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Use A Genealogy Wildcard Search For Better Ancestor Search Results
Use a genealogy wildcard search in Google and genealogy databases to find more ancestor search results and grow your family tree. It’s a wild, wild, wild(card) world of genealogy records out there! Are your ancestors hiding in them? As a researcher you perform genealogy searches daily to find your ancestors. But you wonder…. Are you maximizing your search results? Getting the best results for finding your ancestors? Are your search results limited because of misspellings and/or transcription errors? Or are you searching for ancestors but unsure of what spelling they used in the records? It’s time for a wildcard search! What is a Genealogy Wildcard Search? One of the best…
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How To Find & Use Google Books For Genealogy Research
Find thousands of free family history books at Google Books. Include these rich sources of information in your genealogy research plan for your ancestors. Genealogy researchers love books. I’m no different, but know what I love more? Free Books! Are you missing out on finding online free genealogy related books (including family histories)? If you have not already, it’s time to start exploring Google Books! What is Google Books? Google Books is a service of Google. It is essentially a very large digital public library of of books, magazines, and newspapers. Just image browsing the bookshelves of your favorite genealogy library – only digitally. Best of all, you as a…
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How to Create Your Genealogy Research Plan (& Why You Should!)
I am a little embarrassed to admit this to you, my genea-friends. Sometimes when I am researching my genealogy, I find myself wandering down rabbit trails. Distracted. Repeating previous research. [Hopefully you won’t judge me!] When I find my research heading down rabbit trails, that indicates one thing: I am researching without a plan and that is not a good thing. I’ve learned to stay off those “oh, so tempting” rabbit trails by creating a genealogy research plan BEFORE I began my research. Why You Want to Create a Genealogy Research Plan When I mention creating a research plan, your mind immediately went back to high school and those dreaded term…
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Researching Genealogy Records Of Your Poor Ancestors
One of the common frustrations I hear from you, my readers, is the lack of records for your destitute or poor ancestors. Yes, our poor ancestors certainly present with some unique research challenges. Why is that? Your poor or destitute ancestors typically did not own land and will not be found in the land records. Ancestors who had no estate that needed to be disposed of, did not typically leave wills or have estates that were probated. Your poorer ancestors may have moved frequently in search of jobs making them harder to track down. I have a few of those in my family tree, too. But here’s the thing……. Your…