The human genome holds secrets about man’s lineage, makeup or health waiting to be unraveled. It just takes the right ‘tool’ to decipher its code. After decades of exhaustive research, genetic engineering seems to have added one more piece to…
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Research in family history has been a passion of many for generations. Previous research had been limited to what you could learn in libraries and what you could learn from your older relatives. Now, the Internet and other technology has…
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Celebrating your family history can be fun for the entire family. Learning about ancestors, knowing where your family comes from, and finding deep roots can be a good thing. So how can you share the joy? The hall of flags…
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Old family photographs often require some detective work in order to identify who the people actually are. Even when pictures are in pristine condition putting names to faces can be hard. Well known relatives may have looked very different when…
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Family history often involves a great deal of hard work researching family lines, locating official information, old family photographs, documents, along with other memorabilia along the way. Displaying this information is a very important part of the exercise that is…
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Sharing family histories with future generations is an important tradition in many families. Some families can trace their history back to the World Wars, the US Civil War, and often when their family came to the place they live now,…
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If you are interested in genealogy, few things are more exciting than finding an old box of family photographs filled with a pictorial history of your family. Often, the pictures are not labeled and the people who can identify those…
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Before you begin to research your family history you may envisage that the product of your efforts will be a simple family tree showing a number of marriages and the resulting offspring, going back a hundred years if you are…
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One of the most accessible resources available for genealogical research is the census record of the United States government. Federal census records were first collected in 1790 and since then have been collected every ten years. These early records contained…
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When I was working in a cultural museum, I was amazed by how many people wanted to learn about their family history. There are myths and legends in every family, but people wanted to learn what was fact and what…
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Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor. Rich man, poor man, beggerman, thief? The old childrens’ rhyme takes on a new meaning when researching your family’s history. Our ancestors could have been any of themor none. Just think.How much do you really know…
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I wish I would have written down some of the wonderful stories my grandmother and great-grandmother shared with me. They are both gone now, and I’m finding my memories are fading. The exact details of their stories are slipping away,…
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A great many of our youth (my peers) don’t really understand that the journey to now didn’t start in suburbia, it started in the ghetto or across the sea. Not always has their family driven in new suvs and town…
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“Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” This portion of the inscription on the Statue of…
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The small boy holds up a rock and threatens my grandmother with it “Do you want me to throw this rock at you?” he screams. My grandmother, being brave and bold in all of her seven years yells back to…
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Finding out one’s family ancestry is very fascinating. It feels so incredible discovering past generations. It’s a lot of fun to fill out ancestry charts of the family’s history. Think about it, it’s family, past generations…names, dates and information about…
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Are you thinking of starting your own family tree? Genealogy is something that so many people find interesting, and conduct searches to find out who their ancestors are everyday. Why not try it out for yourself? You never know, you…
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Your personal and family heritage is not dead history, but is very much alive in the lives and experiences of your oldest living relatives, your grandparents. You have to wonder how many people regret never taking the time to speak at…
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So you want to research your family tree. One of the first things you need is a method of recording the information you find. A pedigree chart is a good way to start. * What is a pedigree chart? As…
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Tracing your genealogy has become easier than ever thanks to the introduction of the Internet. Where you used to have to track down information by using libraries, and even going to the locations where your ancestors were from, now you…
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions and this is just as true in family history research as in other areas of life. I’ve been researching my family history for a number of years and I’m still amazed…
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One of the most enriching experiences for children, is listening to stories about their family history. Knowing the people that are close blood relatives, where they came from, what they were like, who they loved and how they lived is…
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The chore chart is an age old tool for teaching children responsibility, as well as to reinforce cognitive reading and counting skills. Although a simple concept of tracking progress and providing positive reinforcement, a successful Chore Chart takes consistency on…
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The track to the mind is through the heart. The track to the heart is through a story. I have spent ten years as a professional storyteller on stages from coast to coast and I have learned from experience the…
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Today, more than ever before, because of technical advances, it is possible to preserve grandparents’ personal history exactly as they tell it. Instead of writing it, video it on DVD. It will be much more interesting to future generations to…
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We study history because it gives us lessons to live by in the future and it helps us avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. We also document the lives and details of our grandparents so that we…
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I did not recognize the importance of knowing your history. My oldest son went off to college and his first major project was to reconstruct his history and family tree. Now, I know how hard it is to find data…
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Newspapers are an often neglected mine of information for genealogists. Easily overlooked in the thrill of discovering statistical information in civil records of birth and death, or church documents about baptism, marriage and burial, newspaper entries about your ancestors are…
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It is unfortunate that most people do not begin to research their family tree until it is too late. Often too late, once they have reached late middle age and have time on their hands to devote to genealogy, to…
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For anyone interested in their genealogy, and those actually compiling a permanent record of it, the stories and recollections of grandparents, indeed all relatives, are extremely important. They offer a readily available resource with first hand experience and memories of…
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