Category: Genealogy Resources

The Best German Genealogy Research Resource!

7/17/2021

The best ALL IN ONE resource for German genealogy is FamilySearch.org, handsdown! With their Germany Genealogy Research Wiki, their Germany Genealogy Research Community, and their Catalog, you have everything you need right at your fingertips for German research, and it’s ALL FREE!

Research Wiki: I learned about the Wiki on a trip, years back, to the Family History Library, from one of the German specialists there. The FamilySearch Wiki is a genealogy resource guide, and has by far the most comprehensive and best information out there for German Genealogy, and it’s FREE! This is kept up constantly by the German genealogy specialists at the Family History Library. They have done an amazingly, fantastic job of having German genealogy research tools and strategies all in one place!

They have a plethora of records; maps; lists and printable handouts; strategies, methodologies, online classes, tutorials, and articles; links to all the top sites, databases and resources for German research; and more!

They have various resources to a huge amount of records such as church records, vital records, cemetery records, census records, directories, immigration records, military records, Jewish records, obituaries, and many more types of records!

Their lists and printable handouts on the provinces, letters, vocabulary, and names are invaluable.

If you are a beginner in German research, their research tips and strategies, like “Getting Started with Germany Research” is a must!

If you love free classes, they have so many classes and tutorials on a wide range of topics such as reading original German records, using German address books, researching the German Archives, understanding and using German census records, understanding the German calendar changes, understanding German geography, using the gazatteers, reading the handwriting, learning some of the important vocabulary, navigating and using some of the top German genealogy sites, and more!

You can find the German Genealogy Research Wiki here: Germany Genealogy

Communities: I also learned about FamilySearch Communities on my last day of that trip. This is where you can ask for research help, get help in translating those German records, and so much more, from the comfort of your home!

You can find the German Research Community here: Germany Genealogy Research Community

Catalog: In the FamilySearch catalog, you can find all the resources that the Family History Library, FamilySearch Centers, and FamilySearch has, for your specific search! You can search by name, location, topics, titles and more! These resources include records, periodicals, books, family histories and more! I also learned how to use this search feature better when I took my trip to the Family History Library. This is a much better method of finding resources for your search, than simply searching in the “record search”; you will find so much more!

All of these are FREE with a FREE subscription to FamilySearch.org! 😊

You can sign up for a free FamilySearch account here: Create Account

2 Comments

Irish Genealogy Resource: IrishGenealogy.ie

7/11/2021

0 Comments

IrishGenealogy.ie is a fantastic site to help you research your Irish ancestry; it is the main site that I use for my Irish descended clients. You can search births, marriages, and deaths of the General Register Office (GRO) and church records from numerous counties.

The General Register Office holds all the official records of Irish births, deaths and marriages from 1864, and of non-Catholic marriages from 1845. Birth register records from 1864 to 1920, marriage register records from 1845 to 1945, and death register records from about 1871 to 1970, are available online. They also have a large amount of church records for baptism, marriage and burial, including many that were before civil registration. They now also have the 1901 and 1911 census and more, through the National Archives of Ireland! 😊

0 Comments

Mexican Genealogy Resources

5/15/2021

0 Comments

Are you looking for resources for your Mexican genealogy research? The number one site I use for my Mexican genealogy research is FamilySearch.org, and it is free!

Records:
These include the Mexican Civil Registration records and the Catholic Church parish records which are searchable by name now, which makes it so much easier; I remember having to painstakingly search the Mexican Civil Registration Records image by image just a few years ago! Some of the Church parish records still need to be searched image by image though. They also have the 1930 Mexican Census, and more!

Research Wiki:
The Research Wiki is a fantastic tool on FamilySearch .org, that will help you with your research. From there, you can search records, get research advice and tutorials, Spanish handwriting tools, a Spanish genealogical word list, dictionaries, Mexican history, and more! I did not learn about the Wiki until I took a trip to Salt Lake a couple of years ago, not to mention it is fairly new. The FamilySearch Wiki started back in 2008, but did not have nearly what they have now!

