Your First 30 Days of Family History Research
A week-by-week plan for starting your family tree the right way, from interviewing relatives to finding your first census record.
Learn Genealogy
Practical, original guides organized by experience level. Start anywhere.
Beginner
New to genealogy? Start here: the habits and records every tree is built on.
How to Read the U.S. Federal Census (1790–1950)
What each federal census asked, which years are most useful, and how to get every clue out of a census page.
Organizing Your Research So You Never Lose a Find
A simple system for files, notes and research logs that keeps your family history from turning into a pile of unlabeled downloads.
Second Cousins, Once Removed: Relationship Terms Made Simple
What "first cousin once removed" actually means, how to work out any relationship in two steps, and why it matters for DNA matches.
Finding Obituaries and Death Records
Death records often hold the most family information of any document. Here is where to find certificates, obituaries and indexes, and how to read them carefully.
Cemetery Research and Reading Gravestones
How to find where an ancestor is buried, what to look for on the stone and in the cemetery office, and how to photograph old markers without damaging them.
Free vs. Paid Genealogy Sites: What You Actually Need
How far you can get without paying, the free back doors into paid databases, and when a subscription is worth it.
How to Use Online Family Trees Without Copying Their Mistakes
Other people's trees can be great leads or the fastest way to fill your tree with errors. How to tell the difference.
Interviewing Relatives: The Questions That Unlock Family History
Your older relatives know things no record will ever tell you. How to prepare, what to ask, how to record it, and what to do with the answers.
Which DNA Test Should You Take? A Plain-English Guide
Autosomal, Y-DNA or mitochondrial? Ancestry, MyHeritage, 23andMe or FamilyTreeDNA? What each test can and can't tell you, and how to get the most for your money.
Finding a Woman's Maiden Name: 15 Places to Look
Women's maiden names are among the hardest facts to find in American records. These are the record types most likely to reveal one, and how to use them.
Your Public Library: The Most Underrated Tool in Genealogy
Your library card can unlock paid genealogy databases for free, plus local history collections, interlibrary loan and expert reference help. Here's how to use all of it.
The Family History Library and FamilySearch Centers
The world's largest genealogy library is free and open to everyone, and its thousands of branches and affiliate libraries unlock records you can't see at home. Here's how to use them, in person or online.
Free Digital Libraries: Internet Archive, HathiTrust, Google Books and More
Millions of county histories, family histories, city directories and old reference books are free online, searchable word for word. Where to find them and how to search them.
Where Did My Ancestor Go? Finding Someone Who Vanishes Between Records
Your ancestor is in the 1880 census and missing from 1900. Before you assume the worst, work through the most common reasons people disappear from records, and where to find them again.
Why Can't I Find My Ancestor in the Index? Search Tricks That Work
Misspellings, misread handwriting and transcription errors hide millions of ancestors from name searches. Wildcards, Soundex, sideways searches and browsing will find most of them.
Recording Names, Dates and Places the Right Way
Hospital town or hometown? Maiden name or married name? County then or county now? Simple conventions that keep your family tree clear, consistent and easy for others to use.
Was Our Name Changed at Ellis Island? Where Name Changes Really Happened
Many families believe an immigration inspector changed their surname. The records tell a different story. How names really changed, and how to find the original.
The "Cherokee Princess" and Other Family Legends: How to Test a Family Story
Royal ancestors, three brothers who came over, a famous relative, a Native American great-grandmother. How to respectfully test family legends, and what the records usually show.
Does Our Surname Have a Coat of Arms? Heraldry vs. Surname Merchandise
Mugs and plaques sold with a "family crest" for your surname aren't what they seem. How heraldry actually works, and how to find out whether an ancestor really had arms.
Old Family Photos: How to Date and Identify Them
A box of unlabeled photos is a puzzle you can solve. How to date a photo from its type, the photographer's studio, clothing and hairstyles, and how to work out who's in it.
Preserving and Scanning Family Papers, Bibles and Photos
How to store, handle and digitize family documents and photographs so they last another hundred years, without expensive equipment.
Owning Your Research: Family Tree Software, GEDCOM and Backups
If your tree lives only on a website, you don't fully control it. How to keep your own copy with desktop software and GEDCOM files, and how to back up years of work.
How to Ask for Genealogy Help Online and Get Good Answers
Volunteers on forums, Facebook groups and Reddit solve hard problems every day. How to write a question that gets answered, where to post it, and how to protect living relatives' privacy.
Shared cM Explained: What Your DNA Match Numbers Really Mean
Every DNA match comes with a number of centimorgans. What a cM is, what the amount of shared DNA says about a relationship, and why the predicted relationship can be wrong.
Writing to DNA Matches: Messages That Get Replies
Most DNA match messages go unanswered. How to write a short, friendly message that gets a reply, what to share and not share, and what to do when no one answers.
Old Causes of Death Decoded: Dropsy, Consumption, Apoplexy and More
What the causes of death on old death certificates, burial records and mortality schedules usually meant, why they're often vague, and what they can tell you about your family.
