Light a Candle for Thanksgiving

Plymouth, England, and Plymouth, Massachusetts, are already beginning celebrations (which will culminate in 2020) for the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower, with special events on both sides of the Atlantic. “As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled has shown unto many” –Plymouth Colony Governor William... (Read More)

Researching Recent Obituaries for All My ‘Mayflower’ Cousins

There is more than one way to find your relatives in GenealogyBank’s massive archive of Recent Obituaries. I’ve noticed that genealogists often go to the Recent Obituaries collection when they are researching a specific relative that died in the past 40 years. They search, find them and go. But wait—there’s more. There is another... (Read More)

History of the Plymouth Rock Landmark

Plymouth Rock, a large boulder on the edge of Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts, is traditionally identified as the place where the Pilgrims first stepped ashore from the Mayflower in 1620 to found Plymouth Colony. Plymouth Rock has been visited, celebrated, and written about for centuries. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville, a French author traveling throughout the... (Read More)

How to Find Descendants of Mayflower Pilgrims in Recent Obits

Genealogists love their ancestors—as well as the fact that important family history connections are often mentioned in recent obituaries. Have you ever noticed how common it is for these recent obituaries to describe the name of their ancestor who came over on the Mayflower ship or fought in the American Revolutionary War? Use those... (Read More)

Researching Genealogy with Military Records and Lists in Newspapers

  Researching Genealogy with Military Records and Lists in Newspapers From the Revolutionary War to Pearl Harbor to Iraq, newspapers are a valuable resource for researching your military ancestry and learning about the history of war in the United States. Newspapers have been a dependable source of information that Americans have relied upon throughout... (Read More)