Genealogy Research
Explore genealogy research articles and how-to tutorials designed to help you trace your ancestors and grow your family tree.
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10+ Resources for African-American Genealogy Research
Researching African-American ancestors presents unique challenges. Use these resources to help you discover more about your ancestors. Delving into the African-American genealogy research of my ancestors’ slaves, I recognized a large and important gap in my research knowledge. My initial goal was to research what happened to a slave child owned my great-great-great grandmother Samantha Buchanan Maddox of Chatham County, NC. I quickly learned the need to educate myself on the unique aspects of African-American genealogy and the resources and databases available. Honestly, I was humbled by the size of the gap in my knowledge. What follows are some great resources for researching African-American genealogy. This is not a complete…
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Focus On African-American Genealogy
Are You My Cousin? will focus on African-American genealogy research the next couple of weeks. National African-American History Month is celebrated each February making this a good time for the southern genealogy researcher to take a closer look. African-American researchers face unique challenges as well as difficult issues in history. Slavery is a difficult and disturbing issue for all who research this time period. Most southern researchers will come across slavery in their ancestry whether their ancestors were slaves, slave owners or citizen participating in the southern economy. The goal for the next couple of weeks is to increase awareness and knowledge of genealogical resources for the African-American researcher.
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Medical Genealogy- Why Your Ancestor’s Health Mattered
An ancestor's medical history or cause of death can lead to potential family history clues. Learn what to look for and how to discover an ancestor's medical history and the impact on his or her life.
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Why Did My Ancestors Take Those Unusual Victorian Post Mortem Photos?
Taking post mortem photos was common in the Victorian era & early 1900’s. Part of grieving, these photos remembered passed away family. Let me set the scene….. At our traditional Thanksgiving gathering at my paternal grandparents’ home, my grandmother and aunt pulled out the family photographs. This wasn’t unusual when we got together, and family stories flowed. Sadly, this was in my “pre-genealogy” days, but I think the seed was planted. Thumbing through a box of photo, I stumbled across post mortem photo or photograph of a deceased relative. Then another one. And another one. Really?! Who were these strange people I was related to who took photos of deceased…