I guess Pennsylvania records are pretty important to you!

Of course, this isn’t a surprise at all. Pennsylvania has been one of the most populous states in the Union since it became a state in 1787. So, chances are, if your family has been in the United States for longer than four or five generations, someone in your ancestry passed through Pennsylvania at some point in time.

You can learn more about Pennsylvania Family History Research in the Ancestry Wiki.

I hope you take the time to learn more.  I find that when I understand more about the places my ancestors lived, I understand more about them and their lives.  For me, that’s always more important than filling in blanks on a pedigree chart or seeing how far back I can trace my ancestry.

The database released on Ancestry.com this week contains over 7.5 million records obtained from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. You read that right… 7.5 million records. Read the database description (scroll down past the search box) so you know what’s included in this amazing collection.  Then, please, dive right in and start searching the Pennsylvania, Church and Town Records, 1708-1985. I would bet many of you are going to find exactly what you’re looking for.  Some of you may even find things you didn’t know you were looking for. When you do, be sure to come back here and let me know about it. I love hearing your success stories.

Until next time – Have fun climbing your family tree…

I’ve been doing genealogy research professionally for almost a decade now. When clients are paying you by the hour, you learn lots of really great shortcuts to keep you moving along and focused. The big tip I shared on Thursday’s episode of The Barefoot Genealogist? (Drumroll, please.)

Professional Genealogists Create Research Plans

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1. What do I want to know?

Be really specific about exactly what it is you are looking for. This helps you stay focused and is the key to the rest of the plan.

Bad: Where do my Woodruff’s come from?

Better: Where was my ggg-grandfather born?

Best: John Woodruff was probably born about 1831 in Ohio. Who were his parents?

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2. What do I already know?

3. How do I know it?

These two questions go together. And, I often bounce back and forth between them repeatedly until I’ve exhausted everything I already know about the person in question. I also make sure I’ve recorded everything I know about their spouse and children.

I like to put this information into the notes section of the person profile in Family Tree Maker. I enter the notes chronologically based on the person’s life (not based on the order in which I found the records). You can see an example of how I do that at 7:22 in the video.

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4. Where could I possibly find what I want to know?

5. Do the records exist? If so, where?

Again, we have a pair of questions that work well together. Create a list of records you could search – census, military, vitals, immigration, etc. Then do a search in the Ancestry Wiki for the place and record type to see if what you need exists. Also, be sure to check the Ancestry Card Catalog to see if what you want exists ONLINE at Ancestry.com

For those of you who are new to this fun and fascinating adventure called genealogy, I hope you find this helpful. For those of you who’ve been doing it a while maybe this will give you a renewed focus to break through that brick wall you’ve been struggling with.

Feel free to PIN this graphic so you have it available to you. Or, you could even print it out and put it near your computer so you make sure not to skip any steps.

Bonus Tip: Look for a local genealogical society to join. You will find friends who are willing to help and offer fresh perspectives on your genealogy brick walls.

Until next time – Have fun climbing your family tree…

For example, my Russian great grandfather didn’t immigrate until 1917, so I exhausted census and immigration records for him pretty quickly.

Then, while looking for something in The Source for work, I found myself browsing the newspaper chapter. I’d never thought much about newspapers; it seemed like such a long shot that any of my people would be listed. But The Source opened my eyes to historical newspapers and showed me ways my great grandfather could indeed be found there.

As it happens, Ancestry.com had just added the Greeley Daily Tribune, the very paper I needed. So, following the guidance of The Source, I searched and sure enough, I found him. Of course, most of the listings were notices that he’d been fined for breaking the law (burning trash), but here was something about my ancestor I would never have found without broadening my horizons.

Since it’s based on The Source and Red Book, the Ancestry.com Family History Wiki is all about helping you broaden your horizons. It’s about helping you find new places to look and about helping you make better use of your current strategies.

So what are you working on right now? Have you checked the wiki to see if it can offer any help?

We don’t have articles on everything (yet!), but there’s a lot there, just waiting to help. For now, our content is focused mainly on record types and locality searches. Below, I’ve linked to some good places to start browsing. Or, you can type a topic in the main search box on the left side of the wiki.

I’d love to hear what you find. In the comments, let me know if you found anything interesting or useful. And more importantly, let me know if you didn’t find anything. That way we can know better where to focus our efforts.

Places to Start

• Browse through articles about record types
• Learn more about research in a specific state
• Explore our county pages
• Try a random page and be surprised

Happy family history.

Before getting into that, however, let me introduce myself. My name is Matthew Rayback and I am a senior editor for Ancestry.com and am the overseer of the wiki. I wrote the silly little Bad Baby Names: The Worst True Names Parents Saddled Their Kids With, and You Can Too! , but more importantly,  I was one of the editors who worked on the third edition of The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, which is one of the foundational sources of content for the wiki. I’m very excited about this wiki and I hope we’ll all have a lot of fun making it great together.

Now on to the good stuff.

Since NGS, we’ve been working hard and making improvements, both to functionality and to content. Check out these highlights:

• You can now register to use the wiki. Note that if you are already an Ancestry.com member, then you are already registered: if you are logged into your Ancestry.com account, you’re logged into the wiki as well. Make sure you’re logged in before you make any changes or add any content.
• We have created county pages for every county in the United States. These pages use information found in the extensive tables in Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources and are now “stub” articles, waiting to be fleshed out.  User “Tinauofa01″ started this ball rolling by adding some great stuff to the page for Pima County, AZ. For more information about what we’re looking for on county pages, read our suggestions.
• We’ve updated the homepage, making it cleaner and hopefully easier to use. Let us know what you think.

This is just a smattering of what’s been going on here at the wiki and you can expect more changes and improvements going forward, so keep your eyes out for my posts on the Ancestry.com Blog.

And don’t worry. I know there are a number of questions about moderation and quality. These are issues we’re well aware of and have a plan to address. Watch for a future blog post on this subject.

For now, go explore the wiki if you haven’t already. Make some changes. Add some stuff. You can get there using the “Learning Center” tab on Ancestry.com or by simply clicking here.

The Ancestry.com Wiki is a new section on Ancestry.com available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. It offers detailed and useful information about family history records, research, and places pulled from The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy and Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources.

These two well-known Ancestry.com books have been guiding genealogists for more than twenty years, but by making this content available in wiki format, we’re inviting you, our vibrant community of passionate genealogists, to update, expand on and even add to it, making it a go-to resource for guidance and information.

In addition, the Ancestry.com Wiki offers links to Ancestry.com databases, as well as Web pages for genealogical societies, archives, and other valuable resources. It allows for additional resources to be added, so that others in the family history community can benefit from the information you provide. If you’ve ever had questions about family history, or if you have answers that others can benefit from, the Ancestry.com Wiki is the place to visit.

Locate the new Ancestry.com Wiki in the Learning Center drop-down tab on the site, or visit www.ancestry.com/wiki.