DAR Bible Records Now Online
The Daughters of the American Revolution Library (DAR) has a free online collection of searchable records. Its Genealogical Research System allows anyone to search databases of ancestors, descendants, members, its Genealogical Research Committee reports and more. Now...
We Dig These Gems! New Genealogy Records Online
Every Friday, we blog about new genealogy records online. Do the collections below include your ancestor? Don't forget: tomorrow is Lisa Louise Cooke's FREE live streaming class on using Google Tools to Solve Family Mysteries--use them to find more records like...
BillionGraves Challenge for June: Win a FitBit!
After a long winter in the U.S., it's finally warming up! Just last week I did my first BillionGraves cemetery field trip of the season. So I'm pleased to see that they're offering a BillionGraves challenge to those who take pictures or index: "This month we are...
Technology United These Long-Lost Siblings 90 Years Ago!
It's common to hear of long-lost relatives who rediscover each other online or through DNA tests. But nearly 100 years ago, another new technology--the radio--united a pair of long-lost siblings 40 years after one ran away. This newspaper article reports that Alonso...
Family History for Kids Starts WITH the Kids
Kids don't recall much of their young lives. But we as parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles know their stories. We can give their lost memories back to them. Conversations with my kids always go better when I let them choose the topic. So I chat a lot about...
What’s New with Google? Glad You Asked
Google has recently made three announcements that I'm thinking of as "good, better, and best" news. Here they are: Good: Bolded Answers in Search Results "Google is now bolding answers in the search results, not just the query or the synonym of your query in...
Genealogy meets Scrapbooking: Heritage Scrapbooking
As the host of the Genealogy Gems podcast, Lisa Louise Cooke spends a lot of time on the asking end of the microphone. Recently the tables were turned! Lisa was invited to appear on the The Paperclipping Roundtable, a scrapbooking podcast. Family history and...
Digital Family History Book Collection Hits 200k!
A milestone 200,000 digital family history books are now online at the multi-library Family History Books collection at FamilySearch.org. The growing collection, which began in 2007, includes "family histories, county and local histories, genealogy magazines and...
The First Daily Newspaper in the US Wasn’t Exactly Objective
The first daily newspaper in the US, The Pennsylvania Evening Post, appeared in Philadelphia on this day in 1783. It was short-lived as a daily, but gained traction as a semi-regular paper by 1775. How did publisher Benjamin Towne make it work? By not having a lick of...
We Dig These Gems: New Genealogy Records Online
Every Friday, we blog about new genealogy records online. Might these collections include your ancestors? And does the Google search tip we've added at the bottom help you out? This week: Kansas newspapers, WWI records for the U.S. and Canada and a unique collection...
Using the NEW Internet Archive for Genealogy? Free Video Tutorials!
Are you using Internet Archive for genealogy? Internet Archive is exactly what it sounds like: a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, and more. Founded in 1996, the Internet Archive offers: over 150 billion web pages (archived in the...
Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 179 Now Available
Episode 179 of the free Genealogy Gems podcast is now available for your listening pleasure! In this episode, Lisa shares: stories of TWO inspiring family history discoveries: a stash of photos and documents AND a long-lost birth mother; highlights from meeting many...
Lost WWII Medals Returned 15 Years After Stolen
Fifteen years after a Purple Heart and other lost WWII medals disappeared during a robbery, they have been returned to the family from whom they were stolen. The medals belonged to James Dillion Adkison, a Lubbock, TX soldier killed at Pearl Harbor in 1943. A niece of...
FREE Live Streaming for SCG Jamboree 2015 Sessions
Registration is now open for FREE streaming live sessions from the 46th Annual Southern California Genealogy SCG Jamboree. Sign up to watch Lisa present two free sessions on Saturday, June 6, "Google Tools and Procedures for Solving Family History Mysteries" and...
Heritage Bracelet Idea: Family History Jewelry
Recently Linda sent us this inspiring idea for making a heritage bracelet. "I made a bracelet for my mother for a birthday present a couple of weeks ago," she wrote to us. "I printed out pictures of some of her female ancestors and glued them on small pendant photo...
Ancestry Up for Sale? How to Download and Backup Your Ancestry Data
Reuters recently reported that Ancestry "is exploring a sale that could value it at between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, including debt." According to unnamed sources, Permira (a buyout firm that owns most of Ancestry) "has hired investment banks to run an auction for...
Organize Digital Family Photos: Free Podcast Interview with Denise Levenick
I love Denise Levenick's "getting started" strategies for digital photo organization in the free May 2015 Family Tree Magazine podcast. I have thousands of digital photos on my computer--and that's just from the past few years! Denise Levenick is the author of The...
Canadiana: Canadian Digital Archive and Portal to the Past
Do you have Canadian roots? Then Canadiana should be on your list of online resources searched regularly for family history information. Recently Newswire.ca described Canadiana as "a digital initiative of extraordinary scale,...a joint effort of 25 leading research...
