(Excerpted from Michael J. Leclerc, “Crafting Family Histories,” Elizabeth Shown Mills, ed.,Professional Genealogy: Preparation, Practice & Standards (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2018), 519–44.) Writing family histories is one of the most meaningful ways we can communicate the results of our research to our family members and even ourselves. Our projects can be large or small.[…]Read more
[Excerpted from Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, 3d ed. rev. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2017), pp. 52–53, §2.22–2.23.] “Six basic rules govern our citation of titles, regardless of the type of record or publication we are using: 1) BOOK, CD, DVD, JOURNAL, MAP, WEBSITE, ETC. For published stand-alone[…]Read more
English-speaking researchers and historians working with a Spanish-language document face two hurdles—understanding the handwriting and vocabulary, and grasping the record’s institutional, historic, social, and cultural context. This book’s unique and detailed content fills both needs. With images, charts, transcribed documents and in-depth commentary, Mastering Spanish Handwriting and Documents: 1520-1820 addresses fundamental handwriting concepts and challenges[…]Read more
Dollarhide’s Genealogy Rule #23: Locating the county where your ancestor lived is the first step in finding records about the time he was hauled into court for shooting his neighbor’s dog, threatening the census taker with a shotgun, or making illegal corn whiskey behind the barn. A 90-Percent Chance Since the first colonists came to[…]Read more
William J. Roulston’s incomparable Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors is a comprehensive, 600-page guide to the vast collection of sources that can help researchers trace their Scots-Irish forebears from the United States to their origins in Ireland. Here are three samples taken from different sections of the work illustrating just a few of the many sources therein.[…]Read more
As we have noted previously Drew Smith, the author of our how-to book Generation by Generation, is a highly trained librarian as well as an accomplished genealogist. Readers of his book are destined to learn about the wealth of information that could lead them to hard-to-find ancestors by utilizing library and archival sources. To illustrate[…]Read more
Last week we introduced our new genealogy beginner’s book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy, by Drew Smith. Generation by Generation is divided into two parts. Part I of Drew’s book (“For All Generations-Preparing to Research”) discusses family relationships, naming practices, genealogy software, existing research, and DNA testing. Part II[…]Read more
(Read Part One | Part Two of this Article) IV. In addition to the descents outlined in the Coda for Garfield and Mrs. Arthur, several immigrants first treated in the Coda are also ancestors of presidents or First Ladies. Among those whose lines are “improved” (even if placed in the main text), are also ancestors[…]Read more
The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec or the United States. Second Edition, by Gary Boyd Roberts is remarkable in a number of ways. Obviously, it documents nearly 1,000 lines of North Americans who can claim royal ancestors—more than any other publication. The Introduction to this new three-volume edition is nearly[…]Read more
Between 1717 and the beginning of the War of American Independence in 1776, 250,000 Scots-Irish, often referred to as Ulster-Scots in Ireland (i.e. Protestant settlers in the nine counties of the Province of Ulster) left Ulster, through the ports of Belfast, Londonderry, Newry, Larne and Portrush, for North America. The Scots-Irish tended to enter North[…]Read more
Most genealogists know—or learn belatedly—that they should be on the lookout for existing accounts of their ancestors, whether published in a printed book or online. While the information in older books about any family must be examined for possible errors and their findings compared against original sources, published family histories frequently save the genealogist much[…]Read more
(Part One of this article can be found HERE) In early November 2022, various scholars learned of and purchased Weston Pedigree Reconsidered: A Review of Documentation Provided by the College of Arms (2022) by Shawn Henry Potter and Lois Carol Potter. In a much earlier form, parts of this monograph were submitted to the New[…]Read more
