I’ll admit it. Voter’s registrations are one of those records that I don’t use too often–not nearly as often as I should. Having looked at some late 19th century ones online recently for Chicago, Illinois; California; and New Mexico, some things stood out. They can provide the age of the registrant, their nativity (probably only […]

I realize that AncestryDNA won’t let users download their entire set of matches in a spreadsheet format. But is it too much to allow to download the matches we share with a specific match as a spreadsheet?

A recent new match in my AncestryDNA test results struck my curiosity. Of course the match had no attached tree but we had several shared matches. That’s where the confusion began. I have determined the most recent common ancestors for almost thirty of my closest DNA matches at AncestryDNA and have a significant number of […]

I don’t know about anyone else, but remembering all the various passwords I have is crazy. And making up new ones always is a pain as well. This is especially true for sites that do not allow you to reuse passwords for a set amount of time. I’ve revamped my password approach as I’m tired […]

We are offering webinars the week of 20 July on: Newspapers Pond Crossing Strategies Siblings Brick Wall Potpourri More details are on our announcement page.

This is a bit of off-the-cuff opinion that I posted in response to AncestryDNA’s decision to removed DNA matches from a user’s shared match list where the shared DNA is less than 8 cM. You can find more about the decision and how to preserve the shared matches at the low level here. I’m not […]

One clue to learning more about your ancestor is determining why he moved from one point to another. Sometimes the reasons are clear after a little study of local history if the reason he moved was because of the destination–called the pull factor. If you don’t know where the ancestor was from, it may be more […]

I took the big financial dive and purchased a copy of How Much Is That In Real Money? by John J. McCusker and published by the American Antiquarian Society in 1992. I’m hoping to use it to analyze some amounts from estate inventories and deeds. I’ll do so keeping in mind that any such analysis […]

According to an email I received from NEHGS (New England Historic Genealogical Society) today, they will let you know “with absolute certainty” if a lineage is correct. They will not check your entire tree for the $500 fee, but they will check one line of descent. Many genealogical conclusions, particularly ones involving individuals born before […]

It is important to constantly remember when using AncestryDNA’s ThruLines that it only does part of the work and that “work” is partially based on user-submitted trees. Those are trees over which you have no control. I’m not going to even dip my toe into a discussion of the programming that probably takes place to […]