Before 1910 there was little conformity with the various states in keeping records of births, deaths or marriages. It is because of this that church records may be a good substitute for the missing information before then. In addition, church records may contain information not found in civil records, such as witnesses or parents. Many churches, such as Quaker ones, had a vital concern with what went on in their congregation. If the records survive, you can find missing pieces to your genealogy.

Since the census data was only taken every 10 years you may have gaps in family history time periods which require investigating. Before the 20th century many families moved often and these families may be hard to keep track of. One way to keep track of them is to trace church records. A census may tell you where children were born, but finding the baptism of these children may reveal that they lived in a different place prior to or after the census. This will guide you to more research in new areas.

You may luck out if a family member was a priest or minister. Many churches or religious organizations such as a Catholic dioceses kept, and still keep, detailed records of those serving the church. You may find family or immigrant information in these records.

You will not be able to purchase a one volume comprehensive guide to doing church record research. There is none available. The only way to begin finding where to look is to use state genealogy guides, local family history research center information, random calling of churches, internet research and state archives. Sometimes it is difficult to figure out which church your ancestor may have attended, unless some document specifically mentions the church.

One of the first questions you will have when beginning church record research for your genealogy is, “How do I find out what religious denomination my ancestors belonged to?”

One of the ways to find out is to pay attention to the denomination of the minister who married your ancestors. Logically, your ancestors may have been married by a minister of a similar denomination.

Another way to find out can be connected to your ancestor’s country of origin. Many Italian ancestors were Catholic, Germans were Lutheran or Reformed and the English, Anglican, Quakers or Presbyterian. Those of French ancestry were most likely Catholic or Huguenot. Many Irish were Catholic or Methodist. The Scottish were commonly Presbyterian. It was common for ancestors to change denominations somewhere in their history. Converting to Methodist was common for Quakers and Catholics who could not find a local church or support.

Another way to find your ancestors religious denomination is to simply figure out what common denominations were in the area in which they lived. Many areas were predominantly Calvinist, Methodist, Baptist or Catholic. Roman Catholics are well known for passing down their denomination to the next generations, so some traditions may exist related to that.

Another less common way to determine a denomination is to search for biographical sketches of your family that may exist in published form, either locally or in a repository, such as a regional archive or library. For families that were in the country prior to 1800, there are many biographical sketches available at various libraries.

If you are looking for help doing your genealogy go to Family History Research. The author, Mark D. Jordan writes from and resides in Pennsylvania.

Author: Mark D Jordan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Have you used this tool? What interesting things did you find out about your family?

I have been using the tool for a long time and I am very grateful he did a video on this.. it just never occurred to me to do it

Are there other tools you use in your research that would help others? Let me know, I would love to put your video here for others or do one to help. Leave your suggestion or comment below.

One of the things I always look forward to is my Ancestry Magazine that comes every other month.  While I consider it something that I do in my leisure, it always seems to spur on my imagination for new places that I have not looked for missing ancestors.

Executive Editor Loretto (Lou) Dennis Sucs  has posted a great list of 300 Family History Sources on the Ancestry Blog that you may find interesting and give you some additional places you may not have thought of for missing family.

If you have any that are missing from the list let me know by commenting below so that we can help other researchers.

Enjoy

Since the advent of the internet, there are quite a large amount of records available online but not all.  There are also massive amounts of information on microfilm for viewing at your local family history center, but again, not all records worldwide have been put to film.  This leaves only one option; performing research within the community your family originally hails from.

Even if you were able locate pertinent records to further your cause domestically, these accounts will most likely be in a language you are not able to read.  Worse yet, the records could be in poor condition and the handwriting itself could be less than legible.

What to do?  At this point, you might begin to entertain the thought of hiring an international professional genealogist to aid you in your quest.  They can be an invaluable resource in the capacity of your own personal researcher within nearly any country in the world.

They possess a clear understanding of the process involved when researching and obtaining records found in their local archives, civil record offices, and churches; something which you most likely do not.  Often times however, people mistakenly become intimidated at the thought of forking their money over to someone on the other side of the planet.

How do you go about it?  What will you need to provide? Who can you trust?  These points along with a few other tidbits will all be addressed in this article.

