I wrote? Should I put them at the end of a chapter? Or should I put all the photos in a photo section?  ~ Robert Murphy, PA Thanks, Robert. Great question. Having written over 120 […]

Tall, dark and handsome. Is there any other character description more cliche than that, even if it’s true? Your ancestor might have been marked on military draft cards or passports as Stout and Medium for this build and height. What can you do with these descriptions, combined with photos, to describe your ancestors to your […]

How would you describe someone to another person who has never met them? Sure you can define their character and positive traits. It would be better to describe their facial features so the second person can locate the first person in a crowd. When it comes to describing our ancestors, we need to use words […]

When I started scrapbooking, I just stuck pictures on a page without caring about design. As I learned more about page layouts, I discovered a quick trick that changed everything about my pages and it will improve your pages too. It’s called ANCHORING!!! Many pages all over the internet in scrapbook galleries and in Facebook […]

Photoshop Elements is my favorite platform to use to create scrapbooks because of the ability I have to customize layouts to accommodate the pictures and text that I want to share to tell a great story about my ancestors or my family’s daily life. Let’s walk through a few basics of the program so you […]

Every year, you take photos by the thousands and rarely do anything more than storing them on the computer. For decades, scrapbooking has been the solution to the picture accumulation problem, but it has also been a curse. Scrapbooking is too crafty or too time-consuming. It doesn’t have to be that way. During the Power […]