Hi, Reader, With the 4th of July weekend coming up, I hope you have a little time carved out for rest, family, and maybe even a bit of genealogy research, preferably somewhere cool if your weather is anything like ours! I also have some exciting news to share. The Are You My Cousin? website has been selected for Family Tree Magazine’s 101 Best Genealogy Websites of 2026. My site was included in the Best Genealogy News and Advice category, and I’m truly honored. Family Tree Magazine has been...
26 days ago • 1 min read
Hi, Reader, You found the death certificate. Name, date, cause of death confirmed. Filed away. Most genealogists stop there, but the four most useful clues on the document are still sitting unread. I just updated this post with exactly what to look for and why each one matters: → 4 Death Certificate Clues Everyone Misses The first I'd start with: the informant. Who reported the death? If it's a neighbor instead of a family member, that's not random. It's either evidence of estrangement, or a...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi, Reader, If you've been doing genealogy research for more than five minutes, you probably have them. A box. A folder. A stack of photographs with faces and zero names. They arrived from an aunt who was cleaning out a closet, or a cousin who "heard you do genealogy," or in my case — literally in the back of a car at Thanksgiving. They're sitting somewhere right now, and every time you look at them, you think: I should do something about these. Here's the thing — you can. And it doesn't...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi, Reader, As I shared last week, I lost access to a large chunk of my digital life. After a very stressful few week, I have good news! The Are You My Cousin? YouTube channel has been restored. 🎉 It still looks a bit barebones, and it will take me a bit of time to get it looking more organized. But, all of the videos are there. :) The loss to many of my digital assets was not permanent, and I did have backups in place. But this experience got my attention. It also made one thing very clear:...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hi, Reader, A quick update on something you may have already noticed. My YouTube channel was recently hijacked. I'm working directly with Google and YouTube to get it restored — these things move slowly, but I'm on it. I'll let you know when it's back up. In the meantime, the website is running normally and everything there is fully accessible. Including the minimalist genealogy toolkit. A few of you had trouble reaching it recently — thank you for your patience while I got it sorted. Here's...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hi, Reader, Ten years ago, I was a "paper based" researcher. Yes, I was moving toward a completely digital system, but I still had a lot of paper. Plus, I had nn elaborate filing system that needed its own management system. Most of the paper is gone now. Good riddance. What's left on my desk is a small collection of tools that actually earn their place, and one upgrade I wish I'd made years earlier. That upgrade? A second monitor. Genealogy is essentially a constant comparison exercise....
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hi, Reader, Most genealogists think organization happens at the desk. I used to think that too. But some of my most-used research tools aren't on my computer. They're on my phone — and I reach for them constantly. At the courthouse. In the cemetery. On the couch with a stack of documents. The small moments add up faster than you'd think. This week I updated one of my most practical posts. This one has been sitting in the archives for a while, but the way I actually research today looks a lot...
4 months ago • 1 min read
Hi, Reader, Most genealogists eventually end up with more than one subscription. Sometimes it is by accident, and sometimes it is out of frustration. The question is whether it's actually helping your research or just adding to your monthly expenses. Ancestry and MyHeritage both have billions of records. But the difference isn't the number — it's the collections and how they're indexed. I use them differently depending on what I'm trying to solve, and there are specific situations where...
4 months ago • 1 min read
Hi, Reader, There’s a genealogy skill that I don’t see talked about very often. It’s not finding records or learning about new databases. It’s not even about organizing your files. It’s observation. It's stepping back from your research to look at it through a different lens. The past couple of months, I’ve been revisiting one of my own brick wall ancestors - King Elliott. (That really is his name!) I've not made progress on this line for years until now. I expect you have a family line or...
4 months ago • 1 min read