Tanya Macdonald's Blog (6)

In this age of technological advancements and the use of social media, searching for a long last ancestor has become much easier.  But consider this, what may be a exciting find, can also be a privacy disaster.



Public records are available to anyone who knows how to search for them. A genealogical treasure trove of material is out there.   But often those same public records are misused as a form of identity theft.  Public records leave clues that can lead to other records and…

Since my family moved around so much, I have very little in the way of pictures or letters of my ancestors.  What I do have is so very precious to me.



My mother never met her paternal grandmother, and only had one photograph of her.  Her grandmother had passed away from pneumonia leaving very young children to be raised by others, among them my…

What are the odds....a sibling decided to move to another state, a small town surrounded by mountains.  A few years later, my mother decided to join him.  Neither sibling or parent had ever been interested in their family history, until I filled them in that they had moved to the same small town that my mothers 3rd great grandfather and family were buried.  They thought I was kidding and asked me to prove it.



On a recent trip to visit them, I took my mother to the small church and…

Anticipation making my heart beat faster, eagerly I opened the envelope. Opening the first paper, I read my great-grandfather's Declaration to become a Naturalized Citizen of the United States.  The feelings I had were almost overwhelming. a mixture of elation, relief and satisfaction as I realized I had finally broken through the impasse and yet another piece of my family's history was now complete. After sixteen years of searching, I had his marriage record, census records, newspaper…

I've often found when researching that the tinest snippet of information can lead to a wonderful surprise.  For example, typing surnames into Google Book Search has led me to the following:

A tiny snippet from a railroad magazine that was published for employees, mentioned my father's name. As my father has passed away, you can imagine how this peaked my curiosity.   I decided to research the magazine only to find it was no longer in print.  Not one to give up so easily, I…

When my day is hectic and I'm feeling frazzled, how relaxing it is to just step back into time.  I look around me at all the conveniences that modern day has to offer and wonder how my ancestors ever managed.  Old pictures, a small glimpse of their lives and towns, brings delight, wonder and a thirst to know more.  Whether I am combing through State Archives or searching old newspapers, that tiny clue, the little nugget that gives me the breakthrough I am looking for, makes the pressures of…