No Bull Genealogy
Memories of my grandfather
I’m thinking about my grandparents lately. Here’s what I remember the most about my grandfather Alex Kaiser. He could mash potatoes so smoothly with just a metal potato masher and the strength of one arm, you would swear the potatoes were whipped. He used to bet his grandchildren they would never be able to find…
Ockham’s razor
The 14th century philosopher and theologian William Ockham posed the now famous theory that, and I’m paraphrasing here, the simplest answer is probably the correct answer. This theory can also apply to those conducting genealogy research: if you are jumping through hoops trying to force a relationship between people, it probably isn’t there. Minimally, you…
Paper genealogy
Are you a paper genealogist? Check out Archives.gov for their great selection of pedigree charts and other genealogy forms. I prefer their forms because they are neat and clean and have a lot of white space. You can see all their forms here: https://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/charts-forms Here are some of my favorite forms. These forms have all…
Land patents
Do you have ancestors who homesteaded land as they made their way west across the country? You can track down those documents on the Bureau of Land Management website. You need to input the name of your ancestor and the location of the land (the state is fine). Your search will reveal the land patent…
Special characters
Are there special characters in your ancestors’ names? Accents, umlauts, or cedillas? Francois just isn’t the same thing as François, nor is Loffler the same as Löffler or Hanss the same as Hanß. Without a keyboard in a language other than English, you can still easily get these special letters using the Alt key and…
To spit or not to spit
If you are late to the DNA train, please consider being tested. True story: My husband discovered an adult daughter he never knew he had. And grown grandchildren. It changed our lives for the better. Even if you don’t have a big reveal like that, you can help some else discover who they are or…
Sourcing an old family tree
If you have a family tree that was passed down to you, consider finding sources for each person on the tree. It’s not as difficult as you might think, and we can give you suggestions for making it easier for you. Start with the earliest people on your pedigree chart and work your way backwards…
Secret to Sourcing
The most important thing you can do as you research your family history is to keep good records about where you find information. That’s a lot easier to do in the digital age, since you can just copy and paste details and links. My secret weapon is using Bitly.com to shrink the links to manageable…
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No Bull Genealogy 