Information and Advice on Family Trees & Genealogy

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.

Learn about what a typical consumer DNA kit requires, how much it costs, and what it can do for you. Get help deciding whether Ancestry, 23 and Me, or FamilyTree DNA is the best choice.

In this article, I show you how you can download your raw DNA data from My Heritage and various websites where you can upload your DNA data so you can compare results.

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.

Puzzled about how to get the most out of your Ancestry DNA test? Here are some tips from an experienced genealogist.

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.

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

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.

Not all genealogy information is online. Use these tips to collect what your family members know. It's important to gather this before it's too late and the information is lost.

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.

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.

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.

Building your pedigree chart first will have you on your way to building your family tree in no time. It's simple to make and a great way to "branch out" from your direct lineage to grow your tree.

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.

Working on your family history seems like a never-ending task. Setting some goals and spreading it out over five years makes it less overwhelming.