Mr. Grenham’s work combines all the best features of a textbook and a reference book, expertly describing the various steps in the research process while at the same time providing an indispensable body of source materials.

This fifth edition retains the familiar three-part structure, combining a detailed guide for beginners with thorough descriptions of all the relevant sources and county-by-county reference lists. All the information has been expanded and updated, and the extensively expanded index makes the book even easier to use.

Genealogical research in Ireland has always depended on records that are more fragmented, localized, and difficult to access than anywhere else. The Internet is changing that. More and more of these records are coming online. This book is an indispensable guide to what these records are, where they are, and what they mean. It serves as a directory to online records, discussing their uses and outlining research strategies. Most useful are the subsections to each of the county source lists, showing county Internet sources. References are given throughout for any online versions of the records dealt with.

With its step-by-step instructions in the location and use of traditional genealogical records, its discussion of civil records of birth, marriage, and death as well as land records and wills, and its list of Roman Catholic parish records and source lists, this guide is easily the most useful book in Irish genealogy.

John Grenham wrote the “Irish Roots” column in The Irish Times for years and ran the Irish Times Irish Ancestors website. He is a fellow of the Irish Genealogical Research Society and the Genealogical Society of Ireland, having come to professional genealogy in 1981 as one of the panel of researchers in the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland. He features frequently in the popular TV series Who Do You Think You Are?

The post Tracing Your Irish Ancestors. 5th Edition in Hardcover appeared first on Genealogical.com.

Records created by the major Christian denominations before 1900 in the United States are an underutilized resource for family historians. In these records, you may find ancestors’ births, maiden or married names, marriage details, deaths, family relationships, other residences, and even immigrants’ overseas birthplaces. You may uncover information about ancestors who have been unnamed in other records–women, children, ethnic minorities, immigrants, and the poor. You may find details about your ancestors recorded long before the existence of civil records.

However, it is not always an easy task to track down U.S. church records. How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records is a unique, peer-reviewed publication that takes researchers step-by-step through the process of identifying, locating, and gaining access to these genealogical gems.

Included in this book are hundreds of links to church research resources, as well as chapters devoted to specific resources for the major Christian denominations before 1900. More than 30 archivists, historians, and genealogical experts in specific faith traditions have contributed their knowledge to these denominational chapters.

The post How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records appeared first on Genealogical.com.

Help is at hand with Elizabeth Mills’s fabulous QuickSheet, which provides rules and models for citing the myriad databases and images you use on Ancestry.com. With this QuickSheet, you’ll know instantly how to cite databases that include census records, vital records, passenger lists, city directories, and family trees; and how to cite images that include manuscripts, maps, newspapers, and online books and articles.

The new Second Edition, Revised provides the most current information on Ancestry’s content and contributors, and how to cite them.

For most Ancestry.com sources, sample citations are shown here in three styles: Source List Entry, Full Reference Note, and Short Reference Note, each showing you how to deal with author/creator, title, website, URL, date accessed, item type, source of sources, and so forth. Arranged in tabular format under each of these headings, the sample citations are easy to follow and can be applied to your specific needs in citing your sources.

Convenient for desktop use at home or in the library, the new QuickSheet is a heavily laminated sheet, folded to form a standard 8½” x 11″ folder, and is designed for constant use.

The post QuickSheet: Citing Ancestry Databases & Images Evidence Style, Second Edition, Revised appeared first on Genealogical.com.

Now a new generation of genealogical educators have given the field an entirely new guide to the profession of genealogy–offering fresh insights and new specialties, grounded in more-solid standards and wider experiences and applications. In twenty-six chapters, written by twenty-two experts and edited by Elizabeth Shown Mills, Professional Genealogy: Preparation, Practice & Standards (ProGen PPS) is an invaluable resource for professional genealogists and students, as well as all family history researchers. “From genetic and forensic genealogy to ethics and contracts, business structures, marketing, writing, editing, and preparing books for press, ProGen PPS promises to inspire thought processes and ignite new discussions (Billie Stone Fogarty, M. Ed. President, Association of Professional Genealogists).

“Searching for roots” is a popular hobby, but genealogy is a discipline. From courts of law to government agencies, from medical research projects to television shows, reliable genealogical research is an essential in modern societies. The public sector needs professionals who know historical archives well but, more importantly, understand the strengths and weaknesses of individual records. It needs professionals skilled not only in research principles but the far more difficult challenge of proving identities and kinship. It needs professionals who understand proof and the standards that produce reliable evidence.

ProGen PPS provides a complete course of instruction to prepare genealogists for a career in a complex field. Whether you discover this career path as a young adult or come into genealogy as a mature researcher trained in another professional discipline, ProGen PPS will ground you in the essential practices, standards, and language of genealogy–those expected by courts, government agencies, and others who commission research. If you are a librarian or archivist who assists family historians on a daily basis, ProGen PPS provides a framework to coach them well. If you are a family or local historian, seeking to learn and preserve your heritage, ProGen PPS will help you avoid common pitfalls and guide you through the production of quality works.

“ProGen PPS is a landmark volume with an abundance of new material and thought. The collective talents of today’s generation of key influencers bring together unsurpassed knowledge of our craft that simply must be studied by novice and expert alike!”–David E. Rencher, AG, CG, FUGA, FIGRS, Chief Genealogical Officer, FamilySearch

About Elizabeth Shown Mills
Elizabeth Shown Mills, the architect and editor of both Professional Genealogy: Preparation, Practice &
Standards and 2001’s Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers
& Librarians, has been cited by her peers as the most influential genealogist in the post-Roots era.
As a pioneer educator in standards-based research and a developer of problem-solving strategies for proving identities and kinships, Mills edited a major scholarly journal for 16 years and both taught and directed programs in the field’s leading institutes for three decades. Widely published by commercial and scholarly presses in genealogy and history, as well as literature and sociology, her fifteen books include GPC’s best-seller Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace and its companion series, QuickSheets.

The post Professional Genealogy: Preparation, Practice & Standards appeared first on Genealogical.com.