FamilySearch Communities:
You can also “Ask the Community” for advice, translations and more!

0 Comments

Irish Genealogy Research Resources

4/17/2021

0 Comments

Are you doing any Irish genealogy research and looking for some useful sites to help you in that research?

There are many wonderful Irish genealogy websites out there to use for your Irish genealogy research. I came across quite a few that were very useful, while working with a particular client whose great grandparents came from Ireland.

The website that I seemed to use the most while working on his case, was IrishGenealogy.ie. This was a fantastic website to get civil records and church records from. I was able to find many of the civil registration birth records that I needed, along with marriages and deaths.

Another fantastic site I used for the case was SWilson.info, where I was able to find registration district maps that I could use to help me look up which registration districts to search for civil records in. This site was also a fantastic tool to use in looking up Catholic and civil parishes.

Registers.nli.ie, was also a great site that I used for Catholic Parish registers.

JohnGrenham.com was very useful in looking up Roman Catholic records in the particular area that I was searching in, but they also offer a lot more to help with your research.

Another great website to use for Irish genealogy is the Irishgenealogytoolkit.com; I used this site for Irish civil registration districts, but they have a plethora of information for Irish genealogy research.

RootsIreland.ie. was also quite useful; I used this site for a list of common first name variations that you would find in records, but this site also has abundant records and research tips.

If you have any ancestors in Limerick, I came across a useful website, LimerickDiocese.org; this had the history of local churches, graveyards and more.

Family search also has an abundant list of Irish genealogy resource tools in their Wiki, and of course Family Search, Ancestry.com, MyHeritage, and the National Archives are great to use in your research.

0 Comments

As of Today, a New Game Changer From MyHeritage!

4/5/2021

0 Comments

As of today, MyHeritage has just doled out 10 new SPECIAL ANIMATIONS for their #DeepNostalgia, #MyHeritagePhotoTools!

I tried a slew of them, but many didn't work well; the ones that worked the best are KISS, DANCE (the first of the two), and COMPASSION.

Below is an amimated photo of my great grandmother, who immigrated from Mexico in 1916, blowing a KISS. Her husband, my great grandfather from Germany, who was a stern man, was perfectly animated in the APPROVAL animation tool. Those two animations came from their wedding photo. My second great grandfather, was the only photo that had worked in the SMILE animation tool. His father, my third great grandfather, was one of just a few that worked out well in the SIDEWAYS animation tool. Those two animations came from a huge family group photo, ca.1900, which shows how well they can easily pull people out of group photos to enhance and animate; those two photos were also colorized in MyHeritage. The last two animations are of my great grandmother from Mexico, again, in her older years; in one she is blowing a KISS, and the other is shown with the COMPASSION animation tool.

They announced, in their blog today, that they are still letting people animate a few photos for free, but that these new SPECIAL ANIMATIONS are for members only.

So go and check out MyHeritage, and animate a few photos for yourself!

#deepnostalgiaspecialanimations

0 Comments

The Winners of the MyHeritage DeepNostalgia Challenge has Just Been Announced!

4/1/2021

0 Comments

The winners of the MyHeritage #DeepNostalgiaChallenge has just been announced, and Know Who Wears the Genes in Your Family was one of the 5 winners to a MyHeritage Complete Plan!

With a MyHeritage Complete Plan, you can have access to ALL of MyHeritage's awesome photo tools (including animating as many photos as you'd like!), unlimited tree size, access to ALL advanced MyHeritage DNA features (which are awesome and plentiful!), access to ALL of their records, and so much more!

Check out some of their fave entries, and the 5 winners here!: MyHeritage Blog

Have you thought about purchasing a MyHeritage Complete Plan, with so many wonderful things that can be accessed?!

0 Comments

The My Heritage Deep Nostalgia Tool: Photos Brought to Life!

