Part 1: The Dream, the Deadline, and the Diocesan Detour

Have you ever stopped to wonder what happens to all the records you’ve created over your lifetime, the birth, baptism, school, marriage, employment, and so on? Truthfully, I hadn’t either. Not until last summer, when I embarked on a new family adventure: dual citizenship.

A Quick Note Before We Begin

I'm currently partnering with a new startup, citizenship.eu, which helps U.S. citizens navigate the process of applying for dual citizenship. When I shared this with my family, my adult kids immediately asked, “Wait, why aren’t we doing that?” Umm… good question. So we all jumped in, and as the keeper of the records, I became the designated gatherer.

That’s when I discovered something infuriating: even though I already had most of the records we needed, the consulate won’t accept them. All documents must be CERTIFIED. In other words, I had to go out and get them all. Again.

We made the decision on a Tuesday in late July. I emailed the consulate that night and received instructions the next morning. Efficient start, right? I immediately submitted requests for records from places too far to visit in person (Arizona and Florida), and then started prepping for the in-person trek. I affixed stickies to each document listing the archive’s name, phone number, address, and hours of operation. My plan:

• Tuesday – Chicago
• Wednesday – Indiana
• Thursday – Ohio
  Two weeks, tops. I’d be done and have the documents. Right?

Ah, sweet optimism. Within days, that dream timeline was toast and by the end of the second week, I would’ve been thrilled to finish in three months. Four months later, I'm still waiting for one! Why the delay?

Let’s just say I discovered firsthand that archival recordkeeping in the United States is a certified disaster.

And So It Begins...

My first unexpected hurdle? Tracking down my own church wedding record.

We were married at our university chapel, which has since closed, so I called the diocese to ask where the records had gone. They gave me the name of a parish to contact. I left a message. A few hours later, I got a call back: Wrong church. I was told to try another.

Funny twist, the new secretary and I realized we had a strange connection: our husbands had once taught at neighboring schools and knew each other. Small world. I sent off another email. No response. I called the next day and was told it went to spam. Okay... but if they knew that, why hadn’t they, you know, read it and responded?

Next email I received was that there was NO record. I was told someone else would need to look at it in a few days. Five days later, I received an email: “We found the entry, but we can’t read the handwriting, so we can’t create a new certificate.” Lucky for them, I had a scan of the original. I sent it digitally. Five days after that, a new certificate arrived in the mail except it was typed up with the wrong church.

Cue another email.

The Sacrament Shuffle

Next came one of our children’s baptismal certificates. But the other child, I was told the church refused to issue it because sacraments had been received “out of order.” Excuse me?

Turns out they had confirmation on record but not communion, so the secretary, apparently moonlighting as a canon law expert, decided she couldn’t issue the certificate. One quick email from me with the communion record attached, and that should’ve been settled. But the principle of the thing? Maddening. I later learned that many parishes separate the sacraments - one book for baptism and confirmation and a separate book for communion. I suspect that the church where the communion has occurred either didn't send the info to the church that held the baptism record or the receiving church didn't record it back in the day. I have now insured it's fixed for eternity.

NARA: Fast Processing, Slow Arrival

I also contacted NARA Chicago to request emigration records. To their credit, they processed and charged my card lightning-fast. The problem? Nothing arrived. Ten days went by. I emailed them to ask if the records had been sent. My mail delivery is spotty at best, which is one reason I had planned to collect as much in person as possible. They had mailed them and resent. You can see how the postal service delivered the second set - cut open on both ends.

NARA Chicago, it turns out, doesn’t have ship manifests or census records and though those are free online, the consulate requires certified copies. That means hiring someone in D.C. to get them in person.

So far, no luck. My go-to researchers hadn’t responded probably because it’s not in their usual wheelhouse. The NARA-DC website is quirky and I was unable to request them online. I thought I might need to make the trip myself because of course I will if I have to! Stay tuned because next week as the saga continues with more twist and turns.

Wrong Boat, Right Story: Cracking a Pilgrim Family Myth

 

Not all pilgrim stories wear black hats or buckle shoes. Some travel quietly through time in meeting minutes, migration maps, and a stray penciled “(Pilgrim)” on a lineage list. No dramatic claims, no grand family lore, just a quiet truth waiting patiently until the right record whispers at the right moment.

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful not only for the bold ancestors who stood at the prow of history, but also for the gentle ones who crossed oceans in faith and humility, leaving their legacies in ink and example rather than brass and ceremony.

For years, my husband’s Williams family cherished a tale that they were descended from a Pilgrim. The “proof” sat in a letter written in the 1960s by the family matriarch, Gertrude Honaker, who wrote that Balsora Dorval had belonged to both the DAR and a Mayflower-related society.[1]

There was only one hitch: no such membership could be found. Not with the DAR, not with the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, not in early Pilgrim lineage rolls.[2] A genealogical dead-end dressed in patriotic stationery.

Balsora, the daughter of John Hicks Williams and Catherine Jarvis was born 23 April 1821, on Long Island, New York, the eldest of ten.[3] She followed her family to Lansinghburgh, Rensselaer, New York and married Edward Dorval in 1845.[4] The couple eventually made their way to Chicago and then Toulon, Stark, Illinois.[5] She died in Toulon on 22 December 1907 and is buried there.[6] She lived a solid, steady American life. But as for those lineage memberships? Silence.

Balsora Williams Dorval c. 1860

Still, I never let go of the thread. Family stories rarely spring from nothing; the facts just sometimes take the scenic route.

Then, while drafting sketches for my current genealogy project, Echoes of Brittania, I stumbled across a saved reference: The Lineages of Members of the National Society of Sons and Daughters of the Pilgrims, Vol. II. There, under membership no. 8308 for Della Ruthe Skates of Parma, Ohio, was a lineage tracing back to:

Dr. John Rodman II (Pilgrim)
(ca. 1653 – 10 Jul 1731)
m. Mary Scammon (ca. 1663 – 24 Feb 1748)

It cited Jones, Rodman Family Genealogy; History of Hocking Valley, Ohio.

And suddenly, the light came on.

Dr. Rodman wasn’t a Mayflower Pilgrim. He was a Quaker physician imprisoned in New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland for refusing to remove his hat in church.[7] He was banished to Barbadoes where he and wife Elizabeth, parentage unknown, raised their family. Two of their sons, John and Thomas, like their father was a physician; the brothers decided to relocate to Newport Rhode Island where John married second, Mary Scammon in 1682.[8] So the actual line runs: Dr. John Rodman -Thomas Rodman - Elizabeth Rodman m. Benjamin Hicks - Margaret Hicks m. Wilson Williams leading at last to the Williams family and to Balsora’s line.

