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.

Happy Labor Day week! Hope you had a nice long weekend. Now that the kiddos have gone back to school, it is time to think more about our own opportunities to learn.  How can we become better family historians, researchers and genealogists? Is there a new skill that you’d like to learn? Or find ways to improve your research? Or learn more about how to write you family history so that you finally pick up your pen (or your computer) and get started?  Let’s look at learning opportunities.

The Porta fontium is a great resource for exploring Czech records. With some patience and research, you can find records about your family, especially if you know the village or town where they came from. It wouldn’t be impossible to scroll through records in the hopes of finding them without that information but you would definitely be challenged without an index. Let’s look.

I always eagerly await the latest edition of FamilyTree Magazine. The September/October 2025 issue includes a great article regarding the symbols that we find on our ancestors’ tombstones. Let’s look.

It's that time of the year! The Heritage Education Commission presents their 49th Annual Family History Workshop: "Germania: Germans and Germans from Russia" on September 20, 2025.  The event will feature Diane Schmidt, President of the Germanic Genealogy Society as well as tracts on a variety of topics to help family historians hone their skills. 
To learn more and to register, visit Family History Research Workshop.  Take some time for yourself and attend this great workshop. Happy Learning!

As summer marches on, I’ve finally finished updating one of my family history photo albums/scrapbooks. Whew! I have more to go but it is a good accomplishment. Here are some things I’ve learned in the process. Let’s look.