Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Episode 124: Ancestry, Book Club Interview and More

by Lisa Cooke | Jun 30, 2015 | 01 What's New, Ancestry, Book Club, Disaster Prevention, Family Reunions, Flipboard, images, Immigration, Research Skills, Travel

If there’s a theme for Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Episode 124, it’s travel! (Which works for us here in the U.S., where we are enjoying summer vacations.) Our ancestors sure traveled, and sometimes a paper trail followed them. In this episode you’ll hear Contributing Editor Sunny Morton’s interview with Phil Goldfarb, author of two volumes on U.S. passport applications. More episode highlights include:

• The exclusive Genealogy Gems Book Club interview with Nathan Dylan Goodwin, author of our featured title, The Lost Ancestor (The Forensic Genealogist);
• Another tip for photographing headstones on your trips to the cemetery, whether your own relatives’ or for sites like BillionGraves;
• Follow-up tips on saving your data at Ancestry and navigating the remodeled Ancestry website;
• An easy, inexpensive family history craft that would be perfect for a family reunion this summer.

Here’s a teaser from our conversation on passport applications: People lied on them, including those who became famous. Clara Barton lied about her age and Harry Houdini said he was born in the U.S., when he was actually born in Austria-Hungary. Also, passport applications can be an excellent place to learn an immigrant’s date of arrival in the U.S., the ship they arrived on and the court and date of naturalization.

Did you know that Genealogy Gems Premium members have access to our full archive of Premium podcast episodes, as well as hours’ worth of exclusive video tutorials on genealogy research skills, using online records and harnessing powerful technology tools like Google searching, Google Earth and Evernote for genealogy? Click here to learn more about Premium membership for yourself or for your genealogy society or library.

As always, our Genealogy Gems flagship podcast remains free, thanks to your support and purchases you make through the links we provide (like for the books we recommend on this page).