3/8/2021

2 Comments

The MyHeritage #DeepNostalgia, doesn't work well on every photo, but it sure did for these of my mother's mother, taken in 1965; my father's father, taken in 1945 on leave from the military; my great grandmother, who immigrated from Mexico in 1916; and my great grandfather, who immigrated from Germany in 1893!

I had only met my mother's mother a few times in life, so didn't remember her well, this helped. :) I had never met my father's father, and this helped me feel like I did. :) I vaguely remember my great grandmother from when I was quite young, and this brought back memories of her. :) I had never met my great grandfather, as he had passed away in 1935 from T.B. that he had contracted during his military service in the Philippines at the turn of the century, when my grandmother was 14, and way before my father was ever even born; this helped me feel like I got to meet him. :) I also animated photos of my mother, who just recently passed, and I can not describe the flood of emotions that came over me when I saw those, it's like it brought her back. :(

If you haven't tried it yet, go to MyHeritage to upload your 5 free trials, and enter their #deepnostalgiachallenge on social media for a chance to win a year subscription to MyHeritage! They outdid themselves again with another amazingly awesome tool! :)

2 Comments

RootsTech Connect 2021 Has Come to an End, or Has It? :)

3/1/2021

0 Comments

RootsTech Connect 2021, hosted by FamilySearch, has come to a close, but not really. Did you know that you can still access RootsTech? They were originally going to close up everything, but access to your Playlist, but have since changed that! Not only can you access everything in your playlist for a year, the sessions/classes and Expo Hall, but they are keeping chat available till the 4th, and you can still access RootsTech relatives as of right now! So, if you want to view any of the 1,000+ RootsTech Sessions, Keynote Speakers or the Expo Hall, they are all still available, and will continue to be available!

Did you know that you can also save the sessions/classes to your YouTube watch later list, if you think it may be easier to access your classes from YouTube as opposed to going onto the RootsTech platform again and again? Just go to the session pin you'd like to save, and click on it. From there, on the upper top right corner of the video, you'll see the watch later clock symbol, and just click it. Make sure you are logged into your YouTube account before clicking it, and once you click on it, it will be automatically added to your YouTube watch later list. :)

Did you know that RootsTech Connect 2021 was such a hit going virtual this year due to Covid, that they went from about 30,000 attendees last year to 1,000,000 this year, Amazing! This was the most fantastic event of the year!

They really outdid themselves with their virtual platform! Did you know that the most time spent on planning for RootsTech this year, after realizing they needed to go virtual to make it happen this year due to Covid, was for the platform they were going to use? It took them 2 months checking out different platform companies, before realizing that none of them had what they needed for an event such as their's, and determined they needed to build their own site for RootsTech! The site for RootsTech was awesome, it was beyond anything I could have imagined! When I first signed up, I thought it wasn't going to be that awesome virtually, and would be most likely like all the other virtual experiences I had this past year, but boy was I wrong! Not only was the content what made RootsTech this year, but it was their platform that brought it all together and was striking, and made you feel like you were really part of an event! This definitely was the event of the year!

I absolutely loved everything about RootsTech, from ALL of the keynote speakers, the sessions, the RootsTech break sessions, the RootsTech relatives, the expo hall, to the chat and more, all of it was fantastic! All the keynote speakers were amazing, but my absolute faves, were the CEO, Steve Rockwood's keynote speech, Sharon Leslie Morgan's keynote speech, Astrid Tuminez's keynote speech, and Nick Vujicic's keynote speech, as those are the particular speeches and personal stories that resonated with me. My other absolute faves at RootsTech were the RootsTech session break videos, that were so thought and emotion provoking, and the Facebook Live Daily Wrap Ups with Ancestry.com's Crista Cowan, and chatting with RootsTech relatives!

I really hope that they keep this platform for next year ( I mean, they spent a lot of time and resources building it, and already have it, so why not?!) and decide doing both an in person event and virtual, then more people from around the world would be able to join, and they may be able to keep close to the amount of attendees they had this year!

