Click on the "Read More" tab below to read a descriptions of
each of this week's classes.

September 13, 2016 By Leslie Albrecht Huber for FamilySearch
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I have talked to many researchers tracing their families who are plodding right along, finding their ancestors in United States records with reasonable success, extending their family trees back generation by generation. Then something happens that brings them to a screeching halt—they reach a German immigrant ancestor. Many people seem to believe that once you come across a German in your family, it’s time to throw in the towel and switch to a different family line. German research is just too hard. Right?

Wrong.
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After years of helping people trace both their American families and their German families, I can say with confidence that in many ways German research is actually easier than United States research. Here are . . .

 By Guest Blogger for FamilySearch
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A few months ago I visited my parents in California. While cleaning off dusty tools in the garage together, I asked my dad what he had thought of the Civil Rights movement. I knew my dad’s birth year, but I had never placed him in the intersection of world events. I was surprised to learn that he was in college in California during that time and wished he had flown east to participate in a civil rights march.

Plotting out the events of an ancestor’s life on a timeline can help you gain a fuller picture of them as a person. You may notice different locations they have lived, how old they have lived, how old they were when their parents died, or which significant historical events took place during their lifetime.

​There are several digital tools available to help you create these timelines.

August, 2016 By FamilySearch
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Each month, FamilySearch publishes a list of new changes and updates to the FamilySearch.org website. This list includes changes to Family Tree as well as other parts of FamilySearch.org. In some cases, these changes will also be published as individual articles where the need to do so exists.

Recently Released

FamilySearch: Add Un-indexed Images

You can now link un-indexed images to a person in the Family Tree. Previously you had to go through the attach process for each person in the image. The new flow will greatly reduce the number of steps you must take to properly attach an image to all family  members in your tree.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          See more - click on "Read More"

 . . . By Deborah S. Gurtler

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the seriesResearching in Latin AmericaResearch methods for finding ancestors in Latin America vary only slightly from tried and true practices used in English speaking countries. One variation is the record types used to identify ancestors. In a previous post we discussed the most common record types used in Latin America so now the question is what methods are best for using these record types to learn more about my ancestors? Below are the three best tips I know.
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1. Always begin with what you know, which is hopefully well documented, working toward the unknown.
This means use what you already know about your ancestor to begin searching for the next generation. If you know the names of your ancestor’s parents, . . .

September 15, 2016 By Diane Sagers

FamilySearch.org New Features

FamilySearch is offering ever more innovative ways to engage interest in family history, simplifying their website search, and offering helpful tips to assist users, according to Brian Edwards of FamilySearch in his presentation at the BYU Genealogy Conference in July. Some of these features are in place while others are still being developed.

The personalized homepage of FamilySearch, is a treasure-trove of innovation with boxes of information feeds selected specifically for the user. Try it out at familysearch.org/lihp-arches, and if you like, you can make it your homepage. . .

By Deborah S. Gurtler for FamilySearch
This entry is part 3 of 4 in the seriesResearching in Latin America

​This article is the Third in a series on how to research your ancestors in Latin America. In our first article I mentioned Catholic parish records as the most important record type for research in Latin America. Civil Registration records come in as close second and may be more important if you are one of the very few whose Latin American ancestors were not Catholics. 
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Civil Registration records are government records of births, marriages, and deaths. Most governments in Latin America began Civil Registration by the 1870's and 1880s. The earliest records are found in the Dominican Republic beginning in 1828and the latest started in Bolivia in 1940.                                                                                                           

This is a guest post by Maggie Mora of Storyhouse. in Ancestry.com Site

There is the grandfather from my childhood; diligent and uncompromising, gruff yet kind. When he died 9 years ago, I knew him only in these terms—adjectives collected from occasional visits and grainy phone calls.

The grandfather of my adulthood looks much different; he is pieced together from stories told over dinner tables and fading photos salvaged from trips back to his home in California. Most of his grandchildren are left arranging him from fragments he left behind. Like many, I regret not asking about ​my grandfather’s stories while he was still alive so, in honor of Grandparent’s Day (Sept. 11th), we’re suggesting three ways you can preserve your                                                                                                                                               grandparents’ legacy. . .

From AncestryInsider Adapted from “Faith in Finding,” David E. Rencher

David Rencher had a haunting feeling that he had not accounted for all the daughters of Abraham Rencher, son of his immigrant ancestor. David says,

"In fact, I was quite certain that there was a missing daughter. I had visited the graves of most of the family in Pittsboro, in Chatham County, North Carolina. They lined the walk of the Episcopal Church, and as I walked along and recorded each and every tombstone, I still had this haunting feeling that one was missing."

David was in Washington, DC in 1997 meeting with Eric Grundset, director of The Daughters of the American Revolution. About 8:00 David was dropping him at his home when Eric’s wife, Paula, arrived home from her work at the George Mason Regional Library in Annandale, Virginia. Paula and David said hello and David went on his way.

Several months later David received this note from Eric: . . . 

By:Melanie Mayo, Editor Family History Daily September 12, 2016

If you’re completely stuck trying to find the maiden name of one, or many, of your female ancestors you’re not alone. Because women often left their maiden names long behind when they got married they can be incredibly hard to uncover in some cases — and not being able to find one can often mean a complete dead end.

If we’re lucky, we can find a maiden name in one of the usual resources — on a marriage certificate or death record, in the census, or listed on the birth or baptismal record of a child. But very often this is simply not the case. Too often, informants on death records did not know, or bother to list, the maiden name of a woman, or married names were used in place of maiden names. Sometimes these records simply aren’t available, especially if you’re researching women before 1850. . .