Meet the Author

I'm Jennifer, and I'm an Occasional Genealogist... sort of. For over ten years I've been a professional genealogist. I started researching my own family nearly 30 years ago. Like many of you, I started as an Occasional Genealogist. I had to squeeze research in while in school and while working full-time. Then I got my first genealogy job and for awhile, it was genealogy all the time. Now I have two kids. I do other people's genealogy constantly but my own? Coming up with ways to do great genealogy, despite all the interruptions, is now mandatory.

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Let's bust your brick wall!

Do you keep going off-track while researching your brick wall? Do you need to find more sources to continue your research? The Brick Wall Solution Roadmap can help.

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5:47 PM

Questions for Evaluating Genealogical Evidence

This post is the second part of " How do I know a genealogy source is correct? " The previous post explained why that's not a question you can answer and why you don't even need to ask it. This post is about the questions you SHOULD ask. We'll look at... Four questions you shoul…

1:30 PM

What is Reverse Genealogy?

Reverse genealogy can be a really powerful genealogy technique. A lot of people don't know about it or don't use it as much as they could. This post will look at: What is reverse genealogy How to do reverse genealogy 3 power-uses of reverse genealogy

2:35 PM

How to Take Genealogy Notes

This is the follow-up to the post " Why to Take Genealogy Notes ." That post explained why everyone should take notes, not just record "facts" (i.e., why you need to do more than just attach names, dates, and places to an online tree OR do more than record names, dates, and places in genealogy …

6:00 AM

Why You Need to Take Genealogy Notes

I've been working on answering this question for months now. Why take genealogy notes? A computer can make things so much simpler for you, recording facts automatically. There's one quick and compelling answer (and a lot of not compelling answers I'll skip for now).

10:35 AM

Are Genealogy Books a Good Source?

Are you using genealogy books as one of your sources? If you're not, you're probably making your genealogy research harder than it has to be. Books are an easy starting place to learn the vital skill of "evidence evaluation" and an often overlooked starting place in this digital world. When yo…

8:30 AM

The Worst Genealogy Mistake

Are you frustrated with your genealogy progress? Maybe you feel stuck. Maybe you feel confused. Maybe you feel impatient. There's a really good chance you're making the worst genealogy mistake. It's a really popular mistake that will leave you stuck, confused, and not progressing for YEARS.