How Common Was My Ancestor’s Name? Most Popular Baby Names By Decade
Baby names are trendy things. Sure, there are a few standbys in every culture--like William and John in English--but popular baby names come and go. In fact, sometimes you can guess about how old someone is today based on their name (think Josh, Mildred or Shirley)....
DNA Health Testing Back on U.S. Horizon for 23andMe
A direct-to-consumer genetic test, the first of its kind to be approved in the U.S., may become available through 23andMe, according to letters recently received by 23andMe customers. The FDA-approved test is designed to check to see if you are a carrier for Bloom...
Evernote for Android Gets a New Clean Look
Are you using Evernote for genealogy and an Android user? Then you'll be interested the pretty substantial update that Evernote for Android just got! Last year's Evernote 6 for Android has been updated to meet Google's new design specs for Android. A recent Evernote...
Share World War I Family History
To commemorate the centennial of the First World War, and to mark the last full month of the exhibition Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture, the Wolfsonian at Florida International University (FIU) created a special Tumblr for sharing family...
We Dig These Gems: New Genealogy Records Online
We learn about great new genealogy records online every week! On Fridays we round up a few for you. Watch for databases and documents that your ancestors might appear in–and get inspired by the types of records that may be out there for your family, waiting for you to...
Google: A Noun. A Verb. A Way of Life
Who Googles? How often? How is that changing? Keep reading to see a new infographic with some fabulous statistics--and you're in it. If you're reading this post, you're among the 30% of the world's population who uses the internet. But where else do you show up below?...
Assisted Immigration to Australia: Queensland Passenger Lists
Did you know that the British government has not only encouraged many people to leave Britain, it has helped them do it? This is known as "assisted immigration." It has affected millions of our relatives' lives, both of original migrants and their descendants....
How to Make Google Cache Pay Off in Your Genealogy Research
What do you do when you Google something, click on a search result URL, and it says "page not found," or "error?" Debbie recently discovered the answer in her new copy of the newly revised and updated The Genealogist's Google Toolbox (2nd edition). She wrote to us: "I...
We Dig These Gems: New Genealogy Records Online
We learn about so many fantastic new genealogy records online every week. So each Friday we round up several of them for you to glance through. Watch for databases and documents that your ancestors might appear in–but also watch for the kinds of records that may be...
A Free Search Tool for U.S. Public Records
Do you ever get frustrated trying to track down vital and court records for your U.S. ancestors? Sure, most of these records (not all) were originally kept by county offices. But where are they today? Have they come online? What privacy policies block access? Where do...
Get Photos Scanned without Getting Scammed
An ABC Action News Report presents a scary-to-us scenario: a family's home movies disappeared with the company hired to convert them to DVD. The family only got their 16mm home movie reels back when the local news media went after the business owner. Here's the story...
Write Your Life Story: Good for Your Health?
Did you know that writing--and then re-writing--our personal stories can be good for our health? And even better for our future, Courtesy Houston County, TN. Archives.especially if we are struggling to define that future optimistically. So says a recent New...
WWII Dog Tag Finally Returns to Family: Orphaned Heirloom Rescue
A 22-year year old man with a metal detector in France has brought a lot of joy to an 89-year widow in the U.S. As reported in TheBlaze.com, Francois Blaizot found an American's World War II dog tag in Normandy last year. Instead of keeping or selling it, he decided...
WDYTYA 2015 Doesn’t Disappoint!
Did you catch the opening episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on Sunday evening? I screened it along with several of this season's episodes that were shared with us here at Genealogy Gems. WDYTYA 2015 doesn't disappoint! Julie Chen's episode marked the first trip of...
We Dig These New Genealogy Records Gems every Friday!
Every week, we see so many new genealogy records posted online! We highlight major resources in individual blog posts. But sometimes smaller or regional collections catch our eye, too. We'll round these up for you in a post like this on Fridays. Watch for the...
RootsMagic Review: Why I Use It
Recently Gretchen wrote in with this question about RootsMagic family history software: "I'm a huge fan of Genealogy Gems!! I LOVE to listen to the podcasts (I'm a fairly new member) and have all of your books!! I need help in the area of choosing a family tree: Do...
New FindMyPast Hints Help Find Records
FindMyPast, the genealogy website best known for its mega-collections of U.K. historical records, recently added a hinting feature to the family trees component of its website. According to a press release, "Once you start to add to your family tree, Hints will sift...
Google Scholar for Genealogy? Here’s Why to Try It
Recently I heard from Sue Neale, whose story offers a compelling reason to use Google Scholar for genealogy research! Read it below--then I'll tell you a little more about Google Scholar. "I’ve been using computers for genealogy research (among other things) for about...
