In our podcast episode today, Diana and I discuss what professional genealogists can do for you. We discuss hiring researchers to solve difficult problems in your family tree, transcribing and translating documents, writing family history books, researching on-site, heritage trips, etc. We also discuss how to choose a professional genealogist and what you should expect. Let’s get started! Links Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) APG website – search for a professional by specialties APG website...
In our podcast episode today, I’m discussing my research project to discover the parents of Lucinda Keaton of Pendleton, Anderson County, South Carolina. Diana and I will review what I knew when I started the project, how I found clues leading to a hypothesis that her father was William Keaton of Pendleton District, South Carolina, and what records I searched to prove the hypothesis. We’ll discuss each step in the research like a pro process,...
In today’s podcast episode, Diana and I are talking about continuing education in genealogy. Benjamin Franklin said, “an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” We discuss accreditation, the importance of keeping up with new methodologies and developments in the field such as DNA, and how to go about improving your genealogy education. Learning about records, localities, and methodologies are a good place to start. We also talk about setting goals, creating an education plan,...
In our podcast episode today, Diana and I discuss ideas for organizing genealogy papers, documents, electronic files, and more. We’ll talk about how to choose a personal family tree software program and how to create backups of your research so they don’t get lost or destroyed. Diana is going to talk about her story of receiving a suitcase full of unorganized genealogy papers from her father and how she dealt with that. We’ll talk about...
In our podcast episode today, Diana and I discuss a research project that Diana completed to determine if George W. Dillard was the father of our ancestor, Cynthia (Dillard) Royston. Here’s the objective of the project: The objective of this research project was to determine if George W. Dillard born 1781 in Virginia and died 1854 in Lee County, Alabama was the father of Cynthia (Dillard) Royston. Cynthia was born about 1815 in Georgia. She...
In today’s episode of the podcast we are talking all about why you should write your results at the end of a research project. There are so many reasons, but probably the most important is that the act of writing about something helps you make connections and solve problems. And of course, it also helps you to leave the project knowing that you can pick it back up in a year and know exactly where...
In our podcast episode today, Diana and I discuss research logs. You know, that dreaded spreadsheet that you should keep when you’re doing research. We will discuss a few different types of research logs, including Research Ties, spreadsheets, tables, paper logs, and the research notebook. We will also talk about how we normally use our research log in our workflow. Diana is going to talk about how she never feels like she’s really doing research...
Today’s podcast episode is about source citations. We’ll discuss when you need to make citations, how to do it, and the questions to ask that will guide you as you create them: who, what, when, where within, and where in the world. If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of making source citations you’re not alone. Nicole tells about her experience really learning how to do it. Diana will tell us about layered source citations,...
Today’s podcast episode is all about why you need to start creating research plans for every project, and how to do it. There are fives steps: Create a document with objective at top, compile a summary of known facts, write a hypothesis, make a list of sources to search, then finalize a prioritized strategy. We will talk about the need to be flexible as we follow our research plans, since plans change once you find...
Today Diana and I are going to wrap up our discussion of locality research. In last week’s episode we talked about the first two question to ask: “What happened?” and “Where did it happen?” Today, we are talking about the last question: “Why did it happen?” This episode is all about the historical context that affected our ancestors lives. What is your favorite way to learn about historical context? We suggest several ideas, including county...