When I think of Pilgrims, I think of the Mayflower voyage in 1620. I don’t picture a Quaker doctor arriving sixty-two years later by way of the Caribbean! But clearly, my definition and the definition beloved by late-1800s genealogists and patriotic club founders aren’t the same. Their scope was a bit more generous. That generosity was remembered by their great grand nieces.

So this Thanksgiving, as we’re passing around the sweet potatoes, I can finally share that I’ve solved the Pilgrim family mystery. Different ship, different year, different take on the meaning of “pilgrim.”

And here’s the delicious part: in all this, I had to laugh, because my research long ago found that the family does descend from an early Plymouth settler Robert Hicks, who arrived on the Fortune in 1621, just one year after the Mayflower.[9] Somehow, that piece drifted out of family memory while the Barbados Quaker got promoted to “Pilgrim.” It must have been the hat!

From Bards to Bard

Photo by a kind docent at Shakespeare's Home, Stratford on Avon, August 2024.

 

We had just left the library, me, exhilarated from chasing an elusive 14th-century ancestor through a nest of old parish records; him, simply relieved to stand upright again after half an hour on the bottom shelves. He’d spent the morning handing me books like a dutiful squire and now looked as though he deserved a knighthood or, at the very least, a sturdy chair. Fortunately, Shakespeare’s schoolroom promised benches and history. Two things I never resist, and one he can usually nap through.

Inside, the air smelled of beeswax and old oak, the kind of room where you half expect to hear the scratch of quills and the snap of a tutor’s patience. A man dressed in full Elizabethan regalia was lecturing with theatrical gusto about young William’s schooling. My husband settled in contentedly, no doubt counting this as his rest stop on the Tudor trail.

Then came the story of how Shakespeare’s sister once disguised herself as a boy to attend lessons beside him, the first recorded case, our costumed instructor declared, of gender-bending for the sake of education. My husband leaned over, voice low and amused, “That would be your line.”

Of course I replied , I always reply. “Yes, it would.”

The tutor froze mid-sentence, eyes narrowing like an owl’s. “Would you care to share with the class, madam?”

Reader, I was forty years too old to be scolded and four hundred years too late to be sitting in Shakespeare’s classroom yet there I was, reprimanded under the same beams that once heard Hamlet’s first drafts forming in the back of a boy’s mind. My husband, naturally, looked saintly.

As the lecture continued, I couldn’t help smiling. The old Welsh bards would have understood words have a life of their own, and some of us were simply born to answer them, even in other people’s classrooms.

After my recent AI experience that I blogged about last week, it's more important than ever to remember the power of words.

Remembering, not Celebrating, Veteran's Day

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I’ll be honest, Veterans Day is not my favorite holiday. It feels inappropriate to say “Happy Veterans Day” the same way we say Happy Thanksgiving, Happy New Year, or Happy Valentine's Day. What’s happy about it? The veteran made it through a horrible time, likely suffered PTSD, and then once a year gets a parade?

Although I am anti-war, I understand why war occurs because grown men, historically, have struggled to use their words to solve disagreements. Yet I still pause today to think about the countless past conflicts that drew ordinary, decent people into sacrifices no one should ever have to make.

This year, an article from AMAC captured that tension beautifully. “Remembering the World War I Generation This Veterans Day” reminds us that time has nearly erased the memory of those who served in the Great War, young men and women who endured unimaginable hardship, then quietly returned home to rebuild their lives.

Ironically, responses to that post weren’t about remembrance at all, but about which politician dodged which draft. That, in itself, says everything about why wars persist. We’re still fighting instead of mourning who’s lost.

Their generation is gone, but their stories are not. Some of those stories live on in the letters, journals, and memories families still hold. I was honored that my book, Thanks to the Yanks: World War I Letters from an Indiana Farm Boy to His Sweetheart, was featured in that piece. It follows one soldier’s journey from the Indiana fields to the battlefields of France and back again offering a glimpse into the humanity behind the headlines.

So today, I don’t celebrate. I remember. I think about the courage it takes not just to fight, but to return, to heal, and to live. And I’m grateful for every preserved letter and faded photograph that helps us remember those who did.

When AI Lost the Plot

 How a quiet English lineage turned into a political scandal and what it taught me about truth, technology, and trust.

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I use AI almost daily and have written and presented on it for nearly two years. But a recent experience left me completely baffled and more than a little uneasy.

I’ve been working on my final family genealogy book, this one tracing our Great Britain ancestry. My previous four books came together easily earlier this year because my notes were meticulous, my colleagues had verified my findings, and I’d been blogging about those ancestors for ten years.

Our British roots, though, are a different beast. Between my husband’s lines and mine, there are only five but they reach deep into medieval soil. Scholars can’t always agree on the pedigrees, and the repeated use of the same names has led to confusion and overlap. Sorting it all out requires patience, precision, and a love of historical detective work.

Last spring, when winter refused to obey the calendar, I drafted the outline and introduction for my new book, Echoes of Britannia. Then the season’s speaking engagements and client projects took over, and I set the manuscript aside with plans to finish it this fall.

When I returned to it in September, progress came slowly. My writing rhythm faltered, and I found myself staring at the same sentence for far too long. Grammarly could fix the punctuation, but it couldn’t fix writer’s block. My AI research assistant, Geni, usually helps bridge the gaps between genealogical sketches but apparently, he was blocked too.

We were working on the Venables of Kinderton, a noble but quiet family from Cheshire. They lived out their days peacefully, kept out of court battles, and occasionally donated a stained-glass window to a nearby abbey. In other words, wholesome and uneventful.

Until AI got involved.

My writing style isn’t the typical “Josiah begot Daniel who begot Uriah who begot…” genealogy. My family would fall asleep halfway through the second begot. They don’t like numbering systems either, even though they’re math people, not history people. Me? I’d rather run laps in PE than solve for X.

That’s why AI has been such a useful partner. Geni understands that I’m a storyteller who insists on historical truth, even when it’s messy. I like to think I’ve created a new genre: bedtime family stories with pictures for visual learners.

But one day, Geni froze mid-thought. After several failed attempts, I switched to another AI tool, Claude. I don’t use it often, but it greeted me warmly by name, which felt encouraging. I gave it a straightforward task:

“From the provided information, maintain all footnotes while making the narrative more engaging. Keep the tone conversational for readers with limited historical background.”

What came back stunned me.

The Venables, my mild, landholding, church-donating family, had been transformed into a political thriller. Claude had rewritten the story to liken them to a well-known modern politician, naming names and all. Suddenly, the Venables were misogynistic felons clawing for power.

I was horrified. I hit “thumbs down” and deleted it instantly.

