Local History & Genealogy

Master the #1 Free Genealogy Website!

Discover your ancestry on FamilySearch.org, the world's largest free genealogy website. This in-depth user guide shows you how to find your family in the site's databases of more than 3.5 billion names and millions of digitized historical records spanning the globe. Learn how to maximize all of FamilySearch.org's research tools--including hard-to-find features--to extend your family tree in America and the old country.

In this book, you'll find:

- Step-by-step strategies to craft search queries that find ancestors fast
- Practical pointers for locating your ancestors in record collections that aren't searchable
- Detailed overviews of FamilySearch.org's major U.S. collections, with helpful record explanations to inform your research
- Guidance for using FamilySearch.org's vast record collections from Europe, Canada, Mexico and 100-plus countries around the world
- Tips for creating and managing your family tree on FamilySearch.org
- Secrets to utilizing user-submitted genealogies, 200,000 digitized family history books, and the FamilySearch catalog of 2.4 million offline resources you can borrow through a local FamilySearch Center
- Worksheets and checklists to track your research progress
Illustrated step-by-step examples teach you exactly how to apply these tips and techniques to your own research. Whether you're new to FamilySearch.org or you're a longtime user, you'll find the guidance you need to discover your ancestors and make the most of the site's valuable resources.

"Addressing the explosive growth in ancestral travel, this compelling narrative combines intriguing tales of discovery with tips on how to begin your own explorations. Actor and award-winning travel writer Andrew McCarthy's featured story recounts his recent quest to uncover his family's Irish history, while twenty-five other prominent writers tell their own heartfelt stories of connection. Spanning the globe, these stories offer personal takes on journeying home, whether the authors are actively seeking long-lost relatives, meeting up with seldom-seen family members, or perhaps just visiting the old country to get a feel for their roots. Sidebars and a hefty resource section provide tips and recommendations on how to go about your own research, and a foreword by the Genographic Project's Spencer Wells sets the scene. Stunning images, along with family heirlooms, old photos, recipes, and more, round out this unique take on the genealogical research craze"--Provided by publisher.

DNA research is one of the most important and rapidly advancing areas in modern science and the practical use of DNA testing in genealogy is one of its most exciting applications. Yet there is no recent British publication in this field. That is why this accessible, wide-ranging introduction is so valuable. It offers a clear and practical way into the subject, explaining the scientific discoveries and techniques and illustrating with case studies how it can be used by genealogists to gain an insight into their ancestry.

The subject is complex and perhaps difficult for traditional genealogists to understand but, with the aid of this book, novices who are keen to take advantage of it will be able to interpret test results and use them to help answer genealogical questions which cannot be answered by documentary evidence alone. It will also appeal to those with some experience in the field because it places the practical application of genetic genealogy within a wider context, highlighting its role as a genealogical tool and suggesting how it can be made more effective.

“Family history begins with missing persons,” Alison Light writes in Common People. We wonder about those we’ve lost, and those we never knew, about the long skein that led to us, and to here, and to now. So we start exploring.

Most of us, however, give up a few generations back. We run into a gap, get embarrassed by a ne’er-do-well, or simply find our ancestors are less glamorous than we’d hoped. That didn’t stop Alison Light: in the last weeks of her father’s life, she embarked on an attempt to trace the history of her family as far back as she could reasonably go. The result is a clear-eyed, fascinating, frequently moving account of the lives of everyday people, of the tough decisions and hard work, the good luck and bad breaks, that chart the course of a life. Light’s forebears—servants, sailors, farm workers—were among the poorest, traveling the country looking for work; they left few lasting marks on the world. But through her painstaking work in archives, and her ability to make the people and struggles of the past come alive, Light reminds us that “every life, even glimpsed through the chinks of the census, has its surprises and secrets.”

What she did for the servants of Bloomsbury in her celebrated Mrs. Woolf and the Servants Light does here for her own ancestors, and, by extension, everyone’s: draws their experiences from the shadows of the past and helps us understand their lives, estranged from us by time yet inextricably interwoven with our own. Family history, in her hands, becomes a new kind of public history.

