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...

For the last couple of months, I’ve been on a journey to digitize my collection of slides and film reels. Probably ten or more years ago I envisioned buying equipment (which is reasonably priced) and doing the job myself. Heck, I even have a slide/negative/film scanner in my Amazon wish list!

But I figured that if after ten years, I still never got around to buying the scanner and doing the project, I wasn’t ever going to get to it. So I decided to outsource the project. There are...

Your favorite genealogy or genealogy-related website may have some secrets…

Wait, what secrets?

Each website has its own search algorithms, so the way you search on one site, may not be effective on another. Case in point: For many websites, a question mark represents one character (e.g., Sm?th), but at WorldCat, it’s the pound symbol (a.k.a. hashtag) that represents one character (e.g., Sm#th).

That’s just one example, but just know that each site's search works...

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...

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...