Our “Paid” members now have one location where they can go and get links to all of our past meetings which have archived videos. You can locate the meeting by date or meeting topic. Click here for more information
German Surnames: Where They Come From and What They Mean
If you’ve been researching your German ancestors — especially in light of MyHeritage’s release of the new and exclusive North Rhine-Westphalia Death Index 1874- 1938 — you’ve probably been spending a lot of time with their surnames. Perhaps you’ve been
Perspectives on Boston’s 1764 Smallpox Epidemic
On 13 Apr 1764, John Adams sent his fiancée Abigail a story about being inoculated against smallpox in Boston. Through a cousin of Abigail’s, Dr. Cotton Tufts, Adams and his brother had received a referral to Dr. Nathaniel Perkins. At
What’s In A Name?
1794 Petition of Jacob Burkholder Do you have ancestors whose surnames were mangled in a variety of ways? Most of us do. Spelling wasn’t exact prior to 1900 and clerks often recorded names as they heard them. Often our ancestors
My Last AncestryDNA AutoCluster Analysis From Genetic Affairs – Post 1
I ran my last AutoClusters for AncestryDNA on Genetic Affairs on 11 March 2020, and I’m glad I did – see News From Genetic Affairs: Ancestry Demands They Stop Collecting DNA Match Data. I finally got around to looking at the
The U.S. Version of “Who Do You Think You Are?” has been Renewed for Another Season
Dick Eastman, author Dick Eastman has been writing this genealogy newsletter for 24 years. He has been involved in genealogy for more than 35 years. He has worked in the computer industry for more than 50 years in hardware, software,
How to Add Context to DNA Matches
No. I still haven’t figured out my parents’ DNA connection. It’s a journey, and along the way, I keep finding tools and methods to help make sense of DNA matches.After giving up on DNA triangulation, I wanted an easier way
Are Your Dead Ends Hiding DNA Matches?
Some dead ends are more important than others when a DNA connection is missing.Despite some juicy leads, I still don’t know why my parents share some DNA. They have a distant cousin relationship that I can’t nail down. So let’s
Finding Richmans, Richs, and Marshmans in the Hilperton Land Tax Assessment Records, 1773-1793 – Part II
I wrote Part I of this series last week, saying: “Continuing my quest for finding the parents of my 3rd great-grandfather John Richman (1788-1867) in Hilperton, Wiltshire, England, I recalled that I had obtained digital images of the Hilperton and
Comments on the Same Name = Same Person Problem
Using the Findmypast.com website, I can search for the frequency of any person’s name in all of the website’s millions of records. I can also filter the names by area and time. For example, if I were looking for an