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3 weeks ago | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
Way back in 2005, Family Tree published its first two US state guides. “These guides are designed so you can easily whip them out in your genealogy workspace, or take them with you on research trips,” wrote then-editor Allison Stacy. “Eventually, you’ll have a collection of tips and tools to trace your roots anywhere in the United States.”Indeed, most issues since then have featured two state guides—they’ve proven so popular with readers that we come back to them again and again.
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1 month ago | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
The internet was quite a different place in the mid-1990s. Most websites we consider institutions these days—Facebook, Google and YouTube, to name a few—hadn’t yet been founded. eCommerce giants Amazon and eBay were still in their infancy. And Ancestry.com was still just a genealogy book- and magazine-publisher with a gleam in its eye. Undaunted by this new frontier, genealogists flocked to use this new thing called the World Wide Web in their research.
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2 months ago | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
The death of Pope Francis on 21 April 2025 set in motion an election of global importance: that of the next pope. The 1.4 billion Roman Catholics worldwide (roughly half of all Christians) await news of the next pontiff. Here are answers to some common questions about the pope, papal names, and the Holy Father’s relevance to genealogists. The pope is both the leader of the Catholic Church and the head-of-state of the Holy See and the sovereign nation of Vatican City.
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Mar 12, 2025 | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
Seasoned genealogists know that blood relatives shouldn’t be the only people you research. “Cluster” research encourages you to study the people in a person’s community—their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and fellow countrymen—not just their immediate family members. Recording non-relatives in family trees is not always straightforward, however. Here is how you can document non-family members in popular family tree-building programs.
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Aug 30, 2024 | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
Learn more about (and from!) your family this month. These five suggestions will get you started. Kids across the United States have started a new school year. Do the same by spending some time honing your skills: learning a new language, finding and interpreting a new kind of record, or using a new-to-you genealogy website or tool. The learning possibilities are endless.
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Jul 29, 2024 | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
You might not know where—or when—your next “semester” of genealogy will take you. But these five projects will get you ready. Students around the country go back to school this month, and stores are stockpiling notebooks, colored pencils, and graphing calculators. You’re probably past school age (we won’t ask by how much!), but you can still take advantage of deals on office supplies at local stores.
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Jun 20, 2024 | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
This summer, surf the waves or the World Wide Web. Beat the heat with these projects. We live in a golden age of genealogy. Thousands of websites host materials useful to family historians. And (though some resources remain offline), records are digitized every day. For most genealogists, the challenge is thus not if they can find information about their ancestors online, but rather which website they should try first. This month, take some time to discover new genealogy websites.
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May 29, 2024 | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
Famous for his world-building, author J.R.R. Tolkien created detailed genealogies for many of the epic’s major characters. Indeed, many versions of The Lord of the Rings include an appendix dedicated just to family trees. Below are some highlights, simplified to include just major characters in the story. Hobbiton and its neighboring villages are home to several prominent hobbit families, notably the Baggins, Bolgers, Brandybucks and Tooks.
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May 24, 2024 | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
Take your genealogy research outside! Enjoy the warm summer weather with these projects that are perfect for the backyard, porch or park. As adults, we don’t usually get to participate in organized summer reading programs. But you can still kick back with a long-anticipated book at a pool, beach, or local cemetery (see No. 2). Just don’t get sunscreen on its pages!We’ve got a running list of must-read genealogy books by subject.
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Apr 25, 2024 | 
familytreemagazine.com | Andrew Koch
Throw open the windows—warm temperatures are here to stay! Breathe some fresh air into your house and your research with these projects that will keep you busy all month long. Family historians study the whole family—people, but also the places and objects important to them. House histories collect information about the places your ancestors called home: when the house was built, what it was made of, who lived there (and when), what landmarks were nearby, and maybe even how it was decorated.
