One way genealogies can get items incorrect is when there are two individuals of roughly the same age with the same name and who have other identifying relatives with the same name as well. In this example, it gets further muddled as their..

Last year I wrote about the family register that I was given detailing the family of my great-great-great-grandparents Robert Thompson (1795–1854) and his third wife Emma Russell (1808–1872) of Industry, Maine. I mentioned in the..

A few months ago I posted that, in tracing my wife's ancestors, I had yet to find an ancestor who was born anywhere but in the Dominican Republic. This all changed within the last few days,..

As Gary Boyd Roberts indicated in his press release, “Meghan Markle is related to Prince Harry hundreds of times over,” with the closest kinship being that of seventeenth cousins.

This chart shows three more kinships between Meghan..

Alicia Crane Williams’s post earlier this week – about when an incorrect item was “published in a book” – is quite fresh in my mind as I contemplate a current genealogical problem. Last week I wrote..

As Gary Boyd Roberts announced yesterday, Meghan Markle has a distant kinship to Prince Harry through their shared descent from Sir Philip Wentworth (died 1464) and his wife Mary Clifford. While Gary continues to work on much of..

I wrote two years ago about the incredible value of Civil War pensions, but a recent example reminded me that occasionally just getting a valuable pension may be challenging as well. Whenever I realize a Civil War pension exists, whether for a book project or an..

I found a rather curious census entry that was definitely not as it appeared. The above 1850 census in Windham, Connecticut listed Anna C. Tingley, age 56, Merchant; Ann M. Tingley, age 60, no occupation; Anna N. Tingley, 27,..

Next weekend, Bill Griffeth and I will be speaking at the Brattleboro Literary Festival on DNA and genealogy, and the surprise results described in his book The Stranger in My Genes. For those who are not are familiar with the book, it all started when DNA results were..

As those who have applied to hereditary societies may already know, several groups have a policy of requiring every birth, marriage, and death certificate for the most recent three generations..