Research your family history using the latest online tools and apps

Genealogy Online For Dummies, 7th Edition is the perfect book to help you conduct genealogical research. Updated to cover the latest online tools, this new edition shows you how to leverage social networks and the rapidly increasing number of mobile apps to locate family members and trace their histories. You?ll discover how to start your investigation, develop a research plan of action, identify sites and resources that will be of the most use to you, get information from government records, preserve electronic materials, and share your findings with the rest of the family.

• Shows you how to conduct research into family history using the latest online tools, mobile apps, and other resources
• Explains how to use online and offline research techniques and tools for genealogical research, find and share information with other genealogists, and create your own site to showcase your family tree, digital images, and compiled genealogies
• Includes access to free versions of RootsMagic Essentials and Legacy Family Tree Standard Edition as well as information on free websites for storing your genealogical information
• Covers DNA research and testing, new geocoding applications, U.S. Census information available online, international records, public access catalogs, and more

Genealogy Online For Dummies, 7th Edition helps you follow the clues to uncover your family?s legacy ? the fun and easy way.

Unlock the family secrets in your DNA!

Discover the answers to your family history mysteries using the most cutting edge tool available. This plain-English guide (newly updated and expanded to include th latest DNA developments) will teach you what DNA tests are available; the pros and cons of the major testing companies; and how to choose the right test to answer your specific genealogy questions. And once you've taken a DNA test, this guide will help you use your often-overwhelming results, with tips for understanding ethnicity estimates, navigating suggested cousin matches, and using third-party tools like GEDmatch to further analyze your data.

The book features:


· Colorful diagrams and expert definitions that explain key DNA terms and concepts such as haplogroups and DNA inheritance patterns
· Detailed guides to each of the major kinds of DNA tests and tips for selecting the DNA test that can best help you solve your family mysteries, with case studies showing how each can be useful
· Information about third-party tools you can use to more thoroughly analyze your test results once you've received them
· Test comparison guides and research forms to help you select the most appropriate DNA test and organize your results
· Insights into how adoptees and others who know little about their ancestry can benefit from DNA testing

Whether you've just heard of DNA testing or you've tested at all three major companies, this guide will give you the tools you need to unpuzzle your DNA and discover what it can tell you about your family tree.

Ancestry.com keeps growing, but how can you find your ancestors on the huge and ever-changing site? In this workbook, an essential companion to the Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com, you'll learn how to use Ancestry.com to its full advantage with detailed guides to searching Ancestry.com's digitized records. Each section briefly discusses how to search Ancestry.com for a particular type of record (including census records, vital records and historical publications), then shares detailed, illustrated tutorials that put those strategies into practice. And with the worksheets and genealogy forms in each section, you can easily plan your own Ancestry.com searches and apply what you've learned.

"Unearth clues to your past. Not all research can be done from home - sometimes you have to head into the field. Cemeteries are crucial for any genealogist's search, and this book will show you how to search for and analyze your ancestors' graves. Discover tools for locating tombstones, tips for traipsing through cemeteries, an at-a-glance guide to frequently used gravestone icons, and practical strategies for on-the-ground research. And once you've returned home, learn how to incorporate gravestone information into your research, as well as how to upload grave locations to BillionGraves and record your findings in memorial pages on Find A Grave. The Family Tree Cemetery Field Guide features: Detailed step-by-step guides to finding ancestor's cemeteries using websites like Find A Grave, plus how to record and preserve death and burial information; Tips and strategies for navigating cemeteries and finding individual tombstones in the field, plus an at-a-glance guide to tombstone symbols and iconography; Resources and techniques for discovering other death records and incorporating information from cemeteries into genealogical research." -- back cover.

A step-by-step guide to researching your family tree. Interested in doing your family tree but don't know how? Genealogy for Beginners covers everything you need to get started researching your family history or continue a project you've already started. You'll get practical suggestions from an experienced genealogist, and detailed, step-by-step instructions for carrying out a quality family history research. Topics covered include: -Getting started with a family history research project -Discovering which subscription services are worth the price -Using Ancestry.com effectively -Finding obituaries -Interviewing family members -Preserving and organizing paper and digital files, plus photographs -Getting the most out of DNA testing for genealogy -Conducting cemetery research -Finding and interpreting non-US records -Doing cultural and ethnic heritage research -Finding professional researchers and translators -Keeping up with the genealogy news With this book in hand, you're sure to succeed.