Have you ever considered what will happen to your years of genealogy research once you’re gone? Join popular genealogy speaker Thomas MacEntee in a live webinar on Thursday, January 17 at 7 p.m. at the Aspen Drive Library, as he addresses this important topic. Through a combination of planning, common sense, and new technologies, we’ll…
While researching a family story about brothers who emigrated from Sweden, genealogists on Facebook were the ones who helped me the most. My great-grandfather Herman Peterson was born in Sweden and lived in Princeton, Illinois after he came to America. As the story goes, Herman had a brother who emigrated with him from Sweden; one…
Here's another ancestor portrait from the year 1918, contributed by Pam from our Genealogy Networking Group. I love how Pam took clues from other people in Fidor's life and used them to guess at where Fidora was at the time. I also think it's important to note that even when we don't know every detail…
Responding to a challenge to write about an ancestor on a particular day, Tom from our Genealogy Networking Group shared this amazing day during the life of his wife's distant cousin. Charles G. Robson October. 27, 1858 Abraham Lincoln as portrayed by Dr. Thomas Willer It began like any other day but concluded very differently. …
At a recent Genealogy Networking Group meeting several people responded to the challenge of writing up an ancestor's profile on one particular day or year. They agreed to share them on the blog. Today we read about Pam's grandmother in 1918. Clara Smolen Krull This year a century ago This year a century ago, my…
Do you have ancestors who were adopted but don't know how to go about researching them? Having an adopted ancestor can often be one of the most frustrating and challenging aspects of genealogy research. In times past, records of adoptions weren’t as well kept as they are today, making searching for the link between birth parents…
I hope you don't have anything planned for this weekend, because we've got a genealogy bonanza on our hands. No less than three membership databases are opening their records for free, for a limited time only: AmericanAncestors, run by the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, is offering free access to 1.4 billion names from…
On the first Thursday night of October our intrepid group of genealogy networkers met again in the meeting room of Cook Park Library to share ideas and have some fun. We looked through a few databases on TryIt! Illinois, and we attempted to decipher a mystery photo. Then we shared some stories. A challenge had…
Our genealogists always look forward to fall, and not just because October is Family History Month. No, October and November are all about "Try-It! Illinois," an opportunity to try out all kinds of databases that our library doesn't subscribe to. Thanks to the Illinois State Library, you temporarily have free access to hundreds of subscription…
September brought another fine gathering of our Genealogy Networking Group. We started out by sharing brick walls and breakthroughs. One of the biggest brick walls we all face is "jumping the pond" and researching our immigrant ancestors in their home country. The tried but true rule is, in almost every case, you need to know…
