Thomas Hill—American Revolutionary War Minuteman Hero Gone

“Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow In searching through early 19th Century newspapers, time and again we find historical obituaries about the passing of “Revolutionary Heroes,” as America’s newspapers recorded the honored service of those who fought to secure this country’s freedom from England.... (Read More)

Earthquake! Newspapers Record Destruction in California History

Introduction: Gena Philibert-Ortega is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.” In this guest blog post, Gena shows how historical newspapers provide excellent coverage of disasters such as earthquakes, including detailed casualty lists helpful to genealogists. Living in California as I do, earthquakes are a fact of life. Because of... (Read More)

You Find Family in the Most Unexpected Ways

Introduction: Scott Phillips is a genealogical historian and owner of Onward To Our Past® genealogy services. In this guest blog post, Scott tells about doing genealogy research on an author—and finding a surprising, direct link to one of his own ancestors. Recently I was searching the Internet for genealogy resources relating to the early... (Read More)

Who Do You Think You Are? Sourcing GenealogyBank

Gather round the telly, grab some popcorn and let the kids stay up! Special alert to our GenealogyBank members in the United Kingdom and beyond: please pay careful attention to the next television episode featuring Samantha Womack on Who Do You Think You Are? being broadcast on BBC-TV in the UK. We received word... (Read More)

A Genealogist’s Family Story: A Blind Baby & Kind Strangers

This is a bittersweet family story, about an abandoned blind baby and the kindness of strangers. But it is also an interesting story about family history research, telling the tale of a genealogist finding the facts about her grandmother. Melissa Archibald wrote us about the brick wall on her family tree involving her grandmother—and... (Read More)

Three Steps to Help You Get Your Genealogy in Gear

Introduction: Gena Philibert-Ortega is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.” In this guest blog post, Gena provides three ideas to help genealogists break through the “brick wall” they sometimes run into while searching their family history. Do you feel stuck? All genealogists come to a point where they just... (Read More)