Battle of Lexington

“Who Fired the First Shot,” by Jack Darrell Crowder

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The American Revolution commenced with the faceoff  between British regulars and the Patriot militia that occurred on April 18, 1775. To this day, no one can say with certainty who fired the first shot in that momentous engagement. Readers…
famous royal descendants

55 Remarkable Descents, Kinships, or Near Kin-to-Near Kin Genealogical Connections Outlined and Charted in The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies . . .

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By Gary Boyd Roberts We’ve written on several occasions about Gary Boyd Roberts amazing two volume work, The Royal Descents 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec, or the United States(RD 900). This collection of royal lines possessed…
Namesakes and clues in names

“Clues in Names”

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(Excerpted from Unpuzzling Your Past. Fourth Edition, Updated, by Emily Anne Croom, pp. 37-39.) Naming practices vary from place to place and generation to generation. However, certain consistencies have existed for nearly four centuries…
City Directory

"The City Directory: A Genealogical Gold Mine," by William Dollarhide

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City directories may be one of the most underused genealogical sources available. Old city directories exist for virtually every community in America, often going back to the establishment of a community. Many of the privately published city…
Genealogy Wiki

Val Greenwood on Genealogy Wikis

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Do you know where the term “wiki comes from, or how the concept has become so pervasive on the internet? More important, can you name the most important wikis for genealogy? The following article, which is excerpted from Chapter Nine of the…
Genetic Genealogy

Genetic Genealogy & the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS)

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Using DNA to find your family heritage has become an everyday topic of conversation. If you haven’t personally sent a saliva sample in the mail, you know someone who has. And you can barely miss a day without seeing a commercial from Ancestry…
Census Substitutions

“Census Substitutes,” by the late Carolyn Barkley

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This article originally appeared on our prior website/blog in March 2010.  It is reprinted here with minor alterations. In January of 2010, Ancestry.com announced to its subscribers the introduction of the “1950 Census Substitute” and…
Saint John's Church 1835

“Parish Vestry Books Mitigate Lost Virginia County Records,” by Virginia Lee Hutcheson Davis

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With the transcription and publication of The Albemarle Parish Vestry Book, 1742-1786 [Virginia] the last of the colonial Virginia vestry books is accessible to researchers. Complete with an every-name index for ease in finding persons, this…
Royal Ancestry

Royal Lineage Research, by the late Carolyn Barkley

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I have often viewed royal lineage research with more than a little skepticism. As a newly-elected genealogical society president, I can remember inviting visitors to a society monthly meeting to introduce themselves and tell a bit about the…
Organizing Genealogy Research

Organizing Your Genealogy Project

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If you are beginning to accumulate a fair amount of paper in the early stages of your research, it's probably time to take stock of what you have and how you plan to organize it--even before you enter the information into a computer database--lest…