A week later, I still couldn’t shake it. How could a neutral story about medieval gentry morph into a contemporary political allegory? Who gave the machine permission to do that?

My only conclusion: some AIs are now reflecting the political biases of the data they’re trained on. If their training includes modern news, it stands to reason that bias slips in and it shows.

That realization made me pause. AI is supposed to help us see patterns, not project agendas. As genealogists, we work hard to separate fact from family legend. Shouldn’t we expect the same integrity from our digital tools?

I chose not to share the story on Facebook. The last thing our country needs is another spark thrown into the bonfire of division. But I also felt this moment needed to be shared, not as outrage, but as a reminder.

We live in an era where algorithms, headlines, and echo chambers can reshape our understanding of truth. It’s up to us, researchers, writers, and everyday citizens , to hold fast to kindness, empathy, respect, honesty, and responsibility. These aren’t partisan ideals; they’re the foundation of human decency.

And as for those Venables? I’ve decided to let them rest a while. I’ll return to them soon, with fresh eyes and a renewed respect for their quiet simplicity.

Because sometimes, living a peaceful life that harms no one isn’t boring at all, it’s the truest kind of legacy.

Upcoming AI Event

Join me on Tuesday, November 4, at 2:30 pm EST when I present a beginning class on AI & Ancestry for Allen County Public Library. You can register here for free.

When the Universe Writes Back: A Halloween Follow-Up

 

As promised, my synchronicity streak isn’t done with me yet.

Bible Entry for Calvin DeWolf in Thompson Family Bible

Back in March, I mailed a request to the Cook County, Illinois Vital Records office seeking the death certificate of my husband’s second great-uncle, John Calvin DeWolf. He’s an intriguing figure. A cryptic entry in his mother’s Bible notes simply that he was “found dead in the woods in LaGrange.” That line alone opens a dozen genealogical rabbit holes:

Dead how?
Accident?
Sudden illness?
Suicide?
Foul play?

Why was he in the woods at all?
Where was he buried afterward?
Why has no obituary surfaced?

Online databases are silent. Newspaper searches cough politely and excuse themselves.

So I sent in my request… and then, nothing. Months passed. My check went uncashed. My mailman and I eyed each other suspiciously. I eventually chalked it up to a postal mishap.

Fast-forward to late July, when I traveled to Chicago to obtain several vital records in person for my family’s dual-citizenship pursuit. While there, I re-requested John Calvin’s death certificate. I handed over the form. I paid the fee. The clerk assured me they’d be in touch.

Every other record from that day has since dutifully arrived in my mailbox.

Except John’s.

And then last Tuesday, while writing the chapter on John Calvin’s parents for my upcoming book Echoes of Britannia, I footnoted the matter:

“Death certificate requested; not yet received. Someday, perhaps, the record will surface.”

I sighed, closed the my Word doc, and moved on.

Two days later, yes, exactly two, an envelope from the Cook County Vital Records office appeared in my mailbox. My heart did a little leap. Could this be it?

Not quite.

Inside was a Certificate of No Finding.

According to Cook County, they have no death record at all for John Calvin DeWolf.

So where did he die?
Was it reported?
Was it covered up?
Was it recorded elsewhere?

His half sister who owned the Bible at the time of his death and likely made the entry clearly believed he was found in LaGrange. The Bible entry says so. But the county has nothing.

The mystery deepens.

And the timing? After seven silent months, the response was generated on the very day I finally wrote about him.

Coincidence? Maybe. But these synchronicities love to show up when I start telling a story.

Of course, I’m not done with John. Next stop: IRAD, for coroner’s records, inquests, and investigations. Somebody, somewhere, documented what happened.

Because records hide.
But they rarely disappear forever.

Earlier this month, the same thing happened with my mom's Cook County, Illinois birth record. I had requested it in person in Chicago in late July. They couldn't find it which was no surprise to me as my mom and grandmom had both said the birth was only registered with the Roman Catholic Church, an accepted practice in 1918. On the anniversary of my mom's death earlier this month, I finally received a response from Cook County. It was a record of no record. Thanks, mom! Sometimes are family tell us the truth and we can confirm it over 100 years later.

At times, family history feels less like research and more like a conversation across time. We chase records, but every now and then, the records seem to chase us back. These little moments remind me that discoveries don’t always happen in archives. Sometimes they appear in unexpected envelopes or on memorial pages when we least expect them.

They’re often hidden in plain sight, waiting for the right moment to surface.

If you enjoy reflections like this, I’ve begun sending a short once-a-month note to curious-minded family historians. You can join me by messaging me at genealogyatheart.com. It’s a quiet circle, and you’re welcome there. I've also begun a FaceBook and LinkedIN page so we can interact frequently. Hope you'll join me there as well!

Happy Halloween, dear readers.
May the ancestors keep whispering and may you always listen.

Happy Halloween: The Synchronicity That Saved My Blog

 

My readers tell me, year after year, that my Halloween synchronicity series is their favorite tradition. Which is why, by August, I was in a quiet panic. The kids were back in school, stores were already pushing candy corn, and for the first time in my genealogical career… nothing weird had happened to me.

Nada. Zilch.

I considered scrapping the whole thing and writing a single line, “Sorry, folks, nothing to report this year” and calling it good. But that felt wrong. These uncanny little moments can’t be summoned on command, but I still held out hope that one would arrive just in time.

It did. On August 14th.

I was volunteering at the Association of Professional Genealogists table during the Jewish Genealogical Conference in Fort Wayne. Since I’d signed up for the whole week, I was allowed to attend a few sessions during breaks. I’m not Jewish, though occasionally my DNA results tease me with a percentage or two that disappears the next time I test, but I found every talk fascinating.

Meanwhile, in my own research life, I was deep in the throes of acquiring certified vital records for my family’s dual citizenship application. Two notarized forms were already on their way to Croatia to obtain my grandmother’s birth record. That left one gaping hole: my grandparents’ 1917 marriage record from Cook County, Illinois.

I had the index entry from Ancestry.com, names, date, location, marriage license number, but when I visited the Cook County Clerk’s office two weeks earlier, they couldn’t find the record. I paid for the search anyway, but they gave me no timeline of when they could do deep research.

At the conference, I mentioned my predicament to a fellow genealogist, who knew someone with database access. The news came back: my grandparents’ marriage record hadn’t been digitized. Neither had the record for the couple immediately after them.

Lost? Misfiled? Never returned? Theories abounded. One person even suggested they’d never married. (“It was staged,” she said of their wedding photo. To which I thought: Really? That would be an awfully elaborate prank for this couple.)

