Finding My Roots (Part III)
This past April (2018). I took myself on a little vacation. Perhaps a vacation is not the best word, for the primary purpose of my trip was to visit my father’s grave, something I...
Finding My Roots (Part II)
Now (if you’ve read the first entry in this series) you know a bit about my mother’s family and the difficulty in finding out more about my maternal Greek ancestry. Invasion, massacre and civil...
Finding My Roots (Part I)
Two weeks ago, I took a week-long trip to southern New Jersey and Philadelphia to try and discover more about my ancestral roots. This is the first of a series of articles detailing that...
Do Not Fall into this Common Genealogy Trap…
This article might start off sounding a little smug. It is not meant to. My intention is to help you to find your correct ancestors, or at least start on the right path, and...
The Original 13
Growing up, from time to time, I would stay with my aunt and her family in Germantown, Pennsylvania. I won’t mention how many years ago that was, but I will tell you those visits...
Is That You, William? How Do You Know When You’re On The Right Track?
Brick walls – every researcher has a couple. They sometimes stand for years, those annoying barriers between you and that elusive ancestor you have been chasing for what seems like forever. Now and then,...
Researching your immigrant ancestors: tools to improve your search
Last week, I decided to be a tourist in my own backyard: I visited Liberty and Ellis Islands, and toured the Ellis Island museum. The exhibits detailed the history of the immigrant experience both...
Looking among the living for clues to your past
When we think of genealogical research, most of us typically focus on finding past records, locating deceased relatives and making sense of historical documents. But family historians often overlook an important resource in their...
Real strategies for overcoming that brick wall
Both novice and experienced family historians have likely encountered a common obstacle while researching their histories: hitting a brick wall. You may discover that family records were destroyed, lost or simply unavailable; information...
Help! my ancestor’s name is John Smith (or how to find relatives with very common names)
Suppose you are on a quest for information about your relative, John Smith. You then discover that there are an astounding 31,139 John Smiths listed in the 1900 U.S. census! This might seem...
