My paternal grandfather kept scrapbooks all his adult life, beginning with volumes chronicling his time at school in Arizona a century ago. He started at Harvard in..

Earlier this week I was scrolling through my newsfeed and I saw a blog post where the author scolded herself and urged her readers to “practice what you preach.” I often think this, especially when I teach the first class of my three-part series on "Getting Started in..

As someone who has been doing her genealogy since the 1980s, I can remember a time before there were many genealogy software options, let alone online databases. In fact, I started my genealogy on forms in a big legal size binder that I would take with me to the..

I have written several blog posts on the contents of my grandfather's box of family papers, but even this seemingly inexhaustible resource must eventually run dry. I don't think I'm quite there, yet, although it's true that I am reaching the tail end of the easily..

It is always a nice surprise to open a book and find a reference to a family..

[Editor’s note: Alicia’s probate series began here.]

Guardianships

Guardians were appointed for children under the age of 21 and for adults who were not able to handle their own affairs. Children over age 14 could choose their guardians. The surviving parent would..

Next week I will be attending the Who Do You Think You Are? Live conference in Birmingham, England, where it is expected that more than 12,000 participants will be in attendance. The mustering of such a large body of genealogists and..

In his 1930 novel Immaturity, George Bernard Shaw wrote, “If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” Shaw had a point with that statement. While we can deny them, hide them, or ignore them, we can’t..

A frequent theater-goer and enthusiastic pedestrian in the 1860s, by the early 1880s – following the death of her husband – Regina Shober Gray was going out rarely, and only to the houses of relatives and close..