The Discriminating Genealogist: Telling Good Evidence from Bad

Names weren't changed at Ellis Island, but in courts, legislatures and elsewhere both formally and officially -- and on the fly. As genealogists, we need to know why names were changed, and how those changes might be recorded, if we want to have a chance at finding out what's in a name.

The 18th amendment took effect in January 1920 and ushered in more than a decade of Prohibition until repealed by the 21st amendment in December 1933. In those few years, so many records were created of juice joints and bootleggers, revenuers and Untouchables -- producing a gold mine for researchers.

Genealogy by its very nature is collaborative-we need to work together and share information with others, both relatives and non-relatives if we're to succeed in filling out our family trees. But doing family research doesn't mean giving up all semblances of personal privacy, nor is it a license to invade…

There's a difference between searching and researching, and understanding how the law impacts records and research is critical to the reasonably exhaustive research needed to meet the Genealogical Proof Standard. Learn how the law impacts records -- and how finding the right law for the right place and time is...

Negative evidence is the hardest type of evidence to understand or use in genealogical research. By definition, a “type of evidence arising from an absence of a situation or information in extant records where that information might be expected,” it is, as the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes told us in…

When one record says she was born in Texas, and another says she was born in Mississippi, the evidence is conflicting. Now what? The Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) requires that we resolve conflicts among evidence items, since we can't reach a credible conclusion otherwise. Sounds good ... but it's easier…

Requirement 7 of the BCG certification application asks for a Kinship Determination Project in which the applicant writes a three-generation narrative and explains how the relationships are documented. All genealogists do this regularly while placing relatives with their appropriate connections in the family tree.

One of the great difficulties for people researching their French immigrant ancestors’ roots is that so little is known outside of France about when and why the French left their country. This dearth of knowledge has led many family historians of the 19th century to presume Huguenot, noble émigré or Alsace-Lorraine ancestry for any ancestor with a French name. The supposition became a family legend that then became a research frustration as more recent family historians attempt to prove what was never more than a misguided supposition. This webinar looks at the many waves of French migration, as well as the three mentioned in the title, from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The historical reasons for when, why and to where they emigrated will provide the key points to bear in mind when conducting research. The bibliography, in English and French, contains not only books and articles concerning French emigration but a list of websites to aid the researcher.

In spite of birth entries for Margareta's five siblings in Hishult, there was no record of her birth in the parish. Tax records quickly identified the father, and revealed multiple moves within a narrow span of time; however, identification of the mother remained elusive. No witnesses to births of the children provided clues; no household examinations existed. Coupling the understanding of broad context (naming patterns, inheritance laws, the calendar shift, etc.) with mtDNA and documentary evidence, the mother was identified and the lack of a records was explained.