Information and Advice on Family Trees & Genealogy

Since August 2016, I have been building a family tree and trying to identify my ancestors who originated in Europe. Based on successes and failures, I suggest a number of tips for doing genealogy research.

How to determine if your aunt is your great aunt or grand aunt, and whether you have met a first cousin or second cousin at the family reunion.

Second cousins, third cousins, once removed, twice removed - find out what it all means. You do not have to be an expert genealogist to figure out which cousin is which. Family Relationship Chart breaks it all down.

A great way to find new clues while researching your family history is to visit old cemeteries. A lot of regions may not have death records available, so gravesites are the next best thing for finding out vital information on your ancestors.

Unidentified photos of mystery ancestors are tempting to toss. Don't do it. Here are suggestions for those.

This article presumes that the research will produce knowledge of at least three generations past. How can this affect the wellbeing of older people? Probably in more ways than expected.

Help with genealogy research. The maternal lines of your ancestry may be difficult to research, but there are ways to uncover these branches in your family tree. Advice on how to overcome "brick walls" in your family tree related to missing maiden names.

Genealogy is a fun and informative hobby; however, it's easy to be misled if you aren't careful.

Here's how to connect your DNA to your family tree on Ancestry.com so you can learn how you're related to your DNA relatives and unlock more about your heritage.

Getting information for official military records is simple using online tools. By providing a little info about your veteran you can discover fascinating details contained in their service records.

Learn about Heraldry and how to find your family crest or coat of arms, or make your own!

We had no control over our birth order, but scientists say the order in which we were born has a great deal to do with how successful we will become. Is that really true? Let's discuss it.

Newspapers.com is a wonderful resource for researchers. Genealogists love it! Here are tips from a librarian for getting the best results from your searches.

Will a subscription to Newspapers.com give you valuable information for your family history research? Here are examples of how it helped me, and why I recommend it.

In American genealogy, most researchers consider gateway ancestors as colonial immigrants who migrated to America, settling in Jamestown or Plymouth Colonies with an ancestral link to the great Magna Carta Surety Barons.

How do you use ThruLines and other new tools on Ancestry? Here's what I've figured out about these new features added by Ancestry in beta form in March 2019.