This was found on the internet. It is good advice for all of us

Everything I needed to know about life I learned from a jigsaw puzzle.

1. Don't force a fit. If something is meant to be, it will come together naturally.

2.…

Searching Tip - using a  "wild card".

After years of hitting my head on that brick wall without finding any information on my great-grandmother I tried, for the 1st time, to use a "wild card". A "wild card" is when you put an asterisk (*) in place of a letter.

I replaced a letter in her…

Rules For Genealogy - A bit of Humor

1. Treat the brothers and sisters of your ancestors as equals ... even if some of them were in jail.

2. Death certificates are rarely filled in by the person who died.

3. When visiting a funeral home, wear old clothes, no make-up, and look like you have about a week to live ... the funeral director will give you anything you ask if he thinks you may be a customer soon.

4. The cemetery where your ancestor was…

1940 USA Federal Population Census

The National Archives will release the 1940 Census on April 2, 2012. It will be available for online searching free of charge. The 1940 Census will not have a name index when it opens on April 2, 2012. In order to locate someone, you will need to know his or her address and the Census enumeration district in which that address was located.

What can you do now in preparation for the opening of the 1940 Census?

The …

A Brief History of the Mennonites

Mennonites are a branch of the Christian church, with roots in the radical wing of the 16th century Protestant Reformation. Part of the group known as Anabaptists (because they rebaptized adult believers), the Mennonites took their name from Menno Simons (ca. 1496-1561), a Dutch priest who converted to the Anabaptist faith and helped lead it to prominence in Holland by the mid-16th century. His followers became known as Mennonites…

Guidelines For Using Message Boards & Submitting Queries

Posts to message boards, mailing lists, and newsgroups are great ways to connect with researchers with similar interests, to seek information, or to locate family members and can yield great results if they are written to gain the attention of potential cousins, or someone in a position to help you.

Resist impulse posting. Taking a few moments and care in writing a query will give your request…

The quest for family members of the past is an interesting venture. We live our day to day lives not considering many others outside of our nuclear family unit until one day an event explodes onto the scene, like a parent or grandparent death, to remind us that we too are not going to live forever.

This awakening for me occurred when one day I suddenly realised my grandmother was getting older, before my every eyes, and I did not know even where she had come from. She could not have…

"THE RECORDING OF A CEMETERY", by Thelma Greene Reagan

Today we walked where others walked, on a lonely, windswept hill;

Today we talked, where others cried, for loved ones whose lives are stilled.

Today our hearts were touched, by graves of tiny babies;

Snatched from the arms of loving kin, in the heartbreak of the ages.

Today we saw where the grandparents lay, in the last sleep of their time;

Lying under the trees and clouds, their beds kissed by the sun and…