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Obituaries usually aren't about someone's death so much as about his or her life and family. From both standpoints, these newspaper notices are extremely valuable to genealogists.
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Genealogists are likely to pick up a newspaper in any town where they are paying a visit, conducting business or just passing through. We're after the obituary section, a standard feature in newspapers.
No matter how many times George Schweitzer lectures, he's never quite himself. He dresses in period costume and teaches through historical re-enactment. His audiences have seen him in many roles, including that of a French fur trader, a German immigrant, a Revolutionary War soldier, both Confederate and Union soldiers, a Cherokee Indian and a railroad engineer.
Want to live to 100? These women share their secrets to longetivy - and happiness.
Fall is fast approaching and for the genealogy community, that means classes will be popping up throughout the area. Here is a sampling:
As genealogy researchers, we want our reports to be factual, but not stiff and boring. A family narrative should show some feeling for the experiences of an ancestor.
All five of my Civil War ancestors were poor, illiterate dirt farmers. Some knew how to scribble their names and others made an "X" when a signature was needed. Not one of them could write a letter home to be treasured and passed down.
I grew up in the rural South where passions ran deep about "the horrible Yankees who invaded our territory and destroyed a way of life." As I got older and studied the Civil War, I realized the reasons the war was fought were more complicated than the emotional tirades I heard as a child.
When an ancestor was a Civil War veteran, your search for information can lead to genealogical gold. The Civil War produced substantial records, starting with military service files and applications for pensions, both of benefit to family historians.
I recently wrote a column encouraging readers to start keeping journals of their thoughts and activities as legacies for the generations to come.
You grab the dog; I'll grab the computer. Until recently, that was our family disaster evacuation plan.
Imagine how crushed I was when my granddaughter told me recently that she isn't interested in "all the stuff that happened in the past." She's only 10. I still hope to win her over.
The measure of how important maps are to historians and genealogists becomes apparent when you explore the many paper-map collections available in libraries and digital collections online.
Our ancestors probably didn't care about political land boundaries as they migrated across and populated the American frontier. As their storytellers, we often are thwarted by those very boundaries and their frequent changes.
I recently read a report by the executor of the estate of a man who died in 1872. It surprised me when I saw an entry for $28.13 paid in 1873 for "insurance on house." Why had I thought of home insurance as a modern-day thing?
Genealogists rely on official records when gathering the details of their ancestors' lives, but that only tells part of the story. Studying the land of ancestors - such as how mountains and lakes were barriers or how roads crossed their properties - will help you get to know them.
Elusive ancestors are easier to find if we understand the circumstances and times in which they lived. Maps can give you a visual perspective of those earlier wandering relatives.
It's mid-May, the time when the school year is nearly over. A ritual of this season is delivery of school yearbooks, and it's likely that none of the students who bought one are thinking about their descendants.
Genealogists are among the world's most voracious readers. Perhaps that is due, in part, to the fact that we have to be well-versed in so many topics in order to research and understand the wide variety of records that produce genealogical material.
Sometimes, people who are unfamiliar with genealogical research ask why we pursue it. We can tell them all about finding missing pieces of the big puzzle, digging to understand why and how our ancestors did certain things and discovering how their societies differed from ours.
Who doesn't appreciate getting something for free? Some handy forms available online can help in what is critical for genealogists - managing the information they gather and keeping their records organized. Best of all, these forms don't cost a penny.
Most of you know from watching television that detectives use different approaches to get information from their suspects. Two of TV's famous crime fighters and their techniques come to mind.
How far back can you expect to travel in your genealogical quests? Will you find the rich and famous, saints or sinners? On a regular basis, readers send me questions or share successes and failures. Sometimes I know my response to the questions or comments would benefit a lot of you, so they are the impetus for columns.
Has genealogy taken over your life? These could be symptoms: Your children believe all family picnics take place in cemeteries and that vacations must include stops in old courthouses.
Do pictures lie, or can you believe everything you see? In this day of Photoshop and computer wizardry, certainly pictures can be altered.
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