Good news family historians! We're offering one of our interactive online seminars for free to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Learn what life was really like during the war between the states for the soldiers who fought and died in the conflict, as well as the civilians they left behind at home. Take a virtual trip back to the 1860s with Michael O. Varhola, the author of the new book Life in Civil War America, to discover what your ancestors wore, said, ate, earned, did for fun and more. Registration for the live session includes: * ...

Hopes of expanding the already voluminous Google Books collection (7 million books and counting) were shelved by a New York federal district court Tuesday, the ruling citing anti-trust concerns. Google previously reached a settlement with authors and publishers to digitize and display excerpts of out-of-print books, even if the materials are not in the public domain or explicitly authorized by publishers to appear in Google Books. This agreement was challenged by the Authors Guild and subsequently struck down because it gave Google a virtual monopoly on digitized books. The ...

Each month we'll release a new collection of carefully selected, discounted products to help you achieve your genealogy goals. A limited number of copies of each collection will be available, so get ‘em while the getting’s good. For March, we've put together the Ultimate Family History Starter Collection. This multimedia bundle brings you our most invaluable tips, tricks and how-tos to help you jump start your genealogy research. There are only 50 copies of this collection left for March. The Ultimate Family History Starter Collection contains: ...

When I got back from the Who Do You Think You Are? Live show in London at the end of February, I not only had a bag full of dirty laundry, but a slew of recorded interviews with fascinating genealogy experts, exhibit hall brochures, treasured purchases and a mountain of digital photographs.

After firing up the washing machine, I sat down at my desk and wondered what I would do with all those JPEG jewels. Photographs capture once-in-a-lifetime moments and treasured family memories that we certainly don’t want to forget. But assembling them in a way that ...

St. Patrick's Day started as a celebration of Ireland's patron saint. During the 5th century, a shepherd was called to serve the people of Ireland through the Catholic church, taking on the Christian name Patrick. According to legend, Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, but the island had no snakes at that time; this is most likely a metaphor for him converting the Irish to Christianity and driving out paganism. Another myth has Patrick using the Shamrock to teach the Holy Trinity. The holiday falls on March 17, because that is the day Patrick died. Saint Patrick's ...

Jump start you family history search with our Online Genealogy Crash Course. Stop wasting time aimlessly wandering the web — learn how to find your roots online in four hour-long video classes. This DVD brings you recorded webinars with family history experts. Discover valuable tips and tricks for googling your ancestors, using census and vital records websites, and searching the grandmother of all genealogy websites, Ancestry.com. The DVD contains these tutorials: Search Engine Tips and Tricks Streamline Google searches with techniques for using ...

Ancestry.com has launched a new collection of Irish records in honor of St. Patrick's Day. The collection contains records Irish historical documents from the 19th and early 20th centuries, including maps, photographs and land records. The Irish Collection, 1824-1910 includes: Griffiths Valuation, 1847-1864: Over 2.5 million records that provide a snapshot of ancestors who rented land or property throughout Ireland in the 1850s Tithe Applotment Books, 1824-1837: In 1823, a law was enacted requiring all land holders to pay a tithe to the Church of ...

The world's largest free genealogy search engine, Mocavo.com, launched today, providing family historians access to free genealogy content on the web. Search engines like Google rank results by popularity, how recently the webpage was posted and how many times the webpage is linked to. But genealogy content may not be often linked to or refreshed regularly, so it may fall to the bottom of the rankings. Unlike other search engines, Mocavo.com's search results are indexed by people who chose exactly want the engine crawls. This allows users to tap into content that would be hard ...

The other day I was flipping through TV channels when I stumbled upon the reality TV show “Gold Rush Alaska.” As I got lured into watching a couple of episodes (they were running a marathon that day), it all looked very familiar:

Huge excavators were pulling up great bucketfuls of material from the ground. The huge volume of earth would then tumble its way down sifting machines, eventually run across a wave table. The ultimate goal was to sift out the gold nuggets.

Then it hit me: That’s what we do with Google!

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Ireland's archival collections are now indexed online on the Irish Archives Resource website. The collection includes records of current and defunct government and local government agencies, individuals, landed estates, clubs, societies, trade unions, religious organizations, and cultural and political organizations. Click here to search the collection. Early-bird registration ends today for the National Genealogical Society Family History Conference, scheduled for May 11-14 in Charleston, S.C. Editors from Family Tree Magazine will be exhibiting there, so make sure to ...

The next batch of Family Tree University >> courses starts on Monday, March 14. Click through on any of the titles below to learn more and sign up! Build a Family Website >, taught by Nancy Hendrickson Digital Photography Essentials >, taught by Nancy Hendrickson Death Records 101 >, taught by Diana Crisman Smith Google Master Class >, taught by Lisa Louise Cooke Newspaper Research 101 >, taught by James M. Beidler Organize Your Photos >, taught by Nancy Hendrickson US Vital Records >, taught by George G. Morgan Write ...

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the new and innovative RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City. (Check out my blog about it here.) The wide range of family history and technology developer classes was something we really haven’t seen in mainstream genealogy conferences. And the exhibit hall was hands-down the most exciting high-tech genealogy space (and most expensive!) that family historians have ever seen.

It was quite amazing considering it was a first time event for FamilySearch. As Jay Verkler commented in my interview with him, they fully ...

Genealogy blogs are serving a more and more important role in family history research. Anyone with internet access can maintain their own blog, sharing their best tips, research stories, information about their ancestors and more. Even our Family Tree Firsts blogger Nancy Shively has stumbled upon distant cousins by chronicling her research online. Blogs are invaluable to the online genealogy community; that's why we started the Family Tree 40, our annual roundup of the best genealogy blogs as decided by our readers. The results are in — visit FamilyTreeMagazine.com for a ...

If you're not a basketball fan, join Family Tree Magazine contributor Lisa A. Alzo for her March Madness for Genealogists free webinar series. Space is limited to the first 100 attendees, so you must reserve a spot to participate. The available webinars include: Getting Started in Genealogy: The Basics Saturday, March 12, 1:00 p.m. EST Register here. Silent Voices: Tips and Tricks for Tracing Female Ancestors Saturday, March 19, 1:00 p.m. EST Register here. Life Stories: How to Write a Compelling Family History Narrative Saturday, March 26, 1:00 ...

Ancestry.com ended 2010 with 1.4 million subscribers, up 31 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009. The genealogy website also posted sales of $82.7 million for 2010, up 38 percent from a year earlier. Read the full financial report here. If you have a British black sheep in the family, you may be in luck. Ancestry.co.uk has published parole records of some of the United Kingdom female prisoners sentenced during 1853 to 1871, and 1883 to 1187. The database includes 4,400 records and 500 photos, and is available to U.S. Ancestry.com members with a world subscription. Click ...