No one had a solid lead. And I needed that record, not just to prove the marriage, but to identify the church where it took place. Chicago city directories for the period were scarce. The Chicago History Museum couldn’t help. The Archdiocese would search closed-church records for $50 a pop, but that was a quick road to the poorhouse.

Then came my first odd nudge of the week. While exercising, I heard my grandmother’s voice in my head: Look at the back of the pictures. Sure enough, on the reverse of what looked like an engagement photo, there it was “Chicago Heights."

I brought the photo to Sherlock Kohn, a fellow conference-goer and photo expert, who confirmed the clothing was period-correct. She suggested the Chicago History Museum for studio leads. I kept chasing, but the record stayed stubbornly hidden.

A second genealogist offered another tip: years ago, FamilySearch had donated pallets of old microfilm to the Allen County Public Library (ACPL). Maybe, just maybe, my record was buried there. I tracked down Adam, one of ACPL’s librarians, and he gamely searched the microfilm. Blank images.

At this point, you’re probably thinking, Lori, just search FamilySearch online. Oh, I had using the index with every permutation of the last name and around the date the marriage occurred, and nothing.

So I decided: I’d comb through every 1917 marriage image by hand. First, though, I made a side trip to birth records for my mom, two hours later, I had confirmed my mother’s birth was indeed only recorded by the church, just as she and my grandmother had said. (Cook County, Illinois later confirmed this - I got the "certificate" of no registered birth on the date my mom had died 24 years ago. Weird, huh?!

By then it was late. I was tired, discouraged, and dreading the thought of cold-calling every Catholic church in South Chicago. Still, before leaving, I opened the 1917 marriage film on FamilySearch, locked to home users, but accessible at ACPL. I scrolled to the end of one reel. No luck.

Then my computer glitched. As a non-resident, my ACPL guest account was on a timer. It flashed “10 minutes remaining” and kicked me out of FamilySearch. When I logged back in, I had 7 minutes left.

The next reel contained 1,278 images. No way I could check them all. So I did the only thing left, I scrolled, stopped, and clicked at random.

And there it was.

My eyes fell immediately on “Mary Koss.” Without even scanning the rest, I gasped loud enough to turn heads in the reading room. “Sounds like you found something,” a man seated across from me said. A woman down the row called, “We aren’t finding anything, do tell!”

I was near tears.

Adam hurried over. I showed him the record, and he smartly told me to write down the film and image number. Then he handled the printing as the machine wouldn't cooperate (with help from a kind patron who wanted to donate her library account to me) while another researcher kept my computer from timing out so I could email it to myself.

Out of 1,278 possible images, I had landed on the one I needed, completely blind. Missed in indexing, out of sync in databases, invisible to every search I’d tried. And yet, here it was.

Thank you, Grandma!

And here's a link of another uncanny find I didn't have - ENJOY!

And to you, dear readers: Happy Halloween. May the coming year bring you your own uncanny genealogical coincidences - just when you need them most.

When the Cloud Collapsed, Genealogy Continues

 

Guess we now know which Genealogy software companies use Amazon! MyHeritage.com and Findmypast.com are up and running. (2 PM Eastern)

I hope this is a wake up call to all of you who haven't SYNCHED or DOWNLOADED your trees elsewhere!

All of the software companies are working. I'm able to access all of my info because I've saved it other than Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.

When the cloud service is restored you may want to read my blog articles on how you can prepare for the next time. Here's the how to for FREE - Legacy Family Tree does not synch but you can upload a downloaded .gedcom from Ancestry. This means you won't have pictures of the census or any other media but you will have the information about your ancestors. This older blog article talks about a previous version of Family Tree Maker, I've updated to the latest and greatest which fixed the problem I encountered and provided the work around. I don't use FTM's vault, a cloud service, but you might want to consider it given what's happened today with Ancestry. I no longer use RootsMagic since version 8 as later updates would not allow me to synch with Ancestry. They do have a free version for smaller trees you could download. I do appreciate that their tech folks recommended I try downloading my tree with the free version to see if the problem was corrected; it wasn't but they are aware of it and working on it. Click here for the free version.

Your genealogy research does not have to stop when a part of the internet breaks. Go make a cup of tea, write up what you've been working on, and make a plan for the future so you don't get caught without access to your information. Here's links to an older blog about writing up your research using AI. If you aren't comfortable with AI, here's an alternative. Remember, once upon a time there was no "online" for us to use to help us with genealogy.

The Hidden Discoveries of Writing Your Research

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As genealogists, we spend hours pulling records, analyzing handwriting, and piecing together family connections. Most of that work happens in the collecting stage, we hunt down wills, census pages, land deeds, and church registers. But it isn’t until we write that we begin to see what those records are really telling us.

Writing forces a shift in how our brains work. Collecting records is like gathering puzzle pieces. Writing is when you finally flip the pieces right-side up and begin to see the picture. Patterns emerge that you hadn’t noticed before. Gaps in the timeline become obvious. A stray witness on a deed suddenly matters because you’re weaving the story instead of cataloging the fragments.

I saw this firsthand with my ancestor Daniel Hollingshead. I had collected a mountain of records: tax documents from Cheshire, court cases, marriage records from Barbados, and family land deeds in New Jersey. It wasn’t until I began to write his story that the threads pulled tight. Suddenly, the narrative was clear:

• A grandfather’s failure as a tax collector plunges the family into crisis.
• An uncle flees to Barbados after funds are stolen.
• A young Daniel joins the military, is posted to Barbados, and marries into sugar wealth.
• He returns to New Jersey with enslaved people, rising socially but carrying moral shadows with him.

The facts were always there in the records. But the story, the irony, the Atlantic World connections, the moral reckoning , only emerged when I tried to explain it in writing.

That’s the hidden power of writing: it doesn’t just preserve what you’ve learned, it teaches you something new. Writing sharpens your research questions, reveals new avenues to explore, and brings ancestors to life in ways a database never can.

So the next time you feel stuck in the research grind, try writing a short biography or family sketch. Even a rough draft will show you what you’ve missed. You might be surprised at what discoveries are hiding , not in the archives, but in your own words.

Saving Google Photos

 

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Are you tired of Google telling you that you need to purchase more storage? Are they threatening to shut down your email? One way to lessen the storage is to remove your photos from Google Photos. You can do this in batches which makes the task quicker. Here’s a quick how to. The photos below were taken on Sunday, August 7, 2016. I want to save all of them so I click the checkbox next to the date. If you don't want to save all, click the checkboxes next the pictures you want to save:

• Click the 3 dots and select download

• The download will pop up and click it.

• Now, drop and drag to your Desktop. There you can rename – I add the date.

