Finding Ancestors Before Statewide Vital Records
Most states didn't require birth and death certificates until the early 1900s. Here's where to look instead.
Research Methods & Evidence
How experienced researchers analyze records, weigh evidence and prove conclusions.
The Genealogical Proof Standard in Practice
How professional genealogists decide when a conclusion is proven, and how to apply the five elements of the GPS to your own brick walls.
The FAN Club: Solving Problems Through Friends, Associates and Neighbors
When your ancestor's own records run out, the people around them can still lead the way. A step-by-step guide to cluster research.
Reading Old Handwriting and Dates in Early Records
The long s, Latin abbreviations, "inst." and "ult.", and double dates like 1731/2. How to read 18th- and 19th-century documents with confidence.
How to Use Online Family Trees Without Copying Their Mistakes
Other people's trees can be great leads or the fastest way to fill your tree with errors. How to tell the difference.
City Directories: Tracking Your Ancestors Year by Year
The phone books of the past list adults with addresses and jobs every year, filling the ten-year gaps between censuses.
Finding a Woman's Maiden Name: 15 Places to Look
Women's maiden names are among the hardest facts to find in American records. These are the record types most likely to reveal one, and how to use them.
Tracing German Ancestors: Finding the Village and Its Church Books
German research depends on finding the exact town. How to identify it from American records, locate it in a gazetteer, and search church books, civil records and town family books.
Deed Platting: Mapping Your Ancestor's Land from the Deed
How to turn a metes-and-bounds deed description into a map, fit neighbors' tracts together, and use the result to separate men of the same name and find the land today.
Planning an Archive or Courthouse Research Trip
Most records still aren't online. How to find out what an archive or courthouse holds, prepare before you go, follow reading-room rules, and come home with everything you need.
Mastering the FamilySearch Catalog: Records Nobody Has Indexed
A name search covers only a fraction of what FamilySearch holds. The catalog leads you to millions of digitized but unindexed record books, free. Here's how to use it.
Full-Text Search: Finding Ancestors in Handwritten Deeds, Wills and Court Records
Computer handwriting recognition has made millions of unindexed pages searchable for the first time. How FamilySearch's full-text search works, how to search it well, and its limits.
County Histories, Published Family Histories and Genealogy Journals
Nineteenth-century county histories, compiled genealogies and scholarly journals can hand you generations of research, if you know how to use them and when not to trust them.
Where Did My Ancestor Go? Finding Someone Who Vanishes Between Records
Your ancestor is in the 1880 census and missing from 1900. Before you assume the worst, work through the most common reasons people disappear from records, and where to find them again.
Why Can't I Find My Ancestor in the Index? Search Tricks That Work
Misspellings, misread handwriting and transcription errors hide millions of ancestors from name searches. Wildcards, Soundex, sideways searches and browsing will find most of them.
Is This the Same Person? Telling Apart People with the Same Name
Two John Millers in one county is the classic genealogy trap, and the source of countless wrong trees. How to tell same-name people apart, and how to prove which records belong to whom.
The "Cherokee Princess" and Other Family Legends: How to Test a Family Story
Royal ancestors, three brothers who came over, a famous relative, a Native American great-grandmother. How to respectfully test family legends, and what the records usually show.
Old Family Photos: How to Date and Identify Them
A box of unlabeled photos is a puzzle you can solve. How to date a photo from its type, the photographer's studio, clothing and hairstyles, and how to work out who's in it.
Writing Your Family History: From Research Notes to a Story People Will Read
Years of research don't mean much if no one can understand them. How to turn names and dates into a readable family history, from a single ancestor's story to a printed book.
Shared Matches and Sorting Your DNA List into Family Lines
Thousands of DNA matches become manageable once you sort them by grandparent. How shared matches, the Leeds Method and clustering tools work, and why close relatives sometimes land on the "wrong" side.
Unexpected DNA Results: When a Parent Isn't Who You Thought
DNA tests regularly reveal unknown siblings, adoptions and different biological parents. How to confirm what the results mean, take care of yourself, and decide what to do next.
Finding Birth Family: Adoption Research with Records and DNA
How adoptees and their descendants can search for birth family using original birth certificates, court records, registries and, most powerfully, DNA.
Orphans, Guardianships and the Orphan Trains
Children who lost a parent often left a trail of court, orphanage and placement records. How to find guardianships, apprenticeships, orphanage records and orphan train placements.
Poorhouses, Asylums, Prisons and Hospitals: Institutional Records
Ancestors who spent time in a poorhouse, asylum, prison, hospital or soldiers' home left records most researchers never look for. Where to find them, and the privacy rules that govern them.
Revolutionary War Ancestors and Lineage Societies (DAR, SAR and Mayflower)
How to find a Revolutionary War patriot in your tree, the records that prove his service, and how to document your line for the DAR, SAR, Mayflower Society and other lineage societies.
Nicknames and Naming Patterns: Why Polly Was Mary and Patsy Was Martha
Old nicknames that look nothing like the formal name, traditional naming patterns that can predict grandparents' names, and other naming customs that can help or trip you up.
Old Dates: The 1752 Calendar Change, Double Dating and Quaker Dates
Why George Washington had two birthdays, what "10 February 1731/32" means, how to read Quaker dates like "5th day of 3rd month," and how to calculate a birth date from an age at death.
Quaker Records: Meetings, Certificates and Disownments
Quakers kept some of the most detailed records in early America. How their meetings were organized, what their minutes and registers contain, and where to find them.
Native American Ancestors: Dawes Rolls, Indian Census Rolls and Tribal Records
How to research Native American ancestors using federal records such as the Dawes Rolls and Indian Census Rolls, tribal records and other sources, and how to approach this research with care.
Twentieth-Century Brick Walls: Finding People Born 1900–1950
Recent ancestors can be surprisingly hard to find, because privacy rules close many records. The sources that are open, and how to use them for grandparents and great-grandparents.
Jewish Ancestors from Eastern Europe: Town Names, Border Changes and JewishGen
How to find your Jewish ancestors' town when maps and names have changed, and the records and research communities, from JewishGen to Yizkor books, that make Eastern European Jewish research possible.
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Other topics
Getting Started 21Census Records 16Birth, Marriage & Death Records 15Church Records 12Cemeteries & Burials 2Newspapers & Obituaries 3Land & Property Records 7Wills, Probate & Court Records 13Tax Records 3Military Records 5Immigration & Naturalization 12DNA & Genetic Genealogy 9Libraries & Archives 8Research in the Old Country 10African American Research 2Research Methods & Evidence 31Brick Walls 11Organizing Your Research 7Online Sites & Family Trees 11