Jeanne Larzalere Bloom, CG℠, is the president Board for Certification of Genealogists and a full-time professional researcher specializing in Chicago and Cook County research, forensic genealogy, problem-solving, and multi-generational family histories. Researching city-dwelling ancestors is different and perhaps more challenging than general family history research. Jeanne gave us some great tips for overcoming those challenges. Explore more than Read More
On the fateful morning of 7 December 1941, battleship USS Arizona, carrying her crew of 1,512 men, was attacked and bombed by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces. As the battleship sunk to her fiery death, only 335 of her crew made it out alive, and today, only five survivors remain. Lauren Bruner is a Read More
AncestryProGenealogist, Simon Pearce, reflects on the contributions of those who served and returned from the war by telling the story of Nurse Constance Cundell, awarded for gallant and distinguished conduct in her field. 2016 marks the halfway point in the First World War centenary commemorations and is one hundred years on from a lively year Read More
This article originally appeared in Ancestry Magazine, November-December 2007. Family history clues can be anywhere. An old recipe card may note “these were always served by cousin Mary McGuire” or “Aunt Susie made this every Thanksgiving.” So where do you go from there? Start at the beginning. I was told that Bertha Christine Molzen Deschner, Read More
How many pictures did you snap this summer? Digital cameras and smartphones make it easy to take pictures, but it’s not always so easy to “develop and process” those photos. Instead, we tend to procrastinate photo management and end up with a device filled with images instead of an album of vacation photos to share. Read More
It doesn’t take long for even a beginning genealogist to recognize the value of federal population census schedules. Tracing a family or individual back through censuses, taken every ten years, makes building a family tree or pedigree relatively easy. But within these schedules, even experienced researchers may forget or overlook these “hidden” questions from certain census years. Read More
Senior Manager of Content at Ancestry, Miriam Silverman, shares her experience researching her family history in Romania and how a DNA match repaired a broken branch of her family tree. When you come from immigrant stock, it can be very difficult to trace your ancestry back very far. My dad’s dad came over to London as Read More
We all have them. Those ancestors who just refuse to be found. In genealogy, we call them “brick walls.” Whether you are brand new to the family history game or you have been doing this for decades, the strategies for climbing over, going around, or breaking through those brick walls are the same. In this Read More
Joe Biden’s 2nd great-grandfather, Owen Finnegan, was a shoemaker who married Jane Boyle on 8 December 1839 in Carlingford South, County Louth, Ireland. James Finnegan, Joe’s great-grandfather, was born a year later in County Louth, Ireland and according to his Ireland Catholic Parish Register record on Ancestry, was baptized in Lordship, County Louth, Ireland on 18 December 1840. In Read More
Today, the story of the Free State of Jones opens in theaters, starring Matthew McConaughey as Newton Knight. The movie focuses on an unusual piece of Civil War history. During the Civil War, Newt led a band of Southern farmers from the Piney Woods region of southeastern Mississippi, in a rebellion against the Confederacy. Newt further Read More