Nicknames and Naming Patterns: Why Polly Was Mary and Patsy Was Martha
Old nicknames that look nothing like the formal name, traditional naming patterns that can predict grandparents' names, and other naming customs that can help or trip you up.
Intermediate
Past the census? Learn the courthouse, church and land records that go further back.
Finding Ancestors Before Statewide Vital Records
Most states didn't require birth and death certificates until the early 1900s. Here's where to look instead.
Land Records: The Paper Trail of Property
Deeds, patents and surveys survive when other records burned. Learn the difference between state-land and federal-land states and how to use them.
Passenger Lists: Finding Your Immigrant Ancestor's Ship
What U.S. arrival records contain in each era, how to find the right ship, and how to work backward to the hometown.
Naturalization Records: How Immigrants Became Citizens
How the two-step citizenship process worked, why 1906 is the dividing line, and where to find the papers that can name a hometown and ship.
Military Records from the Revolution to World War II
Service records, pension files, draft cards and bounty land: which records exist for each war, what they contain, and where to find them.
Wills and Probate: Proving Who Belonged to Whom
Probate files name heirs, wives and children, sometimes in a single page. Learn how probate worked, what's in the file, and how to find it at the courthouse.
Church Records: Baptisms, Marriages and Burials Before the State Kept Track
What each denomination recorded, where the registers are today, and how to find your ancestor's congregation.
City Directories: Tracking Your Ancestors Year by Year
The phone books of the past list adults with addresses and jobs every year, filling the ten-year gaps between censuses.
Getting More from Old Newspapers
Search strategies that beat bad OCR, the sections genealogists overlook, and how to find papers that aren't online.
State Census Records: The Censuses Between the Censuses
Many states took their own censuses, often in years ending in 5. They fill the ten-year gaps, partly replace the lost 1890 census, and sometimes ask questions the federal census never did.
World War I and II Draft Registration Cards
Nearly every American man born between about 1872 and 1900 filled out a WWI draft card, and millions more registered for WWII. What the cards say, who is in them, and how to find them free.
Social Security Records for Genealogy: SSDI, Applications and the Numident
How to use the Social Security Death Index, order a copy of an ancestor's SS-5 application, and search the free Numident records that often name parents.
Tracing Irish Ancestors: From America Back to the Townland
Most 19th-century Irish census records were destroyed, but Irish research is far from hopeless. How to find the place of origin, and the records that survive, many of them free.
America's Great Genealogy Libraries, and What Each Does Best
A handful of libraries hold collections no website can match. Where they are, what makes each one special, and how to use them from home.
Planning an Archive or Courthouse Research Trip
Most records still aren't online. How to find out what an archive or courthouse holds, prepare before you go, follow reading-room rules, and come home with everything you need.
Mastering the FamilySearch Catalog: Records Nobody Has Indexed
A name search covers only a fraction of what FamilySearch holds. The catalog leads you to millions of digitized but unindexed record books, free. Here's how to use it.
Full-Text Search: Finding Ancestors in Handwritten Deeds, Wills and Court Records
Computer handwriting recognition has made millions of unindexed pages searchable for the first time. How FamilySearch's full-text search works, how to search it well, and its limits.
County Histories, Published Family Histories and Genealogy Journals
Nineteenth-century county histories, compiled genealogies and scholarly journals can hand you generations of research, if you know how to use them and when not to trust them.
Is This the Same Person? Telling Apart People with the Same Name
Two John Millers in one county is the classic genealogy trap, and the source of countless wrong trees. How to tell same-name people apart, and how to prove which records belong to whom.
Writing Your Family History: From Research Notes to a Story People Will Read
Years of research don't mean much if no one can understand them. How to turn names and dates into a readable family history, from a single ancestor's story to a printed book.
Shared Matches and Sorting Your DNA List into Family Lines
Thousands of DNA matches become manageable once you sort them by grandparent. How shared matches, the Leeds Method and clustering tools work, and why close relatives sometimes land on the "wrong" side.
Unexpected DNA Results: When a Parent Isn't Who You Thought
DNA tests regularly reveal unknown siblings, adoptions and different biological parents. How to confirm what the results mean, take care of yourself, and decide what to do next.
Finding Birth Family: Adoption Research with Records and DNA
How adoptees and their descendants can search for birth family using original birth certificates, court records, registries and, most powerfully, DNA.
Mortality Schedules (1850–1885): The Census of the Dead
For four decades, census takers also listed everyone who had died in the previous year. What the mortality schedules record, where to find them, and why they matter for deaths that left no other trace.
Divorce Records: Finding Marriages That Ended
Divorce was more common in the past than many families admit, and divorce files can be rich in detail. Where divorce records are kept, how to find them, and what else to check.
Orphans, Guardianships and the Orphan Trains
Children who lost a parent often left a trail of court, orphanage and placement records. How to find guardianships, apprenticeships, orphanage records and orphan train placements.
Civil War Ancestors: Union and Confederate Service and Pension Records
More than three million men served in the Civil War. How to find out whether your ancestor served, and how to find his service records, pension file and the stories of his regiment.