The actuality of hiring a professional genealogist abroad doesn’t have to be a frightening process.  The good news is, if you follow a few basic rules of judgment, then you are likely to find yourself a willing and capable partner in your family history plight.

What would you need to provide them with?  That answer is the same as what you would need to submit to a domestic professional genealogist before the onset of the any research project.  International genealogists use the same methods to trace the lineage of any family group.

Your best bet is to provide them with any and all information you have, including items you deem insignificant.  Let the professionals’ use their expertise and knowledge to judge what is or is not important; never assume.  Typically, a good foundation to begin any search includes the following information:

•    Ancestor’s full name
•    Religion of family member(s)
•    Specific dates and events, i.e. Marriage, Birth, & Death dates and location(s) of events.
•    Range of years which are required for the research
•    Ancestor’s place of birth
•    Ancestor’s date of birth
•    Ancestor’s immediate family members and relationships
•    Occupations (if known)
•    Dates of immigration (if applicable)
•    Information available from previous research – both positive and negative findings
•    What are you trying to accomplish? Explain your goal.

If you don’t have all of this information handy, that’s okay. Just provide your potential genealogy researcher with whatever you have available to you.  That would at least give them a fairly concrete idea on where to start and how to provide you with a more accurate quote. You can mutually decide on a research plan pertaining to your ancestors from there.

Now, how does one go about finding a qualified professional genealogist?  I don’t have near the space to list all the possibilities available online.  Suffice it to say however, there are countless individuals listing themselves as researchers and it’s easy to locate various directories such as Expert Genealogy which is a catalog service that provides information for International professional genealogists.

You have the opportunity to feel your way through their listings and make an inquiry to anyone of interest individually via email.  Another interesting site is Genealogy Freelancers.  They offer a unique concept to the world of ancestry. Rather than combing the internet for individual researchers appropriate to your research project; you can reach numerous professional genealogists collectively on this website; a real timesaver.

Just post your family history project and their system will automatically notify any qualified researcher who is a match to the needs of your ancestry project.  Anyone interested will then place a bid for the pleasure of finding your family.  All you need to do is select the expert that you want to work with; that’s it.

They have experts from nearly every country on the globe too so it’s a safe bet you will be able to locate a solid professional here.  This service also utilizes a rating system so you will have the advantage of knowing what others have thought of their work as well.  These are just a couple of good examples of what’s out there.

Finally, how to know you can trust your chosen professional.  While there is no “absolute” method to this query short of a polygraph test, I can say that usually just some good old fashioned judgment and common sense will suffice.

Really make an effort to communicate your needs fully and ask as many questions as you deem necessary to get to know your potential genealogist’s capabilities, goals, and work ethic.

Ask for references or testimonials and follow up with them.  Professional memberships and a secondary education in family history are all pluses but neither of those stands to their research practice which is the most important part of the equation.  There are plenty of suburb genealogy researchers for hire that have none of this but are thorough and fastidious in their work.

All genealogists are challenged to some degree when they have to read and interpret documents in original handwriting. And the further back in time the handwriting sample is, the greater the challenge, until our own language looks foreign to us. A Web site aimed at scholars and researchers aspires to change all of that. English Handwriting 1500-1700, an online course, is a remarkably professional and thorough course of study, certainly equivalent to a college class.

The site is at www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/index.html and contains 28 self-guided lessons ranging in degree of difficulty from 1 to 5. Each lesson divides the computer screen into four sections: the first shows the sample text that you are to work with. The second section is your transcription window, where you type in your interpretation of the sample text. The third section gives you information about the sample you are working with, a description of the hand (type of writing) and the date it was written. The fourth section consists of various help buttons you can click on, view a transcription of the sample, show the written letters of alphabet in upper or lower case, see a table of common abbreviations, and take a test on this sample. The material in the 28 lessons starts with a level 1 in difficulty (I found this level easy) and works its way up to a level 5.

The site also has lots of supporting data, which should be looked at before attempting the courses. Included is a historical introduction that describes and illustrates the inks, resins, writing instruments, and surfaces used. This part gives the recipes and methods that were used to make a usable ink or to prepare a surface for writing, and it illustrates examples with actual pictures rather than drawings.

