Genealogy In Action Blog

Learn about various record types, methods and strategies, references and resources, and tools and technology to help you grow your genealogy skills. Articles also include a take-action prompt so you can immediately put into practice what you learned.

Mind Mapping for Genealogy methods & strategies tools & technology Jan 18, 2024

This post is in memory of Ron Arons, who recently passed away. Ron was the author of Mind Maps for Genealogy: Enhanced Research Planning, Correlations, and Analysis. I have yet to read his book, so I can’t speak to it or his strategies for using mind maps for genealogy—I can only speak to how I use them and the different tools that exist, which I will do in this article.

A mind map is a visual brainstorming tool to help you organize your thoughts. Project managers use them to plan...

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Review Your Research, Break Down a Brick Wall methods & strategies Jan 18, 2023

Did you know that most of my “brick walls” have been solved by doing one simple thing?

Truth be told, when I sit down and review the research I’ve already done, I have a habit of finding the answer to my research question or at least some clues to point me in the right direction. A lot of this has to do with that old research I did when I was a newbie and didn’t know any better. I missed a lot of key information in those days, as I’m sure you can relate.

The...

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Listen Up: Another Use for Google Translate methods & strategies tools & technology Aug 24, 2022

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...

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5+ Clues You Might Be Missing in US Death Certificates methods & strategies records Jul 27, 2022

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...

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4 Reasons to Catalog Educational Materials education methods & strategies tools & technology Jun 30, 2022

As genealogists, we are taught to cite our sources, and while there are several reasons to do so, one of the most important is to help YOU keep track of what you found and where. In a way, our citations become our library catalog to the sources we've accumulated during the course of our genealogy research.

What we may not think to catalog is our educational and reference materials. These could be the books on your shelf, lectures/syllabi, articles in a periodical, and even websites.

As a...

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