Journal
138 articles on finding ancestors, reading records, and keeping the story with the evidence.
April 11, 2023 · Tracy Hall
Did you attend RootsTech 2023? There were so many different options for sessions and classes. Like "Using DNA to Determine Relationships in 2023," "How to Filter and Sort Your DNA Matches," and many more. While I was not able to catch as many sessions as I had hoped, I was ver...
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March 21, 2023 · Tracy Hall
What do you know about your Archaic Human DNA? Before Homo sapiens became the dominant and only surviving human species there were also archaic human species. The period of time for these species dates back as far as 400,000 years and as recently as 15,000 years. As more and m...
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March 10, 2023 · Tracy Hall
Vikings! What comes to mind when you think of Vikings? People who inhabited Scandinavia, spoke the same language, similar craft styles and traditions, one people. Yet, the Vikings that lived around 800 AD were not a single population. They ruled through local kingdoms and lord...
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February 19, 2023 · Tracy Hall
Have you used naming traditions while trying to break down your brick walls? Have they worked out for you? If you have brick walls that are back in the 1800s or before, I suggest you try using these traditions. Of course, not every family used them, or they used them and then...
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February 10, 2023 · Tracy Hall
In my almost 50 years of life butter has gone through many phases of is it good for you or is it bad. My grandma, who was raised making her family’s butter, always said, don’t listen to these news people, hard work will kill you before butter will. While visiting Ireland it di...
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February 10, 2023 · Tracy Hall
Do you have ancestors from Ireland? Did they own land or were they tenants or sub-tenants of the person who owned the land? Have you ever looked into Landed Estate Court records? Landed Estates were properties held by families who were given lands confiscated from the Irish by...
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January 20, 2023 · Tracy Hall
We spend a lot of time letting you know of new record releases on Findmypast. Why? Because they are where you go if you have ancestry from the British Isles. They have records that are exclusively from the United Kingdom’s National Archives and The British Library. Yet, if you...
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January 10, 2023 · Tracy Hall
Have you ever looked at pictures of your ancestors and everyone has facial hair but the next generation is clean shaven? Maybe they have waxed mustaches to a point or even a pencil thin mustache. Maybe a full bushy beard or just under the chin beard. Facial hair could be a clu...
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December 30, 2022 · Christopher Hall
While I have rarely been one to make a promise to myself at the New Year, last year at the end of 2021, I decided that I would make an effort to change something about my life. I decided I should read more. I have always read things for work or school, but inspired by my sons...
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December 20, 2022 · Christopher Hall
The Winter Solstice takes place in the Northern Hemisphere tomorrow 21 December. It is the day when the sun is at its lowest point and furthest away from the North. It is the so-called shortest day of the year when the time between sunrise and sunset is the least of the year....
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December 10, 2022 · Tracy Hall
6 December 2022 was the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Irish Free State. The path to the Free State was fraught with peril. Ireland had been under foreign control since the Norman Invasion. Even after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in December of 1921 there w...
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November 30, 2022 · Christopher Hall
As a computer programmer I have been working with programs, applications, and websites for decades. I have been a full-time programmer since the mid-1990s. The vast majority of programs, including websites and apps, use data in some way. The programs are used to store, retriev...
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