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:...

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...

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....