So, if you missed the RootsTech Connect 2021 event, you can still view all the classes for FREE!

0 Comments

Some of My Preferred Sites for My Family Tree and DNA Results :)

2/15/2021

2 Comments

.Online tree storage: Ancestry.com

.Online genealogy search engine: FamilySearch.org

.DNA matching: Ancestry.com

.DNA Ethnicity: Ancestry.com

.Deeper DNA: FamilyTreeDNA

.Long distant European DNA matches: MyHeritage

.To see my DNA in a fun interactive way and to print: 23andMe

.Family history preservation: MyHeritage

.Communities, activities, and learning: FamilySearch.org

Everyone has their own preferences on which sites they like best, these are just some of mine. :)

I love the layout of Ancestry.com for your tree; it's easy to use, and easy on the eyes. I feel it's the most up to date place to store my tree. It's also free to store your tree on!

I love all the records you can get online for Ancestry.com, but over the years, as they have tried to make their search engine better, I have found it to be super frustrating at times, and not as great as before. :( A lot of the time, I keep Family Search open, while on Ancestry, to use their search engine for records that I know will be available there. I feel their search engine is much better. ;)

I feel Ancestry.com has the best DNA matching for me. I like their large pool of matches, and the aesthetics. This is where I get the most matches from, and rely heavily on my matching. I also love the new grouping feature they developed to group your matches, it makes it much easier to tell who the majority of your matches are, to build a DNA tree! ;)

Years ago, I felt FamilyTreeDNA gave me my most accurate ethnicity, but over the years, I feel Ancestry has the most accurate ethnicity estimate for me, even though they're constantly changing it! ;)

I feel FamilyTreeDNA is the best for deeper ancestry, and gives you amazing information!

I originally tested with 23andMe, for their medical aspect, years ago for fun! Who would've thought that they would have so many other features that I like! I really love 23andMe's DNA presentation! They present it it such an awesome, informative, easy to use, organized, and fun way! You can even order a book about your DNA!

I love that MyHeritage gives me matches of people in Europe, so far back, that I don't get on the other sites! They have awesome photo tools, I also love their family tree charts you can print out!!!

I absolutely love FamilySearch for their records, research Wiki, Communities, resources, interactive activities, classes, pretty much EVERYTHING! Their Collaborative Tree is great for beginners, and people looking to connect, but I feel is not the place to STORE your online tree for advance users, as that is not what it is meant for...if you use it as place to STORE or share YOUR Particular family tree, you will most likely be extremely frustrated, as it is a COLLABORATIVE tree, for everyone to collaborate on in that family line...it is a tree for everyone, not just your tree anymore :)

2 Comments

Know Who Wears the Genes in Your Family:
Family History and Genealogy
Blogspot

The Best German Genealogy Research Resource!

Irish Genealogy Resource: IrishGenealogy.ie

Mexican Genealogy Resources

Irish Genealogy Research Resources

As of Today, a New Game Changer From MyHeritage!

The Winners of the MyHeritage DeepNostalgia Challenge has Just Been Announced!

The My Heritage Deep Nostalgia Tool: Photos Brought to Life!

RootsTech Connect 2021 Has Come to an End, or Has It? :)

Some of My Preferred Sites for My Family Tree and DNA Results :)

Author

Categories

Archives

We Would Love to Have You Visit Again Soon!

Hours

Know Who Wears the Genes in Your Family is dedicated to promoting family history and genealogy, while maintaining commitment to client care and professional service

Know Who Wears the Genes in Your Family:Family History and Genealogy​Blogspot

Author

Categories

Archives

We Would Love to Have You Visit Again Soon!

Hours

Know Who Wears the Genes in Your Family is dedicated to promoting family history and genealogy, while maintaining commitment to client care and professional service

Know Who Wears the Genes in Your Family:
Family History and Genealogy
Blogspot