• I create a folder by year (Right click your mouse, click “New” “Folder” and name the folder by year.
• When done with saving the photos for that year, I drop the folder into Dropbox.
• If you have a lot of pics, you can easily extract them at one time. Simply click the “Extract All” icon:

• Make sure you have created a folder to place them in or they will be all over your desktop!

• Just select the folder from Browse and click “Extract.”

Next you’ll want to delete the Google Photos you’ve saved.

1. Simply click the dates again and the checkmarks will return.
2. Click the 3 dots and select delete.
3. The deleted photos will remain for 60 days in Google Photos Trash; if you need to clear up space immediately, on the side bar, under Collections, scroll down (it’s hidden) to Trash:

• 4. Clicking on Trash will bring up all the photos you deleted. To lessen your storage numbers, click empty trash and they will all permanently disappear – make sure you are ready to get rid of them as you will not be able to retrieve them after emptying trash.

I’ll be honest, my storage numbers did not significantly drop after deleting large amounts of photos but they have stopped harassing me to buy more space! I also have a lot of emails saved which I plan to move out of Gmail. Will give you the process in an upcoming blog.

As an added safeguard, back up your Dropbox to a stand alone hard drive!

Fall Genealogy Tasks

 

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The weather hasn't yet cooled and I'm not complaining but it is officially fall.

Before I get back to writing my next and final (hooray!) family genealogy book on our Great British lines I decided I had to practice what I preach and take care of some pressing tech tasks that I have put off for way too long. The first was really bothering me as it was boring and there are so many more interesting things to do in genealogy then preserve photos.

Long ago, in 2002, a world that was radically different then today, my cell phone saved all of my photos to a desktop program called Picassa that Google later purchased. I used that product until 2018 when Google rolled it into Google Photos. That's when my problems began.

When Picassa ceased to exist it lost some of my photos, years 2002, 2007, 2010, and 2019. I wasn't worried about 2002 & 2007 as my kids were still in school and I was still scrapbooking so I have those photos. I digitized the scrapbooks so we were good. 2010 & 2019, not so much. Sure, other family members probably have some of the photos but I always was the main photographer so much of that is lost. I know, it could be a lot worse but still, not happy about it.

The next issue was with the rollover, some of my photos were doubled and even tripled. New photos were created from group shots - just the heads of whatever the tech decided to select. Then it began creating memory albums. Now that doesn't sound bad but it became a problem because it used up space and Google, tying all their products together, kept reminding me I needed to purchase additional space from them or I could no longer have a functioning email.

Occassionally, I'd go into photos and delete some of the duplicates and albums but they just would pop back up. On my to-do list was to remove ALL of my Google photos, store them in Dropbox, and back them up to a standalone hard drive. BORING. but. necessary.

For Valentine's Day, one of my kids gave me a picture frame where you can store and see changing photos. This gave me the impetus to get the photos out of Google. Next week I'll print the detailed directions on how you can do that fairly quickly and easily, meaning not saving one photo at a time which I initially was doing.

I also realized that I needed to synch my Ancestry.com tree as it's been awhile since I did that. I no longer use RootsMagic and since I last synched, I got a new desktop so I didn't have Family Tree Maker downloaded to it. Now FTM has come out with their update (in May 2025 but it's called 2024, go figure). I somehow missed the promotions but they have one remaining, half price for current license members so I took advantage of it ($40 instead of $80). I decided if I was going to save Dropbox to the stand alone drive I might was well include my Ancestry tree since I've just blogged about how I was working at updating it. Yes, it's still a work in progress but I'd rather save what I have as I'll never be done with it.

Next up was to delete everything on my stand alone drive as it was all old and not relevant so I turned it back to factory settings. Took hours!

Meanwhile, one of our adult kids had their credit card stolen and the thieves, being really stupid - (Jose Lopez - I am calling you stupid!) bought items in their own name and then had it sent to our kids' address. (Now you see why I am calling Jose stupid - really, does he want to get caught? Don't even need a forensic genealogist for that one.)

Jose or whoever was the original thief, was fairly smart at the beginning. Only purchased from stores the kid always uses so for the first two weeks the scam wasn't noticed. Then, boldness hit and the thief began using it for large sums at stores never used by the kid. By the time it was noticed thousands of dollars of items had been purchased but thankfully, some get to be returned to the companies since they arrived at the kid's house. (Jose, did you think you were then going to be a porch pirate, too?) Kid called the credit card company for a dispute and the police to file a report in case Jose was local and was going to be paying a home visit. Cop informed us that a local woman got taken for $499,000 the previous week because they also stole her social security number and took out loans. What a nightmare!

That made me realize it was time for me to update some of my own financial practices.

1. You may have some items on recurring charges. We've decided to use a separate card for those because it's a major pain to have to contact those vendors to change an account if your card is shut down.
2. Since the card was stolen locally (we know this for reasons I'm not disclosing so the guilty can get their due, too bad, Jose, that bed you bought won't get you a good night's sleep in jail because it's already been returned) we decided to use one card just for local purchases. It's a card with a good reputation to notice fraud quickly so we won't have to dispute lots of charges when (not if) it get's compromised.
3. We'll use another reputable card for online only purchases.

If you're thinking, that's a back up for a back up and yes it is, just like we do to save our genealogy data. This led me to realize it's been awhile since I updated my passwords so I spent time doing that as well.

Last task I haven't completed but is equally important, albeit BORING, is saving many of my emails. Lots of them contain genealogical info and I want to make sure the info is saved to the correct ancestor's file in Dropbox. That's my next project and by then, well, it'll probably be time to redo the cycle.

With the colder weather u perhaps coming next week this is a gentle reminder, dear reader, to take a look at your items to do and start plugging away at them.

Book Review: Genealogy in Reverse: Finding the Living by Cheri Hudson Passey

 

Available through Genealogical .com

Have you ever wondered how genealogical researchers who work to repatriate deceased military remains make connections with descendants? Do your messages to DNA matches sometimes go unanswered? Or perhaps you’re hoping to discover who in the family has great-great-grandpa’s Bible. If so, Cheri Hudson Passey’s new book, Genealogy in Reverse: Finding the Living – A Practical Guide for All Genealogists, may be of interest.

This compact volume introduces readers to strategies for locating living relatives. Drawing on her long experience in the field of repatriation research, Passey shares methods for moving beyond records of the dead and into the equally challenging task of connecting with their descendants. While much of genealogy focuses on the past, she reminds us that success often depends on bridging the gap between past and present.

The book also touches on the sensitive issue of privacy and provides advice on how to reach out respectfully to family members who may be reluctant to talk. Passey’s suggestions for phrasing messages and making cold calls will be especially helpful for researchers who find that first step intimidating.

