If you’re looking for another way to learn about the places your ancestors lived, gazetteers are something to be explored. Let’s take a look at what gazetteers are and how to find them (and yes, there are many available for free online!). Plus, I'll share two pro tips so that you can find and utilize gazetteers with ease.

What is a Gazetteer & How Can They Help?

First, you might be wondering what the heck a gazetteer is. Many years ago, when I was first encouraged to seek out...

If you do genealogy research outside of your native language, you probably already use Google Translate, which is a great tool for figuring out the meaning of a word you’re unfamiliar with. I certainly use it to look up words, but Google Translate serves another purpose for me, which I want to share with you.

You’ve probably experienced instances where names are way off in spelling, making it difficult to find what you’re looking for. From a US perspective, we see this all...

Are you reading everything in every record you uncover? I’ll be honest. My answer to this question years ago would have been, “well, I think so,” and I would later discover just how wrong that answer was.

You see, back in the day, I used to be a grab-and-go genealogist. I would grab the few pieces of information I wanted from a record and move on to the next record, and rinse and repeat. It wasn’t until I realized I was missing important clues in records that I really...

For years I’ve used Google Maps to plot the land parcels my ancestors owned. I just like to have a visual on a present-day map, especially if I want to visit the area or see what’s become of the land.

For the project I’m working on right now, I want to see all of the original land owners (those that purchased land from the federal US government) in a particular section. While a list is nice, I want a visual depiction. So I’m taking the information and plotting it on...

Last week I posted a video about how I catalog my educational materials. While the tool I use wasn’t the focus of the video, it quickly became the topic of discussion. I received several comments, DMs, and emails asking me about Notion, the tool I use that was shown in the video.

People wanted to know how else I use Notion, and if I use it for genealogy. So…I thought I’d put together a short article about the ways I use Notion for genealogy, along with a video, showing you...