Blog
Speaking at RootsTech Connect 2021!
This year RootsTech is all virtual and free to register! Have you registered? I hope you will have a chance to check out my lecture: “Write Their Story: From Timeline to Young Readers’ Book” (Lecture Session 471160). For RootsTech Connect 2021, each lecture session will be 20 minutes long. My lecture will be split across two 20-minute sessions. I hope you will join me! Session ID: 471160Session Title: Write Their Story: From Timeline to Young Readers’ BookSession Type: Lecture Session When...
read moreTravel to Where Your Ancestors Worshipped (Virtually)
The pandemic has affected every part of our lives, including how people are able to attend religious services. Many people are attending virtual religious services on the web. That means that many places of worship are uploading videos of religious services to the web. This may be a way that you can attend a religious service where your ancestors worshipped! The services might be hosted on a variety of websites for video services. They might be found on YouTube, Vimeo, or Facebook. Use Google, or your other favorite search engine,...
read moreFinding WWI U.S. Army Rosters
Another great resource for researching soldiers in WWI that has come online are the Muster Rolls and Rosters at FamilySearch. Using these records, you can trace your a service member throughout his service in the U.S. Army in WWI. These records are not indexed, so using them will take a little work. These are digital images of the filmstrips that you would be using at the National Archives and Records Administration in St. Louis, Missouri. You will need a free account at FamilySearch to access these records, but if you are not...
read moreDid My Ancestor Serve in WWI?
Updated 15 October 2023 In the past, I answered that question by recommending searching for information at home, searching through the U.S. Army Transport Records that documented a veteran’s trip overseas, consulting state service abstracts or contacting the National Personnel Records Center. Now, one of the most helpful sets of records to answer that question has come online. It is the U.S. Veterans Administration Master Index from NARA’s Records of the Veterans Administration [VA] (Record Group 15). So, gather up...
read moreThe U.S. Military Records That Never Burned
No, NOT all the WWI and WWII military records for your ancestor were burned! We often hear the misinformation and read many posts on Facebook claiming that all the military records burned. This post will help shed light on just a few of the records about your ancestor’s service that are still available. We have already blogged about the Official Military Personnel Files OMPFs beginning here, and hope you had a chance to read about them. From that post you will have learned that Navy and Marine Corps personnel files from WWI and...
read moreGenealogy and the 2020 U.S. Census
You have probably received, or are about to receive, your invitation to complete the 2020 U.S. Census online. One thing I always recommend at census time is saving a paper (and electronic!) copy of the census after you fill it out. Since the censuses are closed for 72 years, how great would be researchers to have copies of our censuses for those years? I’ve seen a lot of comments about how disappointing it is that you cannot print out all the responses when you are done completing the online forms. With that in mind, here...
read moreRootsTech 2020 Videos
Rootstech 2020 is over and if you did not make it, you can still be inspired by viewing some of the videos and all of the handouts at the link below. It is great that Rootstech lets us all be a part of it. The video archives is here. To get right to the videos for some sessions go...
read moreResearching Alabama WWI Ancestors
WWI service summaries are incredibly useful when researching our military ancestors. For Alabama, we have two choices to access these online: The Alabama Department of Archives and History and FamilySearch. For the centennial of WWI, the Alabama Department of Archives and History conducted a crowdsourcing effort to transcribe the records of Alabamians who served in the military during WWI. These records can be browsed by county here. Click on a county to view the list of WWI service cards in alphabetical order. From the...
read moreBook Review: “How To Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records”
I was excited at the opportunity to review “How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records: A Genealogist’s Guide” by Sunny Jane Morton and Harold A. Henderson, CG. The book contains specific resources for researching ancestors in major Christian Denominations before 1900 in the United States. That excitement lasted throughout the whole book. While censuses are great for providing us with a backbone of an individual’s or family’s timeline, Church records can help us learn the web of connections...
read moreCemetery Research: Interview with Tina Simmons
We recently had a chance to catch up with researcher and author, Tina Simmons, about her work in cemetery research and in cemetery preservation. How did you become involved with the field of cemetery research? Long before I understood genealogy terms I would attempt to determine connections between family members fueled by knowledge that her mother had a number of unknown relatives. I joined the Anne Arundel Genealogical Society to research my family history and took on a project working with cemetery records. I have been...
read more
