Ancestral Findings

Columbus Day and genealogy make me think about one small word with a big meaning: first . The first ancestor to come to America. The first family to settle in a county. Or the first name we can prove on a branch of the family tree. Each sounds like a clear beginning. Yet each leaves me with another question: first in what sense, and according to whom? I want to keep asking that question when I wri...

I say "thank you." Someone answers, "No problem." The exchange is over in a second, but lately I've been thinking about those two words. Whatever happened to "you're welcome"? My curiosity about the history of "no problem" began with that small question. At a restaurant, I'm thanking someone for bringing something to the table or helping with an order. I know that person is doing a job. I also app...

I was thinking recently about all the libraries I have visited over the years while doing genealogy research. Some had large genealogy departments. Others had a small genealogy or local history room tucked away somewhere, with a few shelves of books, family histories, cemetery records, old newspapers, and whatever else they had managed to collect. Sometimes it wasn't even a room. It might have bee...

German genealogy changed the way I research. I didn't plan on changing anything. At first, I was simply trying to follow another branch of my family tree, but I soon found that some of the habits that worked well for me in American records wouldn't get me very far. A name, an approximate birth year, and a record saying someone came from Germany still weren't enough information to know where to loo...

A photograph can change things quickly. Until then, I may know a person only through census entries, deeds, handwritten records, or a name on a family tree. Then I see a face. I notice the eyes, the clothes, the way someone is standing, or the expression the camera happened to catch. I still don't know what that person was thinking, but now there's a face attached to everything I've been finding....

I deleted a sentence the other day because I realized I had gone farther than the records allowed. The sentence fit nicely with the story I was putting together, and based on everything I knew about the family, it even sounded reasonable. But when I looked at it again, I realized I was telling the reader what that person felt when I had no record that actually said it. That is surprisingly easy to...

I have always enjoyed The Goonies . It has everything I want in a fun adventure movie: an old treasure map, secret passages, booby traps, criminals, a pirate ship, and a group of kids who decide that the best response to a hopeless situation is to go looking for One-Eyed Willie's treasure. I have seen it enough times that there are no surprises left, but that has never stopped me from enjoying it....

It is time for another Ancestral Findings free book giveaway. This month, I am giving away a copy of Mason: A Man with No Beginning by Timothy Mulgrew . This true family story combines genealogy, World War II history , immigration, family secrets, old records, DNA research , and a decades-long search to understand a man's beginnings. The giveaway is open now and ends at midnight on September 30, 2...

I spend a great deal of time looking for things people left behind. Sometimes it is something important, such as a will, a family Bible, or a letter that explains a relationship. Other times it is much smaller: a name written beneath a photograph, a few lines in a newspaper, or a note in the margin of an old document. Those small pieces can become surprisingly valuable because they tell us somethi...

I caught myself doing something recently that I have probably done many times without thinking. I found a record I had been searching for, downloaded it, named the file, put it where it belonged, and almost immediately started looking for the next one. The strange part was that I had spent more time finding and saving the record than reading it. I had what I wanted, but I had barely stopped to ask...

When I am working on the Moneymaker side of my family in Virginia, there is always a pull to keep going backward. Find the parents, then their parents, then see whether another generation is waiting in an older record. That part of genealogy can be hard to resist. But sometimes, while following that line, I notice someone sitting just off to the side: a sister who never married, a brother who move...

Every once in a while, I look at someone in a family tree and realize I have done a pretty good job documenting them. I have birth, marriage, and census records, children, an occupation, and a death date. There may be land records, military records, an obituary, or a few other pieces as well. From a research perspective, the person appears complete. Then I sit there, looking at all of it, and real...

Most family research begins with records created around major events such as births, marriages, deaths, land purchases, and military service. A request to build or repair a road may seem far removed from genealogy, yet these records can put an ancestor into a specific community and introduce you to the people who lived around the family. For generations, roads were local businesses. Residents aske...

Labor Day arrives each September, signaling the close of summer and the approach of autumn. Many people see it as a three-day weekend for rest, cookouts, or back-to-school shopping. Yet beneath the sales and celebrations lies a deeper meaning—one that connects directly to the lives of our ancestors. It is a holiday born of struggle, built on sacrifice, and sustained by the ongoing dignity of work....

A missing father can stop a family line very quickly. You may know the mother, where she lived, and what happened to the child later in life, yet still have no record that names the father. There may be no birth certificate. The parents may never have married. The child may appear in early records under the mother's surname and later use another surname. Before deciding that the father's name was...

The air is crisp, the leaves are beginning to turn, and children have returned to their classrooms. It's September, and what better time to reconnect with your family history? Genealogy isn't just a summer vacation activity; each season offers its own unique opportunities to explore your past and build your family tree. As you swap out your summer decor for autumnal wreaths and pumpkins, consider...

Family research often follows the adults. We search census records, marriage licenses, deeds, probate files, military records, obituaries, and death certificates. Those records are essential, but while the adults were leaving one paper trail, the children in the household were often leaving another. They were going to school. Their names may appear in school censuses, enrollment books, attendance...

Genealogy research often begins with one person. You find an ancestor's name. You locate a census record, discover a marriage record, or uncover a family connection that moves your research forward. For a while, the pieces begin to fit together. Then the trail slows down. You cannot find where the family came from. You cannot identify the parents. You cannot explain why your ancestor moved from on...

Every genealogist eventually finds one. You follow a family line through the years, finding names, dates, places, and relationships. One record leads to another. You discover where your ancestors lived, who they married, and how their families grew. Then suddenly, the trail ends. An ancestor who should be there seems to disappear. Maybe you find them in one census record but cannot locate them aft...

For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, belonging to a lodge or fraternal organization was a normal part of American community life. In towns large and small, men and women joined groups that offered friendship, social activity, financial assistance, insurance benefits, funeral support, and a place to form connections outside the home and workplace. Some of those organizations ar...

A death certificate can tell you when and where your ancestor died. An obituary might name surviving relatives and tell you where the funeral was held. But what if the death was sudden, accidental, unexplained, or suspicious? There may be another record waiting for you. Coroner's inquest records were created when officials needed to determine how or why someone died. Depending on the time and plac...

You find your ancestor living with the family in one census. Ten years later, that person is gone. There's no obvious death record. You can't find another marriage. You don't see evidence of a move. The person simply seems to disappear. Or maybe you do find your ancestor, but instead of living with family, they are listed among dozens of unrelated people in a county institution. One place you may...

Oklahoma became the forty-sixth state on November 16, 1907, but its story began long before there was an Oklahoma Territory, an Indian Territory, or even a United States. Native peoples lived throughout the region long before written records. Different communities hunted the plains, farmed river valleys, built towns, traded over great distances, and created cultures that left a lasting mark on the...

Oregon became the thirty-third state on February 14, 1859, but its history reaches far beyond statehood. Indigenous peoples had lived throughout the region long before Europeans arrived, with communities and traditions tied to the coast, forests, mountains, and rivers. One of the earliest documented European explorations of what is now Oregon came in 1543, when Bartolomé Ferrelo continued north al...

South Dakota joined the Union on November 2, 1889, the same day as North Dakota. South Dakota is traditionally listed as the fortieth state, but no one knows which Dakota was admitted first. President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the two statehood documents before signing them so neither state could claim it had entered the Union ahead of the other. Native peoples lived, hunted, farmed, and traveled...