Last week we posted a blog article titled “Ten Family History Bloggers You Should Know” to emphasize some of the great work that individual bloggers are doing in family history. This week we are following up with a look at corporate blog sites that offer many free resources and expert articles about genealogy. Let’s get started with the list—and remember that these are in alphabetical order by company, not in order of importance or number of subscribers. Ancestral Findings has helpful articles that are also included on their YouTube channel and as part of individual podcasts. Ancestry.com has ..read more

The IGHR (Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research), part of the Georgia Genealogical Society, held its annual online Expo on Saturday, May 4. The Family History Guide Association had two presentations at the Expo: Introduction to The Family History Guide and Research with The Family History Guide. The Expo is free and was sponsored by FamilySearch. Attendance was good, and it included a variety of useful and interesting sessions. Below is a list of topics and presenters, and you can find the complete schedule here. FamilySearch Library: How Can We Help? – Debbie Gurtler, AG Demonstrati ..read more

Over the past year, and especially in the past few months, artificial intelligence in genealogy has been a hot topic. RootsTech 2024 featured a number of presentations and videos on the topic, including a three-part series from James Tanner. We are excited to announce a new Goal for The Family History Guide: “Learn about artificial intelligence.” It’s included in the the Technology Project as a shared Goal for each of the Learning Paths: FamilySearch: Project 7, Goal 8 Ancestry: Project 6, Goal 7 MyHeritage: Project 6, Goal 7 Findmypast: Project 6, Goal 7 Choice A focuses on learning how art ..read more

Well-written blog articles can be a tremendous resource for learning family history skills. The Family History Guide has links to many hundreds of blog articles, arranged by topic in Goals and Choices throughout the site. In this article we’ll highlight the blog sites of 10 noted family history and genealogy bloggers, each of which is referenced in The Family History Guide. The list below is alphabetical by the blogger’s first name, so it is not presented in any ranked order of importance. Amy Johnson Crow – https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/ – Amy Johnson Crow produces blogs, podcasts, YouTube v ..read more

We have been working hard on adding new Record Search Practice Exercises to the website. We now have over 540 of them, with more to come. Using Practice Exercises is a great way to sharpen your skills with using record collections from around the world. You can easily locate the Practice Exercises using this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G8YRrJXc1ofmzF2YGu1FL1plt0qzTG4o-rW4RBvS5lc Countries and Territories with Practice Exercises Here are the countries and territories that currently have Practice Exercises, listed by continent: North America: United States (including ind ..read more

We recently posted a new video on our YouTube Channel that is a Spanish-language version of our popular Introduction to The Family History Guide. It’s titled “Introducción a la Guía de Historia Familiar” and is just over 23 minutes in length. This video helps Spanish speakers to quickly become familiar with The Family History Guide. Here are a few of the approaches we used in creating the video, to ensure a good viewing experience: The narration uses neural language generation from Amazon, to provide a smooth and authentic Spanish voice. The website screens are all in Spanish, except for the ..read more

The Family History Guide Association is excited to announce a new member of its Management Team. Brent Bunker, who resides in Newport, Oregon, has joined the team as a Content Specialist for the website. Those of you who have used Practice Exercises on the site may have seen Brent’s name, as he has contributed over 100 exercises for countries around the world. He also assisted many of the visitors to The Family History Guide’s booth at RootsTech 2024. Below is a brief bio for Brent to help you get to know him better. It’s also available on our Association page. Brent Bunker has been active in ..read more

Have you ever noticed your attention starting to wander a bit when you are watching a lengthy webinar or other research video, or even studying family history articles? A bit of background music may be just what you need. Playing your favorite tunes might work, but because they are your favorites, your attention might actually wander towards the music. Here’s an approach that might work for you: the new Background Music page in The Family History Guide. It consists of 20 music tracks and six tracks of nature sounds. Each track is designed for easy listening with fun and interesting styles, but ..read more

Here are more videos from the “Live and Unrehearsed” series. These videos will give you insight into how to do research online. They are released on the Goldie May YouTube Channel. Below are the links to Episodes 39 and 40: Episode 41 shows to to separate families that were accidentally merged, while cleaning up the facts, sources, and memories. Episode 42 demonstrates how to evaluate existing facts and sources, and search in census, tax, land, and probate records. You can view the episodes here or on the YouTube Channel playlist.   ..read more

We recently published a creative and heartwarming video on our YouTube Channel: Why We Need Our Family Story Now More Than Ever. This video explores the reasons for, and results of capturing and sharing our family history in interesting ways. It follows the effects of family history participation on a family through several generations, and well as providing a Latter-day Saint perspective on how family history work can help to bind families together. You can watch the video on our YouTube Channel, and it’s provided below for your convenience. Enjoy!     ..read more