Top 10 Genealogy Tips: A Year-end Wrap Up

writingThere are so many different things to explore in family history. The topics covered by the most popular posts here on the blog bear that out. Here are the top 10 genealogy tips from my blog during 2016, based on readership.

Since I miss David Letterman and his “Top 10” lists, I’m going to list them his way and start with #10.

10. How to Preserve Old Letters

Back in March, a writer in AARP’s magazine suggested that people burn their parents’ love letters in order to “declutter.” (Here’s my reaction to that piece of “advice.”) In “How to Preserve Old Letters,” I interviewed Denise Levenick, the Family Curator, to discuss ways that we can preserve old family letters.

9. Who Should You Include in Your Family Tree?

Adoptive parents. Step-parents. Half-siblings. In-laws. It doesn’t take long before a simple, straightforward family tree isn’t so simple. Here’s my take on who you should include.

8. 1 Reason You’re Not Seeing the Red Flags in Your Genealogy

Red flags are meant as a warning, a sign that we need to stop and look around. Why do we miss so many of them in our genealogy? There’s a reason for that — and a solution.

time7. 5 Things You Can Do in Genealogy When You’re Short on Time

Sometimes we don’t have hours and hours to spend on our genealogy. (Sad, but true.) Here are some productive genealogy tasks you can do when you have even 15 minutes of time.

6. What Did Your Civil War Ancestor Look Like?

If you aren’t fortunate enough to have a photo of your Civil War ancestor, don’t despair. There are still several sources you can use to get his physical description.

5. 5 Types of Maps Every Genealogist Should Know

I’ll admit that there really isn’t a map that I don’t like, but these 5 types of maps should be in every genealogist’s toolkit.

4. Why Your AncestryDNA Matches Aren’t Responding

Don’t take it personally if your AncestryDNA matches don’t respond to your messages. There are several reasons why they might not be answering you.

3. How FindAGrave Could – and Should – Be Made Better

This post was born from a bad experience I had on FindAGrave. Judging from the comments on this post, many others have had the same experience that I did. One of the solutions would be so easy to implement…

2. How to Build a Genealogy Research Plan

A research plan is more than a to-do list. It’s a way of approaching a genealogy problem and working out a way to solve it. Here’s how to get started building a research plan.

And the most popular post on the blog in 2016 is…

1. A Growing Source for Free Genealogy: Digital Public Library of America

Libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies from across the United States have partnered to create the Digital Public Library of America. DPLA has almost 15 million digitized items for us to use — for free. This post is an introduction to DPLA and has a short tutorial on how to use it.

What was your favorite post on the blog this year? What would you like to learn about in 2017? Let me know in the comments below!

Don’t miss a new post! Subscribe to the newsletter to get posts sent right to your inbox and also receive exclusive content!

Top 10 Genealogy Tips

There's always something new to learn in family history. Here are my top 10 most popular genealogy tips this year.

Posted: December 28, 2016.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.