Genealogy often emphasizes discovering those who came before us, but as Passey reminds us, connections with the living can be just as vital. Genealogy in Reverse may not answer every question, yet it provides a starting point for anyone curious about expanding their research beyond the traditional paper trail. For readers who have struggled to make contact with DNA matches or distant cousins, this slim guide may inspire new approaches worth trying. Available from Genealogical.com as an eBook or paperback.

How to Clean Your Ancestry Tree Without Paying for Pro Tools Part 3

AI Generated

For the past two weeks I’ve been blogging about Ancestry.com’s Pro Tools. You can read about my experience here and here.

Today, I’m going to show you how to clean your Ancestry tree without paying for Pro Tools. It’s super easy and honestly, I wish I’d thought of this years ago.

Start by picking a free or low-cost software program. Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic both sync directly with Ancestry. RootsMagic Essentials is free, but large trees can slow it down (I blogged about that here). If you don’t need access to your photos or documents and just want to focus on fixing errors, you can also download your tree as a GEDCOM and import it into Legacy Family Tree, which is what I did.

I kept things simple. I didn’t need media files for the check up, I just wanted to identify structural problems in my tree.

Here’s how to do it:

1. On Ancestry, go to your tree.
2. Click Tree Settings under Trees > Create & Manage Trees.
3. Scroll down and select Export Tree.
4. Once complete, download the file to your computer (it usually lands in your Downloads folder or OneDrive).
5. Open your genealogy software and import the GEDCOM.
6. Run the problem checker.

If you run into trouble with the software, you can literally ask ChatGPT (aka Geni!) for help. That’s how I found this entire workaround.

Once your tree is loaded, use the software’s built-in tools to flag potential problems. In Legacy, I went to Tools > Potential Problems. I set criteria to mirror the kinds of problems flagged by Ancestry’s Pro Tools, things like parents being too young, children born after a parent’s death, and so on.

One downside: Legacy doesn’t flag individuals with no sources, which was one of the main issues Pro Tools surfaced. But what Legacy did reveal was surprising and far more accurate.

Here’s the report I got from Legacy (the error types flagged by Ancestry are in red):

Let that sink in: 940 total errors, almost all of which are legitimate and actionable. Of that, there was only 55 errors that Ancestry claimed was 301 and they didn't identify these people! I plan on cleaning up all of the errors Legacy found as having two individuals over age 110 years is a problem Ancestry should have discovered. And the individuals with no sex given? That is a continual flaw in Ancestry's system when you are adding new individuals.

Unlike Ancestry’s Tree Checker, which falsely flagged over 10,000+ records in my tree, Legacy gave me a clean, accurate list I could work with. I now have the names and the issues. I’m going through them one by one and making the corrections directly in my Ancestry tree, since that’s still my primary working tree. I’ll continue syncing it with Family Tree Maker.

And if I get another $7 Pro Tools offer in the future? Sure, I might try it again just to check whether they’ve cleaned up the bugs. But I’ll cancel it right after. Because let’s be honest:

If Ancestry really wants our trees to be accurate, they should provide these tools for free.

We are already paying for the data, the DNA, the platform and in many cases, contributing our own hard-earned research. Charging extra for a tree-checking feature (that doesn’t even work right) feels like asking users to fix the foundation of the house they already paid to build.

So, skip the upsell. Use free software. Clean your tree with confidence. And let’s keep our standards higher than their price tags.

When Ancestry.com’s Pro Tools Fail: A Professional Genealogist’s Experience with Ancestry’s Tree Checker Part 2

AI Generated

Last week, I shared my experience with most of Ancestry.com's Pro Tools—an add-on offered for $10/month (I got in for $7 with a promotional email). You can read about those features here. Today, I’ll dive into the tool that motivated me to subscribe in the first place: Tree Checker.

If you’ve noticed the new Tree Checker score on your Ancestry tree, you might be curious. Mine showed a 9.1—“Excellent.” That aligns with my belief that my tree is about 90–95% accurate. But let’s be honest: no one has a 100% accurate tree. Without DNA confirmation for every line, there will always be an element of uncertainty. Still, I’m committed to removing the detritus that’s accumulated over years of brick wall chipping, FAN Club research, and lineage society applications.

Back in 1990, I started my tree with 50 people, using a TI-89 cartridge program. By 1995, I was entering data into FamilySearch’s .paf format. When Ancestry came along, I uploaded my work to what’s now the ubiquitous .gedcom. My skills, and my tree, have grown significantly since then. I’ve cleaned up my Swedish, Croatian, French, German, Swiss, and Dutch branches. What remains is my largest line: Great Britain. Before writing my next book, I knew it was time to clean that section.

I regularly back up my Ancestry tree to other programs (Family Tree Maker, Legacy, RootsMagic), all of which offer tree-checking tools. But because Ancestry is my primary research platform, I’ve been hesitant to clean externally and re-sync. So I was hopeful that Tree Checker would finally give me an effective cleanup solution within Ancestry.

Here’s what happened.

Tree Checker: Expectations vs. Reality

When I launched Tree Checker from the dashboard, I was greeted with a gut-punch: 14,000+ possible errors.

The majority were labeled “People with no sources.” I immediately knew what was going on. In Ancestry’s early days, there wasn’t a “web link” option. I got around that by uploading source PDFs to the Gallery or by placing citations in the timeline. Unfortunately, Tree Checker ignores those, unless it’s housed as an official Ancestry “source,” it’s invisible to the system.

But that still left other problem categories:

• Possible Duplicates
• People with Only Tree Sources
• Other Possible Errors

I’ll add here that one of the most helpful “error types” isn’t even under Tree Checker, it’s found under Pro Filters > Family Lines > People Without Relationships. These are individuals floating without connections, often leftovers from attempts to delete a line. I had about 2,000 of these and quickly removed them.

People with Only Tree Sources was next. These were added from others' trees, unsourced. That’s an easy fix, either delete them or attach a hint. Done.

Possible Duplicates looked daunting at nearly 2,000, but the number was misleading. Triplicates and higher were counted separately, and after filtering, I had fewer than 1,000 to review. Some were legitimate merges (e.g., marriage records auto-adding a new spouse). Others were not duplicates at all: families who reused names after a child died, or multiple “Johann” Harbaughs with different middle names. I worked through them in two days.

The Glitches Begin

After carefully resolving every duplicate, I noticed something troubling: they didn’t disappear from the error list. No matter what I tried, refreshing, logging out, rebooting, clearing cache, Tree Checker continued to show errors I had already corrected. I even tried deleting and re-adding a person. No dice.

Still hoping for results, I moved on to “Other Possible Errors” and found myself stunned.

