When just beginning the genealogy journey, there are common pitfalls new genealogist need to watch out for. However, there are mistakes that can catch even pro genealogists unless they are careful. Are you making any of these surprising genealogy mistakes in your family history research?
Summer is the time for family, friends, fun, and of course, vacations! These warm summer days are the ideal time to get outside, play, and enjoy the sunshine. When all of these things come together, it’s a fantastic opportunity to capture new memories, especially with the ease of camera access on smartphones and tablets!
The word “serendipity” was first used in 1754 by Horace Walpole in a letter wherein he remarked on “making discoveries, by accident or sagacity, of things that they were not in quest of”. In family history it applies when the researcher finds useful information that they were not intentionally looking for. This is a tale of one such instance.
I first learned to take a closer look at old photographs not with those in my family’s own collection, but by studying a forgotten photograph album picked up at an antique store. The photographs within this album dated to the Civil War, and in an effort to identify the individuals based on a few faded captions, I studied them carefully. Who were the women wearing stunning, full-skirted dresses? Who were the children with the solemn faces and neatly curled hair? Might the portraits of bewhiskered men have been a last memento before they left home for battle?
Back in October, we mentioned that we’d be making some changes to the MyCanvas website. Now, we are pleased to announce that those changes have arrived!
Not only have we integrated our new logo colors to the design, but we’ve updated the website by adding beneficial features such as new navigation, layout display, and…
Sweden. A country that conjures up images of ABBA, safe cars and furniture that you buy flat and have to put together. If you have ever done any research into Swedish ancestors, however, Sweden will also conjure up names like ‘Johan’, ‘Olaf’, ‘Anders Andersson’, ‘Olaf Olafsson’ and of course their children ‘Anders Johansson’ and ‘Johan Olafsson’. But Swedish genealogy doesn’t have to be all headaches and mazes of Johans. With careful preparation and an understanding of how Swedish archives work, research in to Swedish genealogy can be very rewarding very quickly.
At one point every genealogist hits the proverbial brick wall in genealogy research. Everything comes to a standstill and we try to decide what we want to know and how we should proceed. The answer will be different for each researcher, and even within separate family lines. For instance…
Grandma C. was a special lady. She always knew the right thing to say – always. She was Irish by descent, but cooked a mean Italian Sunday dinner. Perhaps most importantly, she knew how to have a good time. When we visited, it was a tradition to…
I was a single, military parent with three (very hyper) little boys, aged nine, seven and four.
It was too easy getting them involved in my genealogy research, because for them it was another adventure!
Our first road trip was to a local cemetery to photograph some stones for a special commission in Ontario.
I found a quilt top that tells its own story. The names of the women who made its pieces are stitched on each square in a variety of colors and lovingly prepared. The names are my maternal grandfather’s family. When I started closely examining it, I realized…