We all bring our personal life with us to our genealogy research. That can impact how we approach our research, the information we know about our family, and the records with which we are familiar because of experiences we had before we ever started genealogy. What matters is a willingness to learn, grow, and admit […]

Today’s posting on Genealogy Tip of the Day reminded me of a reference my Grandma Neill made to “Green Grove.” It was where she had gone to school as a child. I wasn’t certain how long Grandma had attended Green Grove or exactly when, but it would have been in roughly the 1916-1923 or so […]

The original is missing a corner and was bent at one point, but otherwise it is a great picture. At some point, probably in the 1890s, the family of Irish immigrants Samuel and Annie (Murphy) Neill posed for a picture in front of their home near Stillwell in Hancock County, Illinois. Annie (Murphy) Neill is […]

Sometimes I am so busy taking pictures of tombstones and thinking about whose tombstones are in the cemetery that I forget. I forget who has been there before. I forget who has been there on a trip that was more solemn and on a trip where the purpose was different. Like at the South Prairie […]

I’ve written about the genealogy problem-solving process before. Essentially the four steps are: Understand the problem Devise a plan Execute the plan Evaluate The first step here is the most important and it’s one that I need to remind myself of from time to time. Understanding the problem to me includes: Knowing about the history […]

Genealogy is more art than people realize. I’m not talking about watercolors Grandma painted or oil portraits your ancestor commissioned of himself. That’s “genealogy art” which is not the same as viewing genealogy as something of an art. By referring to genealogy as “art,” I’m also not suggesting that one gets creative and makes up […]

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I have always been a big fan of this book and have mentioned it in numerous lectures. It is the study of farming and inheritance trends in several Illinois farm communities from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. The author studies one Ostfriesen community in Illinois. When I read her comments, it was as […]

Between approximately 1850 and 1883, twenty-two of my maternal ancestors “crossed the pond.” They left from Ostfriesland, in the north of Germany, and settled basically in two areas: in and relatively near Golden, Adams County, Illinois in Hancock County, Illinois’ Bear Creek and Prairie Townships They all sailed from Bremen and most arrived in New York […]

In the old days of genealogy, we were told to fill out “research logs” where we tracked the sources we used, what names or families we looked for in these sources and the results of our search. Tracking what we did as we did it was a laudable goal. I’m just concerned now that with […]