There’s nothing quite like the thrill of walking into a courthouse and uncovering a treasure trove of your ancestors’ records that exist nowhere else online. My research trip to the Love County Courthouse in Marietta, Oklahoma, turned into exactly that kind of genealogical treasure hunt. What started as a search for one specific 1913 deed mentioned in a newspaper article led to the discovery of over twenty records documenting the land transactions, oil leases, and...
Ever had an unsuccessful research trip where you spent time and money traveling to a facility, only to leave feeling frustrated and empty-handed? This is the first full post in our Onsite Research series (introduced here), where we’re diving into how to prepare for an onsite research trip and the essential research planning that should be done in advance. The good news is that with proper preparation, you can avoid those disappointing experiences and make...
In our digital age, when millions of records are accessible from our home computers, it’s easy to forget that some of our most valuable genealogical treasures still lie waiting in courthouse basements, archive storage rooms, and historical society filing cabinets. While online databases have revolutionized family history research, the reality is that countless records remain undigitized—and these might hold the keys to our most challenging research questions. Claude (an artificial intelligence tool) helped write...
