Readers occasionally ask us if we have information on the photos or letters we show in our articles. Unfortunately, for the most part, we don’t. "Many of our old photos have come from antiques stores and flea markets," says our editor, Allison Stacy. "We used to have a photo stylist go out and buy props for us—kind of like a mystery shopper." So where do we get all the stuff we show in Family Tree Magazine? Without a stylist these days, we have to get a little creative in finding ...

To show you the lovely weather in Mesa, Ariz., host of the Family History Expo whence I just returned, here’s a photo of Friday morning’s 8 a.m. opening session: (Warm sunshine probably isn't a big deal to everybody who's reading this, but it is for someone who just came home ...

Genetic genealogy testing companies aren't doing enough to make sure you understand the limitations and implications of DNA testing, says the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG). The organization, whose 8,000 members include geneticists, scholars, genetic counselors, nurses and others, today issued a statement with recommendations for the genetic genealogy industry. It was prompted by the rising popularity of genetic genealogy. According to the ASHG, a half-million Americans will spend $100 to $1,000 ...

The subscription site Ancestry.ca (a Canadian records-focused sister site to Ancestry.com) and FamilySearch are partnering to digitize and index Ancestry.ca’s Canadian census records. They’ll be available to Ancestry.ca subscribers in 2009, and the indexes will be free to the public on the FamilySearch Web site. The images will be free at FamilySearch Family History Centers. Canadian national censuses were taken every 10 years starting in 1871; earlier censuses cover various areas of Canada. Under the agreement, FamilySearch will ...

The controversy over Mormons’ practice of posthumously baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims is in the news again. The Associated Press reported on yesterday’s American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors (AGHS) press conference. The organization claims the Church of Jesus Christ of ...

If you’ll be lucky enough to visit the National Archives and Records Administration facilities in Washington, DC or College Park, Md. (Archives I and Archives II, respectively) in the foreseeable future, get ready for the trip by perusing that other Insider’s blog posts about his recent journey there. The anonymous Ancestry Insider goes over where to eat, how to get around the area, the archives’ record-pulling rules, getting a ...

I threw two darts at the 101 Best Web Sites article in my September 2008 Family Tree Magazine—here are the two sites we’re highlighting this week: RootsWeb: This venerable volunteer-run site now resides in Ancestry.com’s domain, but don’t worry—it’s still free. It shares some visual elements with Ancestry.com and the page URLs have ancestry in them, but it has kept its friendly feel and remains an ideal jumping-off point for new researchers. Besides a great ...

We’re coming up on Veterans Day (in the United States) and Remembrance Day (in Canada), and our contributing editor Rick Crume told me about a neat remembrance of the 68,000 Canadians killed in World War I. Nights through Nov. 11, those names will be projected onto the National War Memorial in Ottawa and buildings elsewhere Canada, and onto the side of Canada House in London's Trafalgar Square. At the 1918 Vigil site, you can search for names of ...

After you've exercised your right to vote today, see if you can find your ancestors’ political leanings in voting registration records. On her blog, Kimberley Powell recommends some resources—including the California Voter Registration Index and a free index for Cleveland, Ohio, in 1907. At Cincinnati's downtown library, I  once found a 1970s voter registration book listing my grandma. ...

Here are this week's highlights from our 101 Best Web sites for researching your family history. As always, you can click right through to all the 101 picks from FamilyTreeMagazine.com. Missouri Digital Heritage Initiative: I was super-excited about this Web site when it debuted this spring, and I still am. It’s a one-stop shop for digitized historical records, abstracts and indexes from the state archives and other repositories throughout Missouri. If a record you ...

We're all ready for trick-or-treating. Have you answered our Forum poll about your favorite Halloween traditions? You'll find it in the Back Fence Forum.

Having a tough time getting the genealogy ball rolling? Need some family history motivation? Tune into a new podcast from Lisa Louise Cooke and Personal Life Media Network called Family History: Genealogy Made Easy. The tips are geared to beginners, with success-story interviews that'll also inspire more-experienced researchers.   “My hope is that this podcast will reach out to non-genealogists and show them that discovering their family history is possible," Cooke says. "Getting started is the ...

Today we’re seeing the first fruits of subscription database site Ancestry.com’s partnership with JewishGen, announced this summer. Ancestry.com just released 26 million records from JewishGen and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), an international humanitarian organization. The records in today's release will be available free on Ancestry.com. JDC records, online for the first time, include ...

WorldHistory.com, a new service from FamilyLink, launched into private beta testing with interactive maps, timelines, videos, geocoded photos, museum artifacts and family trees. The video demos (you're looking at one in the screenshot below) show what you’ll be able to do on the site. For example, you can look at a map showing where events happened during a time period you’re interested in. You also can see locations of related events, such as Revolutionary War battles. ...

Life before Google? Sometimes it hurts to think about. Even before learning some tricks while working on our January 2009 Family Tree Magazine genealogy Googling article, my favorite Google trick was the site search. I’d be racking my brain because I knew I saw something about probate records on some page of a site, and for the life of me I couldn’t find it again. I go to my Google toolbar and type in site: plus the URL and the ...