The transcription conventions section defines, lists, and gives examples of methods of abbreviation, which includes contractions (leaving out letters in the middle of a word, such as “Dr” for “Doctor” ), suspension (leaving off the end letters of a word, such as “etc” for “et cetera”), and brevigraphs (using a symbol to indicate a word or part of a word, such as “&” for “and” and the Greek chi-“X”-for “Christ”). Tildes (~) were placed over a letter to indicate that letters in the word have been omitted. Superscripts were letters written smaller and placed above the baseline as a sort of shortcut. The punctuation marks used (quite different from modern ones) are also discussed and illustrated.

The alphabets section illustrates two “hands” or styles of writing used in various documents-the Italic hand and the Jacobian Court hand. The user can view written examples these hands as well as examples of the upper or lower case letters of the “secretarie” alphabet, which was used during this time period.

The section on dating and describing hands tells how some of the different hands evolved over time and defines different features of writing and letter formation. Dating can be tricky, as the date on a document might actually be the date it was transcribed by the writer from another, older, document.

The sample transcriptions section is a shortcut for those not wanting to take the 28 lessons, but still wanting to look at each of the sample documents and study it along with it’s transcription.

This is a great site to visit to refine your skills in transcribing old handwriting. Anyone graduating from this online classroom will be close to an “expert” by the time they are finished. The site is free to use with no registration.

• If you are interested in going to the Allen County Public Library for a research trip Nov. 12-14, contact David Bonnett at davidbonnett@verizon.net or visit the WVGS Web site at www.inwvgs.org for trip information and prices.

Stephen Morse has an incredible site he calls “A One Step Portal for On-Line Genealogy” on which he has built some very advanced search pages to search the following records:

Ellis Island, Other Ports, US Census, Canada/UK Census, New York Census, Vital Records, Calendars, Maps, etc., Foreign Alphabets, Holoc & East Europe, Genetics (DNA), Creating your own Search Applications

And More…  bookmark this one and make sure to read the How to Use this site file he has.

Even if you have searched some of the sites on your own you may want to consider giving it a try again, especially if you have come up “blank” in the past and feel confident that your ancestor should be listed.

Happy Trails..

Genealogists figured this out quickly and for many this is the first place they begin researching because it can give you clues that you may not have thought of by the results you get… and its free.

Operands are nothing more than symbols that you use before, after or between words or phrases to narrow your search which act as filters for you. This is helpful because of returning millions of pages you can get a few thousand or hundred very relevant links to look through.

The most common operands are

+ or AND – Using a + or the word AND (in all caps) between two words, for example a first name + last name, or first name AND last name will return only sites that contain that first name and last name in combination. You can use it for more than just names: first name + last name + state + city, last name + year, and the list goes on.

“” – Using quotes “first name” around any word or group of words will only bring back sites that contain that EXACT word, or phrase. If we use our example above and search “first name + last name” + state + city our search is narrowed by sites that contain the first name and last name SPECIFICALLY for that state and city. Maybe you dont know the first name of your ancestor, you could type “lastname” + city + state and narrow from there. Very often this type of searching will bring back family websites that you never knew existed… try this “daniel + hogan” + city + state.

- (minus symbol) – The minus symbol does the exact opposite of the + symbol. Using it can exclude words you don’t want to be considered in your search. Be careful not to go crazy with this one, you dont need to exclude words like, and, the, if etc.. For example lets say I am looking for Daniel Hogan only, not Dan Hogan. I can type “Daniel + hogan” + Iowa + farley – “dan + hogan”. Perhaps I want to find Daniel in every state but Iowa, I would use “Daniel + hogan” + united states -Iowa. Make sure you watch your spacing here placing a space after the – symbol will not return the correct results.

* – * or the wildcard symbol is another fun operand and usually brings back many more results for you. This is helpful in situations where perhaps you don’t know all of the information you need like a first name of a family member. An example might be * “hogan” + Ireland or * “hogan” +Ireland. Give it a try, you can use more than names a wildcard is a wildcard and can bring back some really unique results.

.. – The double dot put directly between two numbers denotes a range to narrow the results down. This is great for finding information between ranges of years. Using our “hogans” above example we might use “hogan” +Ireland 1800..1900 Note that there are no spaces between the numbers or the dots.

These are the most “common” operands and there are many more but if you have a hard time remembering them you can always use the Advanced Search button on the main page of Google next to the search box to help you along.