Recently Fold3 released Korean Draft Records on their site. Helpful if your ancestor was the right age during this time. Let’s look.

Wishing you and yours a Happy Veterans Day!
It is good that we have holidays that remind us to be grateful for those who have served and allow us to live in a free country.  If you have ancestors or family members who have served, please take some time to thank those still with us and to remember those who have passed.  As you write your family history, the stories of these brave women and men should be included.  Now would be a good time to research military records and gather those facts to include along with the family stories.  Thanks to our Veterans we have time to relax and enjoy time with our families.

Happy Halloween 2025! And All Saints Day!
Does your family celebrate Halloween with lawn decorations, costumes and candy? Have you asked your parents or grandparents about how they celebrated?  You might be surprised to learn that they may not have celebrated Halloween at all. I asked an older relative, and she said they never did anything for Halloween when she was growing up in the 30s and 40s. Instead she remembered that they would drive into town for church on November 1st. And they would be busy looking to see what kind of "tricks" were played in the neighborhood.  So people played more tricks and didn't go around in costumes asking for treats. Think about your own childhood.  How has this holiday changed since you were a kid?

If your family honors All Saints Day, how do they do that? Do they go to church? Visit a cemetery? Think about family who have passed? What did your parents and grandparents do? Perhaps this has changed for your own adult children. It's a good time to gather this information. And a good time to remember our ancestors who have gone before us.

Holidays are a great time to chat with family and find out more family stories.

I’ve found newspapers to be a valuable resource in the United States. While I’ve dabbled a bit with newspapers from other countries, let’s look at newspapers in Canada that can help us with our genealogy.

​According to their website, CompGen, provides and open, free, collaborative site where German genealogical and historical indexes, resources and information is uploaded and shared in a spirit of cooperation. Let’s look.

A great place to explore vintage books and magazines is Century Past, Free Online Library. Let’s look.
“Century Past Free Online Library has links to collections that, all told, contain hundreds of thousands of books, magazines, articles, maps, and images. The site is organized to help you find reading materials on your favorite topics.”  You can access the site here. While this site doesn’t focus on genealogy, there are simply some interesting magazines that will definitely help you understand what was “in” or talked about in a particular decade and area. I suspect that this site could become somewhere that you might lose track of time as you explore that many articles and options.
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Here are some examples of items that I found. It gives us a contemporary view of that time.
The Gentleman’s Magazine v.1- 1731
The Illustrated London News 1856-02-02: Vol 28 Iss 782
Google News Archive Search
Collected Articles - Historic Online Maps - Vintage Photographs

Sometimes we become better story tellers and family historians when we spend time learning about the world as it was when our ancestors were living. Happy exploring world and regional history!

The Digital Horizons site provides many digital collections related to life on the northern plans. As you work on your family story, it helps to find additional local history and photos to help you better understand your family and the time and place that they lived in. Let’s look.
You can access Digital Horizons here. According to their site, Digital Horizons “is an online resource for thousands of images, documents, video, and oral histories depicting life on the Northern Plains from the late 1800s to today. Here you'll find a fascinating snapshot of the lives, culture, and history of the people who shaped life on the prairies.”

I looked for a local town, Fairmount, to see what information was available. There were 191 results. I chose to look at the Early History of Fairmount, 1937.  This particular booklet is not copyrighted so it could be downloaded for future reading. Other items included early photos of churches, stores, local physicians, main street, the old timers meeting notes and more. I also found a 1910 Plat book of Richland County, North Dakota.  All of this type of information helps you to understand what the area was like when your ancestors lived there. Perhaps you’ll even find a document with your people referred to in it.
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We spend time on the major genealogy sites but it is important to explore these other sites. Have fun looking for clues about your family and where they lived!

After attending a recent Family History Workshop, I decided to share useful sites that I learned about with you. This week let’s look at the University of Minnesota’s digital plat map collection.
You can reach the collection here. This is a local resource that many of us were probably unaware of in the Midwest. To access the maps, you can choose your county by scrolling down the alphabetized page or using the quick alphabet option on the left side of the page. Don’t be disappointed if you think it is only a page of all the townships for the county. You only have to click on the township you are interested in to get a closer look.
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If you want to save a copy, you can right-click save image. It will save the entire county for your future reference. They have other digitized maps that you can check out: UMedia

As you know, I’m a big map fan so I was happy to find these local plat maps from early Minnesota. I hope you have fun exploring them for your own family. Happy exploring!

​It is so easy to take a photo today with our cell phones. No need to worry about film. With the push of a button, we can capture a still photo or a video of key moments in our lives. We also have immediate feedback on whether we need to take another because the first didn’t turn out. Very unlike the times of film and film development. With this great gift comes the challenge of quantity as well as labeling. Let’s look at how we can corral this in our family history digital photos.

​There are many databases for Civil War records available. The Civil War (U.S. National Park Service) Soldiers and Sailors Database is another. Let’s look.