Blog – Page 10 – Family Locket

The Nitty Gritty of Reading Handwritten German Church Records: Helpful Details for the German Researcher

by Beccy Martin, professional genealogist If you read Heidi Mathis’s 2021 six-part blog series, “Tracing Your 19th Century German Ancestors,” you are likely feeling ready to go hunt down records for your German research projects. Heidi’s excellent article provides rich context and numerous resources to get you to them, as well as tips and clues about how to tease out the information they contain. If you haven’t read it, or it’s been a while, I […]

By Beccy Martin January 12, 2025 Research Tips

RLP 339: Customizing an Airtable Research Log for Tax Research

In Episode #339 of Research Like a Pro, Nicole and Diana discuss customizing an Airtable research log for tax research. Tax records are invaluable for genealogy research because they were taken annually, filling in the gaps between federal censuses. The challenge is finding a good way to track and analyze the data. Airtable is a favorite research log tool, and by adding a linked table to the log, researchers can tame tax data and make […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer January 6, 2025 Podcast

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge: Let’s Get Started!

If you need a good reason to start writing your ancestor’s stories, let me introduce you to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge created by Amy Johnson Crow. Amy has engineered prompts for several years to stimulate our brains and help us brainstorm story ideas. I participated in 2022 and wrote several blog posts about my ancestors. I loved the motivation to write and discovered some neat things about people I thought I knew! […]

By Diana Elder January 5, 2025 Creating and Sharing Family History

RLP 338: When City Directory Indexing Goes Wrong

In this episode of Research Like a Pro, Nicole and Diana discuss the challenges of using city directories in genealogical research. Nicole shares her experience with the Trinidad, Colorado, city directory, where she encountered indexing errors due to the directory’s unique formatting. The directory included the post office location after each person’s name, which the indexing process misinterpreted as a middle name. This led to difficulties in finding her research subject using the search function. […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer December 30, 2024 Podcast

Artificial Intelligence and Genealogy: A Look Back at 2024

2024 was the year the genealogy community embraced artificial intelligence as a useful tool for our work as genealogists and family historians. Nicole and I spent many hours learning and teaching about incorporating AI into our research flow. For this final blog post of the year, it’s only fitting that we look back at where we’ve come. Since we’ve written many blog posts and recorded many podcasts on AI, I’m providing a curated list. If […]

By Diana Elder December 29, 2024 Artificial Intelligence, Research Tips

RLP 337: Handwritten Text Recognition by Claude 3.5 Sonnet

In this episode of the Research Like a Pro Genealogy podcast, Diana and Nicole discuss the advancements in handwritten text recognition by large language models (LLMs), specifically Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Nicole shares her experience testing Claude’s transcription abilities with an 1829 North Carolina deed. She is impressed with the accuracy, noting that Claude even outperformed her manual transcription in some instances. Diana and Nicole then provide listeners with valuable tips for transcribing handwritten text using […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer December 23, 2024 Podcast

3 Tips for Searching the Census When a Family Goes Missing

Do you have a family or individual who seems to be missing in the US census? You may have thought they were traveling or somehow skipped. Although this situation did occur, it could also be that employing some specific techniques could find those ancestors. In this article, I’ll share three tips that aided me in my search for my Weatherford family. Tip # 1 Revisit the Family The first thing to do is to revisit […]

By Diana Elder December 20, 2024 Records, Research Tips

RLP 336: England Probate, Court, and Manor Records with Jessica Morgan

In this episode of Research Like a Pro Genealogy podcast, Diana and Nicole continue their series on researching in England without parish records. They are joined by Jessica Morgan. Jessica is a genealogist specializing in British family research. The hosts and Jessica discuss using probate records to find family members, focusing on the differences between pre- and post-1858 records. They explain the court hierarchy in England and how to determine which court would have handled […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer December 16, 2024 Podcast

Review of “Chenneville: A Novel of Murder, Loss, and Vengeance” by Paulette Jiles

Reading historical fiction transports us to the times and places our ancestors lived, helping us understand their world beyond the basic facts found in records. Author Paulette Jiles has mastered this genre, as shown in her novels News of the World (2016) and Enemy Women (2002). Her books are set in areas where my ancestors lived in the 1800s – Missouri, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Texas. This fascinating region saw turmoil and unrest throughout the Civil […]

By Diana Elder December 14, 2024 Book Club, Creating and Sharing Family History

RLP 335: English Parish and Tax Records with Jessica Morgan

In this episode of Research Like a Pro, Nicole and Diana interview Jessica Morgan, an Accredited Genealogist specializing in U.K. research. They discuss strategies for researching English ancestry when traditional parish records of baptisms, marriages, and burials are unavailable. Jessica highlights the value of parish chest records, which contain documents like settlement papers, bastardy bonds, and apprenticeship indentures. These records can reveal an ancestor’s origins, family relationships, and even their occupation. The hosts and guest […]

By Nicole Elder Dyer December 9, 2024 Podcast