Easily Transcribe & Abstract Deeds with New Custom GPT
May 20, 2025
How to transcribe and abstract deeds quickly and accurately with Jenn’s custom GPT.
[Video] My Mom & Dad’s 1976 Wedding
May 4, 2025
Your author is so very lucky that her first cousin once removed, the inimitable late Jesse Walter (JW) West, was so ahead of his time and took a lot of video footage in the late 60s through the 70s… including my parents’ wedding! I thought I would share this 90 second hidden gem here on
Missing from the Census? Try This Strategy
January 15, 2025
This little tip has stood me well in finding “missing” male head-of-household ancestors in the 1850-1880 US census, and might help you, too! (Note that I’ll be saying “him” a lot in this post because in this case we’re usually seeking a fellow.) (Its better than shouting “Show yourself!” at your computer screen when your
Lightning Strikes Twice: Seven Generations in Two Family Photos
January 7, 2025
I’m dipping in and out of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, which is Amy Johnson Crow’s worthy effort to get us to share more of our family and genealogy stories. This week’s topic is “Favorite Photo,” but of course I had to choose two! These aren’t just any family photos – they’re five-generation portraits of
My 2025 Genealogy Goals
January 3, 2025
The last two years have been all about formalizing my genealogy education. And this year will be more of the same, but with the added bonus that I’ll be doing all that around a robust load of very interesting clients and some fun speaking gigs! That said, I have one big, bad goal for this
2024 Genealogy Recap
December 30, 2024
Way back on January 8th I posted my 2024 genealogy game plan and I’m happy to say that I crossed most everything I wanted to do off my checklist, and then a little more besides! Such as… Becoming a Professional Genealogist But the most important thing I did was actually start taking clients as a
AI Test: Successfully Summarizing Tax Laws
December 10, 2024
This is the tale of how AI literally showed me up regarding summarizing historic tax laws. Genealogists in Georgia are all too aware that our early censuses are missing.1 And because of that, we need to find other ways to identify our early Georgia ancestors. Fortunately, many early Georgia counties have tax records to make
More Unidentified West Family Photos
December 1, 2024
As genealogists, we’re always lucky when we find the family historians who came before us. My mom’s first cousin Dub West and his wife Christine were able to collect some West and Hester family photos. Unfortunately, many of those photos were unlabeled and nobody living knew who they were. That’s where we come in! Can
Court Records Added to FamilySearch AI Search
October 7, 2024
Rather watch on YouTube? It appears FamilySearch has quietly opened their court records to FamilySearch’s AI-powered search! Why is AI-enabled search of court records game changing? When launched, FamilySearch allowed users to search Land and Probate records using AI full text search. This was an immediate game changer for many genealogists, allowing us to find
Proof Argument: Determining George W West’s Birthdate
May 19, 2024
Part of my genealogy education has been writing proof arguments. I was able to determine my brick wall ancestor George W. West’s birthdate using a really cool document known informally as “The Joe Brown Census” and some intense documentary research. Here’s what I came up with. Proving George W. West’s Birthdate Question: What was the
Categories
- 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
- African-American Genealogy
- AI
- Bishop Family
- Blanton family
- Butterworth Family
- Cherokee County Georgia
- Cowan Family
- DNA
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- Dunn Family
- Genealogy
- Georgia Genealogy
- Gravitt Family
- Hester Family
- Hill family
- McDaniel Family
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- Southern US History
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