By LaRae Free Kerr
Four brothers inherited a business from their father, which then failed, due to a vice of one of the brothers. This brother withdrew from the family, and his descendants didn’t even know of their relatives in the same city. When a modern descendant contacted a descendant of one of the other brothers, the cousin left out the “falling out” part of the story. The reader telling this tale then asked, “I’m wondering a) if I should have (left it out), and b) whether I should approach any member of the “estranged” branch of the family to see if they would like a gentle account of the story.”(This story has been changed to protect privacy.)

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By LaRae Free Kerr
There are other folks I’d like to mention but I really
haven’t time.

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By LaRae Free Kerr
In a perfect genealogical world, every single person would be represented on a family group record with at least three vital records: birth, marriage, and death certificates. Each certificate would give a name, an event, a date, a place, one or more persons, and a connector which, when combined,

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By LaRae Free Kerr

A cousin wrote, “Ephraim Perkins, born 1795 in NC, son of Joshua Perkins and Rebecca Sherrill has 5 wives listed for him—Mary Stubblefield md 9 Aug 1817, Lucinda Rushing md 1817, Lucinda E. Livingston md 4 Sep 1845, Milly J. Holmes md 7 Nov 1854, Mary Wylie Moses md abt 1865. Some of the children of Ephraim are connected to more than one of these wives. Can you clear this up?”

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By LaRae Free Kerr

Genetic genealogy is “the use of DNA to explore ancestral origins and relationships between individuals…another tool for the genealogist’s toolbox,” wrote Blaine T. Bettinger, Ph. D. at http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/wp-content/uploads/InterpretingTheResultsofGeneticGenealogyTests.PDF. Following is an example, based on a true situation but with the names changed, showing what YDNA can do and undo for researchers.

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by LaRae Free Kerr

Young Dollie Wadsworth walked to the polling booth with her husband, where she proudly cast her ballot, knowing she was making history, even in her isolated Nevada community. It was 1920. Warren Harding was elected with 76% of the votes. But in hindsight, that wasn’t the big news. The big news was that women voted in national elections for the first time.

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by LaRae Free Kerr

RUMBLE, puff, RUMBLE, puff, the train charged its way down Highway 6 towards the eastern canyons. As my husband and I watched it and felt its noisy rhythm rumbling and puffing down the track, we commented on how long it was. Dozens of ore cars heading back to the mines. RUMBLE- puff, light on their tracks because the cars were empty, hurrying to get there but full of nothing.

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by LaRae Free Kerr

Family reunions, of one kind or another, grace summer days. Whether your summer get-together is formal or just a gathering of close relatives, you can further your family history by getting some oral histories. Following are some of the suggestions for getting oral histories from the forthcoming book, The Least You Need to Do to Find Your Own True Ancestors. Another column will include lists of questions you could ask.

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by LaRae Free Kerr

Oral interviews can sometimes be a little like wild horses – they can pull you in many directions. So corral your goals and return to those goals no matter how many times the interviewee breaks free. Following are topics you might cover in oral interviews, depending on your genealogical goals. These suggestions come from the upcoming book, The Least You Need to Do to Find Your Own True Ancestors.

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By LaRae Free Kerr

Let’s say you’d like to find a little more about your Mormon and Mountain West relatives , and you figure there’s more on the web by now than what I recommended last year or the year before. Or maybe you know more ancestral names than you did when last I did a column on Western and Mormon sources. Or maybe you just have a few unfettered moments by the computer and want to have some fun. Here’s a list of URLs you can look at. Maybe somebody you are related to in some way will show up.

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By LaRae Free Kerr

A Comedy of Errors. In three parts. Showing how human tendencies can be manifest in genealogy research, causing errors and what to do about them.

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By LaRae Kerr

Why is genealogy so important to you?” asked reader D.A. “What is this drive to dig up info on your ancestors? You refer to this information as ‘useful.’ Useful for what? Perhaps…you could give particulars.”

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By LaRae Kerr

The technology of family history research, specifically the Internet and DNA have changed not only who is interested in genealogy but how the individuation is done.

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By LaRae Free Kerr

As family history researchers, we may think the proliferation of information on the Internet and the use of multiple technologies – including health technologies – has made finding our ancestors a slam dunk. One of the messages of 2007 regarding genealogy certainly supports that: the underlying rationale of genealogy has changed from one of elitism to one of democracy. But a second message of 2007 in these State of Genealogy remarks should scare researchers into action.

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By LaRae Free Kerr

Graves of my relatives lie along the North-South Mountain ranges of the Sawtooth Mountains starting at Lemhi, Idaho then down the Wasatch Mountain Range into Salt Lake County.

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