Ancestry itself was causing many of the flagged issues. For instance, if a child was born in 1937 and enumerated in the 1940 census, Tree Checker would flag it as “Resident listed before birth date.” The kicker? That census record was automatically added by Ancestry in the timeline for 1935. To clear the error, I had to delete 1935's entry FOR EVERY ONE born between 1936-1940.

Swedish church records were another problem. Ancestry indexes these by range (e.g., 1723–1728). If a child was born in 1724, Tree Checker flagged the 1723 record as occurring before birth. Completely illogical and a huge waste of my time to clean up!

Some new error flags also made no sense:

• “Birth/Death dates span more than 10 years” with only one sourced date. What?
• "Significant age difference between spouses" um, 2 years!
• “Marriage occurred after spouse’s death” when no death date was even given. See the above screenshot proving the error was false.

And here’s the real kicker: even when I corrected the problems, they remained in the count. Over the next three days, my “error total” would inexplicably rise despite spending hours cleaning.

Note that it says there are 2 possible duplicates but none show.

People with only tree sources shows 1 but none are provided.

Under all possible errors the counter states 201 but there is only 1 error showing and it is not an error when you go to that page.

This reminded me of a long ago problem Ancestry had with what was called "Ghost Hints." You can read my how-to-fix blog about it here. I tried that again but it appears that Ancestry has tightened up security and my fix it no longer worked.

As a genealogist, I dug into the data. I exported the report, analyzed the stats, and discovered something stunning:

75% of the Tree Checker results were false positives. That’s not a helpful tool -that’s noise! Seeing it graphically made me realize I had been sold a product that doesn't work:

To top it off, this also distorts your overall Tree Checker “score.” I now wonder what my real rating would be if the tool actually worked. With the changes that took, my score reached a 9.4.

The Final Straw

I then turned to the “No Sources” filter and began manually fixing issues from A–Be, X, Y, and Z. That’s when I hit the wall. Even attaching suggested Ancestry hints they no longer removed individuals from the list. Not user error, this was a flat-out malfunction.

That’s when I noticed the word Beta scattered throughout Pro Tools. Beta testing, by definition, is the final phase before a product goes public. Users test real-world functionality and provide feedback. But here’s the problem:

Ancestry released an untested tool to the public and then charged for it.

If you charge admission before the dress rehearsal is done, that’s not Beta testing. That’s profiteering.

But that's not all! Ancestry then sent me an email with their data about the changes I made to my tree:

What does 300% more duplicates found even mean?! We know I had no duplicates and most of those that they believed were duplicates were not. 84% fewer issues discovered? Does that mean my tree still has 16% undiscovered issues? If so, how would I ever find them when Pro Tools can't identify them and the counter doesn't work?

Where Do We Go From Here?

I’m not just disappointed, I’m concerned. It’s clear Ancestry recognizes the problem of flawed user trees. But their solution shouldn’t be charging extra for a broken product.

And now, they’ve rolled out something even more baffling, a $5,000/year “cohort club” promising professional coaching, a few DNA kits, and discounted branded merchandise. (Want a denim jacket? You can buy one at a discount.) Click the link as I'm not making this up. There VIP service, you get a working phone number if you have a problem. Pardon me, but I always thought that's what a legitimate business offered TO ALL OF THEIR CUSTOMERS for free.

In a recent webinar, the presenter said she came up with the idea of genealogy coaching. That’s interesting, since I’ve offered coaching on my website for over a decade at a fraction of the price. I believe everyone should have access to their heritage, not just those who can afford a luxury tier. I was also appalled to hear that professional genealogists charge tens of thousands of dollars a year. No, just no!

I use Ancestry daily and plan to continue. But I’ve cancelled my Pro Tools subscription.

Next week, I’ll share how I cleaned up my tree without shelling out extra cash.

When Ancestry.com’s Pro Tools Fail: A Professional Genealogist’s Experience with Ancestry’s Tree Checker Part 1

 

AI Generated

As a long-time Ancestry.com user, I decided to give their new Pro Tools a spin during the July 4th weekend. With a family member recovering from surgery, I wasn’t traveling, and I had trimmed my client and presentation load to be more available at home. So, for the introductory $7.00 fee, I figured—why not?

Today's blog, and the two that follow, details what happened next: a real-world walkthrough of what Pro Tools offers and whether it’s worth the extra cost above your regular Ancestry subscription.

After payment—seamless, of course, since Ancestry has mastered the art of parting you from your money—I waited around two hours for the tools to appear. No email alert, just a dashboard update with Pro Tools shortcuts quietly waiting for me.

I expected a guide or orientation video. Nope. Clicking “More Pro Tools” brought up the feature list shown below. So let’s walk through each one:

Networks
This is basically a built-in FAN Club tracker. You can add people to your tree who aren’t related but interacted with your ancestors—neighbors, witnesses, etc. I wish this existed back when I was wrestling with my Duer brick wall. Back then, I added these people manually and unlinked them to avoid false connections. Networks would have saved a lot of time.

Enhanced Shared Matches
The “enhancement” is only one thing: DNA clusters. And only if you've tested through Ancestry. Here's the kicker: MyHeritage offers this for free—even if you didn't test with them but uploaded your DNA there. Ancestry’s version? Sparse and underwhelming. I have no maternal clusters and only 27 paternal ones.

MyHeritage has far more, thanks to their broader global dataset. Winner: MyHeritage.

Smart Filters
Sort your tree by name, birth, or death dates. Sounds great—until you realize it only displays the first 10,000 people. My tree has 70,000+ individuals from years of research and surname studies. So... not helpful. Pass.

Charts and Reports
You get four types: Descendancy, Ahnentafel, Register, and Family Group, with cutesy “tree” headers (Pine, Birch, Oak, Maple). But each slaps the Ancestry logo on top. Legacy and RootsMagic do it better—and they’re free. Another strike.

Tree Mapper
A world map with green highlights where your ancestors lived. Sounds promising, until it confidently tells me my ancestor in Zwol, Overijssel (Netherlands) lived in South Africa. Another resided in Queensland, Jamaica, New York and not in Queensland, Australia where it was flagged. Error after error makes this useless for real research.

Tree Insights
This tool tells you surname meanings, top five surnames, oldest people in your tree, and “notable” outliers—like couples who married at 1 year old. (Spoiler: they didn’t.) It clearly can’t interpret “Abt.” dates, and many errors it finds weren’t flagged by the Tree Checker. Insightful? Yes. Reliable? Meh.

This is getting long, so I’ll save the main course—Tree Checker—for the next post. Spoiler: It’s the only reason I tried Pro Tools at all. And it’s a tale worth telling.

Stay tuned.

