Tidbits: Don’t Neglect The Neighboring Record

registration card

Don’t Neglect The Neighboring Genealogical Record, 2nd edition.  Updated 2017

Something that happens often is that while researching your family tree you find yourself looking at the image records over and over again. That’s something that I do frequently. They are just plain interesting to review, and So Often I eventually discover a hidden nugget of information that I wasn’t originally looking for!  I prefer to review the original record when it’s not too inconvenient. Original image records are one of the greatest things brought to the internet for genealogy research. Things that can be seen with your own eyes are the handwritten records of the census, voter registrations, draft cards, passport applications and more.

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The Less-Common Name

by David Haas, Geneosity.com

Chances are that you have dealt with this genealogy research challenge before, or eventually will. You’re looking up a John, Mary, Michael, or Ann with some relatively common surname, and to your surprise there are over 400 or even over a thousand people with the name you’re looking up. Before you spend hours combing through hundreds of listings that match the name and another piece of data you should try something different first.

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Online Genealogy Resources

Geneosity.com is an online resource for the genealogy or family history enthusiast.  Here you’ll find a guide of the most useful websites and methods of locating the information that you seek.   Each resource will assist in facilitating your family tree projects effectively.

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of potential sources from which you can investigate the genealogy of your family.   For every online resource cited herein, there are dozens of offline or “in print”  books, photos, newspapers, directories and other items also available though many libraries and local government records.   Each have their benefit.  In libraries and other historical repositories of family information the benefit is in gaining access to items not indexed elsewhere. Each trip to the library or to family history centers offer to uncover something never seen before except in print.  In many cases you can see the first-hand documentation from the actual sources, but you need to be physically located in these places to see these records.   No person can conduct their research completely from the internet, in libraries or even at a family history center provided by the Church of Latter Day Saints.   A concerted effort using all of these resources are usually necessary.

Researching ancestry data items online is a different methodology.   Most online resources cite thousands and millions of records at some point scanned, copied or otherwise transcribed for your reading pleasure in whatever location you choose as long as you have an internet connection.   Being capable of browsing information from a broad variety of sources literally across the globe has advantages and disadvantages.  The vast amounts of information can make it difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for but you can indeed get much closer to the actual source online.

Below is our list of the most useful online genealogy resources. Some are very well-known and some are less-known or niche sites.

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