Revolutionary War Ancestors and Lineage Societies (DAR, SAR and Mayflower)
How to find a Revolutionary War patriot in your tree, the records that prove his service, and how to document your line for the DAR, SAR, Mayflower Society and other lineage societies.
Old Dates: The 1752 Calendar Change, Double Dating and Quaker Dates
Why George Washington had two birthdays, what "10 February 1731/32" means, how to read Quaker dates like "5th day of 3rd month," and how to calculate a birth date from an age at death.
Twentieth-Century Brick Walls: Finding People Born 1900–1950
Recent ancestors can be surprisingly hard to find, because privacy rules close many records. The sources that are open, and how to use them for grandparents and great-grandparents.
Mexican and Hispanic Ancestors: Parish and Civil Records
Mexican and Hispanic family history can often be traced back centuries in Catholic parish and civil records, many of them free. How names work, where the records are, and how to bridge the border.
Italian Ancestors: Civil Records, the Antenati Portal and Citizenship Records
Italian civil records are some of the best in the world, and many are free online. How to find your ancestor's comune, use the Antenati portal, read the records, and what to know about citizenship by descent.
Polish Ancestors: Partitions, Parish Records and Free Indexes
Poland didn't exist as a country for more than a century, so your ancestor may have been recorded as Russian, Prussian or Austrian. How to find the right parish, and the free indexes and archives that make Polish research possible.
Scandinavian Ancestors: Church Books, Farm Names and Patronymics
Norwegian, Swedish and Danish records are among the best in the world, and many are free online. How patronymic surnames and farm names work, and where to find church books, censuses and emigration records.
English and Scottish Ancestors: Civil Registration, Censuses and Parish Registers
British records are rich, well indexed and often free to search. How to use civil registration, the 1841–1921 censuses and parish registers in England, Wales and Scotland.
French-Canadian and Canadian Ancestors: Parish Registers, Censuses and "Dit" Names
French-Canadian families can often be traced to the 1600s through some of the best church records in North America. How to use Quebec's parish registers, Canadian censuses and the tools built for this research.
Advanced
Brick walls, proof arguments and genetic genealogy.
The Genealogical Proof Standard in Practice
How professional genealogists decide when a conclusion is proven, and how to apply the five elements of the GPS to your own brick walls.
Using DNA Matches to Break Through Brick Walls
A practical workflow for turning a list of DNA matches into a documented ancestor: clustering, shared cM analysis and targeted testing.
The FAN Club: Solving Problems Through Friends, Associates and Neighbors
When your ancestor's own records run out, the people around them can still lead the way. A step-by-step guide to cluster research.
Reading Old Handwriting and Dates in Early Records
The long s, Latin abbreviations, "inst." and "ult.", and double dates like 1731/2. How to read 18th- and 19th-century documents with confidence.
Researching Enslaved Ancestors Before 1870
How to work past the 1870 census, identify a likely enslaver, and find enslaved people named in probate, tax, Freedmen's Bureau and military records.
Tax Lists: The Annual Census Most Researchers Skip
Tax lists were made every year, survive where other records burned, and can reveal ages, deaths and migrations. Here's how to read them.
Y-DNA and Surname Projects: Tracing the Direct Paternal Line
How Y-DNA testing works, what markers and haplogroups mean, and how surname projects can connect your line to others hundreds of years back.
When the Courthouse Burned: Researching in Burned Counties
Fires, floods and wars destroyed records in hundreds of counties. These are the substitutes and alternate copies that still survive.
Tracing German Ancestors: Finding the Village and Its Church Books
German research depends on finding the exact town. How to identify it from American records, locate it in a gazetteer, and search church books, civil records and town family books.
Deed Platting: Mapping Your Ancestor's Land from the Deed
How to turn a metes-and-bounds deed description into a map, fit neighbors' tracts together, and use the result to separate men of the same name and find the land today.
Poorhouses, Asylums, Prisons and Hospitals: Institutional Records
Ancestors who spent time in a poorhouse, asylum, prison, hospital or soldiers' home left records most researchers never look for. Where to find them, and the privacy rules that govern them.
Quaker Records: Meetings, Certificates and Disownments
Quakers kept some of the most detailed records in early America. How their meetings were organized, what their minutes and registers contain, and where to find them.
Native American Ancestors: Dawes Rolls, Indian Census Rolls and Tribal Records
How to research Native American ancestors using federal records such as the Dawes Rolls and Indian Census Rolls, tribal records and other sources, and how to approach this research with care.
Jewish Ancestors from Eastern Europe: Town Names, Border Changes and JewishGen
How to find your Jewish ancestors' town when maps and names have changed, and the records and research communities, from JewishGen to Yizkor books, that make Eastern European Jewish research possible.
Browse by topic
Getting Started 21Census Records 16Birth, Marriage & Death Records 15Church Records 12Cemeteries & Burials 2Newspapers & Obituaries 3Land & Property Records 7Wills, Probate & Court Records 13Tax Records 3Military Records 5Immigration & Naturalization 12DNA & Genetic Genealogy 9Libraries & Archives 8Research in the Old Country 10African American Research 2Research Methods & Evidence 31Brick Walls 11Organizing Your Research 7Online Sites & Family Trees 11