Book Review: Your Stripped Bare Guide to Citing & Using History Sources by Elizabeth Shown Mills

 

Genealogical.com

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover but in the case of Elizabeth Shown Mills’s latest, Your Stripped Bare Guide to Citing & Using History Sources (2025), the cover is so charming it almost makes me want to sit down and write a source citation. And that’s saying something, coming from someone who usually dreads the task and full disclosure, often cheats by letting AI do it for her.

You might wonder, after decades of writing about citations, what more could ESM possibly have to say? I own all four editions of her past works, Evidence Explained, along with two editions of Professional Genealogy. Those texts are monumental, hefty, encyclopedic guides designed to help family historians create (and yes, crafting a citation is an art) a source reference for every conceivable research situation. But therein lies the problem; they are so thorough they can overwhelm beginners. Too often, they end up gathering dust and making the bookshelf sag, which is a shame because they hold the keys to accurate, credible, and most importantly, findable research.

I’ll admit, I’ve grown a bit lazy since AI became part of my workflow. For my personal research, I often settle for a quick and dirty Chicago-style citation generated by a chatbot. I’ve noticed some of my editors have relaxed their standards, too. Why? Because tracking down the exact template in Evidence Explained can be a time consuming hunt.

Enter Your Stripped Bare Guide. This is the book I didn’t know I’d been waiting for, clear, concise, and portable. At just 138 pages, it’s a featherweight compared to its predecessors, but it’s packed with practical, ready-to-use information. I liken it to The Elements of Style, a distilled, timeless resource that belongs within arm’s reach of every researcher’s desk.

And timeless it is. Consider how much genealogy has changed since 2007, when the first Evidence Explained was published. Back then, FamilySearch was still shipping microfilm via snail mail to local Family History Centers. AI existed only in movie scripts. Blogging was in its infancy. The very first iPhone had just been released. Now, so much is online (though not everything) and our research methods continue to evolve. I had wondered, when ESM retired, who would carry the citation torch into this ever changing landscape. No worries now! Stripped Bare teaches the core principles so we can confidently adapt to whatever new technology comes next.

Pro tip: read the foreword first, it’s a soothing antidote to any citation anxiety. The opening chapter lays out universal guidelines for any source, followed by “Fundamentals of Documentation,” filled with tips and practical recommendations.

One passage made me laugh out loud; ESM notes that the purpose of citations isn’t to help others find our sources. Gasp! I could picture one of my high school English teachers having an apoplexy. After all, isn’t that what we were always taught? Even now, I carry that belief with me. Stripped Bare challenges that notion, and while some “old school” researchers may bristle, I found it refreshing.

I also appreciated the section on citing derivatives. About a decade ago, I found myself in a spirited (and unresolved) debate with another professional genealogist who insisted I was wrong to cite both the original and the derivative. ESM explains my position far more elegantly than I did, which may be why we never reached agreement.

Here’s what I love most, Stripped Bare offers just 14 templates. Yes, that’s the same number found in Evidence Explained, and many of the examples are familiar, but what’s gone is the 555 page sprawl of trying to illustrate every possible source on earth. That level of detail served its purpose once, but it’s no longer necessary for most researchers.

Some might think this is simply a repackaged version of the first three chapters of Evidence Explained. It isn’t. While there’s necessary overlap, after all, the fundamentals don’t change, the material is rewritten in a fresh, approachable way. Most importantly, it keeps evidence analysis front and center, reminding us that citation is not just about formatting, but about thinking critically about our sources.

For intermediate researchers and beyond, I highly recommend Your Stripped Bare Guide to Citing & Using History Sources. It’s available in paperback and eBook from Genealogical.com—and it just might make you want to write your next citation.

The Summer of My Genealogical Discontent, Lesson 8: What I’ve Learned (and Unlearned)

 And just like that, we’ve reached the end of my Summer of Genealogical Discontent—a season spent digging not into records, but into my own past as a researcher. I set out to share the biggest mistakes I made in my early years of genealogy—not to dwell on regret, but to show how growth happens in real time, and to offer encouragement to those just starting out (or maybe starting over).

Let’s take a look back at what I’ve learned—and unlearned—along the way:

Lesson 1: Trust, But Verify
Like many beginners, I started out believing online family trees were gospel. I trusted matches, clicked too quickly, and added generations without verifying. The result? A line that led all the way back to the Norse god Thor. It took me years (and a lot of embarrassment) to clean it up—but it taught me a lesson I never forgot: don't trust a tree you didn’t plant yourself.

Lesson 2: Cousin Trust… or Not
It turns out, family stories can be just as misleading as unsourced online trees. I ignored obvious errors in a cousin’s genealogy book because I wanted to believe the family “knew.” But when someone challenged the name of my second great-grandmother—despite multiple official records proving it—I realized again that evidence must always come first.

Lesson 3: To Save or Not to Save?
I didn’t always save my records. I thought I’d find them again. That thinking cost me time, energy, and two long drives to a FamilySearch affiliate library when a key will I’d once seen was no longer accessible online. Now I save everything—and back it up—because in genealogy, proof is everything.

Lesson 4: Confidence
I lacked confidence early on and let others in the genealogy community make me feel like an outsider. When a DAR member berated me for an “error” (in all caps), I removed the ancestor from my tree. But I was right, and I had the documents to prove it. Over time, I learned to trust my research—and to stand firm when I had the facts.

Lesson 5: The Software Shuffle
Tech has been both a blessing and a burden. I’ve tried nearly every genealogy software platform and been burned more than once by syncing issues, glitches, and disappearing records. The lesson? Diversify your tools. Keep your files backed up and your data portable. Nothing lasts forever, including your favorite software.

Lesson 6: Failing to Join an Organization
For too long, I went it alone. I didn’t know where to turn, didn’t have the money, and assumed no one would care about my obsession with dead people. I was wrong. Once I joined societies and attended conferences, my skills grew exponentially. Genealogy may start as a solo act, but it thrives in community.

Lesson 7: Listening to the Pros (or Not)
When I finally decided to “go pro,” I followed advice that didn’t align with who I was or who I wanted to serve. I was told I had to charge more, take specific courses, and follow a certain path. But that path didn’t fit me—or my clients. Eventually, I stopped listening to people who wanted me to become a different kind of genealogist and started building a business that reflected my values. And I’ve never looked back.

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Genealogy has always been about more than names and dates for me. It’s about honesty. Resilience. Perspective. It’s about owning the full story—including the mistakes—and realizing that every misstep is part of the journey.

As I wrap up this summer series, I’m looking forward to shifting gears a bit. I recently attended a genealogy conference in an area I have no experience. September brings another conference, more lessons, and no doubt, more stories.

Because in genealogy—and in life—there’s always another chapter. Next week I'll blog a book review - stay tuned!