Journal
30 articles on finding ancestors, reading records, and keeping the story with the evidence.
June 30, 2022 · Christopher Hall
For some reason maps have always fascinated me. Maps of all kinds. I have map books just because I like looking at them and learning about places. On this blog, we have written about how we have used maps for genealogical travel:
Read article
June 20, 2022 · Tracy Hall
We are on a genealogy trip and will be looking for some records of babies that had been born at some point but that we did not know about. In the 1900 census it shows my great great grandmother had given birth to five children and four were living. Where do you even start with...
Read article
June 10, 2022 · Tracy Hall
Even if you are not a full on genealogist or you are an occasional family historian you have probably walked a cemetery mostly found on Find A Grave or Billion Graves. However, if you cannot find the cemetery you are looking for on these sites, where can you go to locate a los...
Read article
May 31, 2022 · Christopher Hall
We watch our fair share of movies and television. We often find ourselves watching period pieces like Downton Abbey, maybe a Jane Austen or Charles Dickens story. Our tastes are not limited to England. We like shows and movies from all over the world, though again they’re ofte...
Read article
May 20, 2022 · Tracy Hall
Have you ever gone on a genealogy trip? Not just a day trip to go to a cemetery but one where you go to a different state with the purpose of doing research and looking for family cemeteries? Summer of 2020 we were supposed to be doing our first family genealogy trip which of...
Read article
May 10, 2022 · Tracy Hall
In Ireland, between the years of 1937 and 1939, one of the largest folklore gatherings took place. More than 50,000 school children, between the ages of 11 and 14, were asked to help record stories, in relation to 55 themes, passed down from their parents, grandparents and nei...
Read article
April 30, 2022 · Christopher Hall
Our family tree is built beginning with ourselves, children, parents, and grandparents. All the folks we know to be our kin. Sometimes that includes adoptive parents or step-parents, half-siblings, and others. Then we have our DNA tested. Perhaps we find that our genealogy is...
Read article
April 11, 2022 · Tracy Hall
I have always enjoyed hearing family stories and having family get-togethers. But I never realized how little I knew about some of my ancestors. My maternal grandparents were old when I was born. My grandpa died when I was ten, and he was almost 80. My grandmother died when I...
Read article
March 30, 2022 · Christopher Hall
A DNA test can reveal a lot of both positive and potentially negative information for the tester. There are also limitations to what it can tell. Whether or not to test should be decided with as much information as possible. The following is a short explanation of some misconc...
Read article
March 20, 2022 · Tracy Hall
In the summer of 2020 we had a big family history trip planned. Of course it was canceled because of COVID and most genealogy places were closed. One of the main purposes of the trip was to get to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where all four of my mothers paternal great grand...
Read article
February 28, 2022 · Christopher Hall
We have written before about the value of local family history societies . We wrote specifically about the Somerset & Dorset Family History Society. Today I would like to offer a bit of a personal history with the Society and the value we have found in one of the searchable co...
Read article
February 10, 2022 · Tracy Hall
While Saint Brigid Day was on February 1st we are going to discuss it today. On February 1st is the Celtic festival of “Imbolc.” This signifies the time when ewes are starting to come into milk and are ready to go out to the pastures where the new grass is starting to come up....
Read article