​While I have more RootsTech classes to watch yet, I thought I’d share information about a few German research opportunities I learned about. Let’s look.
​If you are looking to for opportunities to increase your German expertise and research skills these two sites will help you on your way.
Learning
Germanology Unlocked
You’ve heard me talk about this site before and Katherine Schober continues to provide get articles, newsletters, and webinars with German language tips. She has two great books on understanding the German Kurrentscrift and German Church records. In addition to all of this she has three extensive courses, including a brand new one The Complete Guide to German Genealogy.
 
German Genealogy Collective
This site is by Andreas Bentschneider of Hamburg, Germany. It provides a great way for you to learn more about German records and research from an expert German researcher. This is a subscription-based program with monthly webinars and groups to help you do your own research. I listened to Andrea’s presentation of marriages in 19th century Germany. It was quite interesting how marriages traditions were quite different from today.
 
Services
Both of these German experts also provide services related to German language and research.
Germanology Unlocked
In addition to the information and courses available, Katheryn and her team are experts at translating old German documents. With years of experience, they can help you tackle those hard to read names, documents, and letters.
Beyond History
Andrea and her team offer their services to do your German research. Having experts in German who understand the history and resources available to find that information on your family is definitely a bonus.
I hope you take some time to check out these great resources. Happy  German research!

This week RootsTech 2025 takes place so any spare moment I have will be spent honing my genealogy skills, learning more about techniques, tools, and topics.

​Hopefully, you will take the time to do the same. One of the few positive things to come out of the pandemic is that we now have the opportunity to “attend” a world class event from wherever we are in the world. And once RootsTech is complete, don’t forget to support online seminar offerings from genealogical societies. I’ve benefited from many webinars offered by one of my favorite societies, Ontario Ancestors. I’m sure that you can name other societies that provide webinars.
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As you look at this week and this year, take some time to plan out ways that you can improve your research skills as well as your writing skills. Both will be beneficial as you begin and continue to write about your family history. As family historians we love to gather up all the interesting dates, facts, and details about our people. However, all of that hard work is not valuable to others unless we write it down with context. It’s good to invest time to sharpen our skills so that we can then use the new knowledge to write our family stories. Happy Learning!

​I’ve found that it pays to revisit sites. I recently explored the North Dakota Historic site again, looking at newspapers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that in addition to those newspapers that were digitized via Chronicling America, there is another option  Advantage Archives. Let’s look.

​With recent wintry weather and storms across the country, it is perfect weather for learning and genealogy. As February is flying by, it seems like a great time to remind you of RootsTech 2025.
The dates this year are March 6-8, 2025. If you haven’t registered yet, you could join the free online registration and map out the classes that you are most interested in to stream. And lucky you if you are going in person to enjoy this event.
 
Here are two sites to help you:
What to Expect from FamilySearch in 2025  As part of RootsTech you’ll learn about innovative technologies. With this blog on FamilySearch you’ll learn about new features on the FamilySearch site itself including the use of AI in complete word search for documents that have not been indexed yet. I’ve tried this with some of the Canadian land documents in their “lab” site and it is amazing. I had found these documents the old-fashioned way using land indexes and searching manually. How much more efficient to search on my ancestor’s name! Check it out.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/ You can register here plus find out about speakers and classes available. With March just around the corner, take some time to plan your opportunities of learning.
 
I hope you’ve taken some time this winter to learn new genealogy skills. Check out RootsTech as another opportunity!

The history of Valentine’s Day has quite a few twists and turns so I will include a couple of links if you would like to learn more about this day. I was wondering if our ancestors paid any heed to this day or not. I suspect for many it was a saint’s day rather than the commercial day that we experienced today. However, I did find some postcards that could double for valentines among my great-grandparents papers from the 1910s so there was a nod to the holiday back then.  Do you have any clues about this day from your ancestors? Perhaps you have a family story or a letter or valentine that would give you a clue. Our family stories come from all aspects of our ancestors’ lives, not just dates. Explore your Valentine history, even your own for your children and grandchildren. Happy Valentine’s Day! (And Happy President’s Day for those of you in the United States.)
Valentine's Day - Wikipedia
The history of Valentine's Day: From its pagan origins to a billion-dollar holiday
Valentine’s Day 2024 Facts ‑ Fun, Interesting, Candy | HISTORY

If you’re like most of us, once we start researching a specific group of records, we get immersed in the euphoria of finding the records of our ancestors without stopping translating the actual documents until much later. It is common to want to find and save those records first but without writing down a plan, it is easy “loose” or misplace those records. If we’d only taken the time to  transcribe and translate our finds, we probably would be further ahead of the game. Let’s look.

If you’re like me, you’ve inherited family heirlooms and wonder how to create records of them. We have all taken pictures of items so that we can pass on to the next generation why this particular bowl or snippet of a wedding dress is important. (If you haven’t, add that to your 2025 goals.)  I have recently seen flat lay photography as a way to capture three-dimensional objects in a creative way. Let’s look.

​You’ve probably been hearing more about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and have wondered about using it in your genealogy research. I have just started experimenting with AI and am not an expert. Instead, I thought I’d share a few reference articles and some thoughts from my own experience. Let’s look.

You may have seen this on the nightly news, but I wanted to remind you that that National Archives and Records Administration has invited the public to be part of the digitizing effort of the organization. To learn more about how you can help, you can view more information here: Citizen Archivist | National Archives. I would recommend reading more details about the opportunities by Register and Get Started | National Archives which explains more about how you can dig in and help with transcribing records and providing tags to make these records more discoverable.
The first step is to set up an account with NARA—they use login.gov as their login mechanism. Initial reading indicates that you can create an account for use with NARA using a different email from your existing login.gov account. It also appears that you can choose to focus on the transcription work that needs to be accomplished or focus on tagging key words to make documents more discoverable. Fellow family historians will be thankful to have documents available online that were otherwise only found onsite.
If you would like more detail on how the transcribing process works, you can view step by step details: Get Started Transcribing | National Archives. This section is quite detailed and includes information on finding a document to transcribe, using the transcription tool and how to handle unusual items such as crossed-out text or other notes.
The good news is that you can transcribe as your schedule allows so if you only have one day a week or once a month, you can still make a difference. Happy transcribing!

Maps are an interesting way to learn more about your ancestors and their community. For those of us with farm ancestors, we love to find the plat map records that tie us to the family farmland. Just as interesting are the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps that can be found of nearby towns and villages. I especially like to compare the businesses that existed in the late 1800s to those that exist in more modern times. What was once a livery stable has been replaced with a car dealership. The local church is likely still there but with modifications. What if your city doesn’t have a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map? There are some other companies that also provided fire insurance. Let’s look.