about me

professional genealogist Jennifer Dondero, author of Essential Skills for the Occasional Genealogist, an Amazon bestseller

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.

Learn More About Me

10:17 AM

Building a Genealogy FAN Club : The Basics {+ my top recommendations}

Already know what a genealogy FAN club is? This post covers the very basics of how to create and organize one. This is the follow-up post to " What Is a Genealogy FAN club? " and continues providing what it is and is not as well as organizing ideas. As a reminder, there are multiple terms we…

2:22 PM

FAN Club Genealogy Research: How-to and Tips

If you're trying to learn what a genealogy FAN club (or the FAN principle) is, read this post , instead. Today's post gets into a few more nitty-gritty details of how to start FAN club research for genealogy (also called cluster research or cluster genealogy). IMPORTANT: This is the technique …

11:52 AM

The "QuickSheet" for Your Toughest Problems

This is one of several reviews of Genealogical.com publications, you can find the list of available reviews, here . One of the publications Genealogical.com sent me to review is one of my very favorites. The Historical Biographer's Guide to Cluster Research (the FAN Principle) is a "QuickSheet." A…

2:35 PM

Free Genealogy Help: Cluster Research

Are you looking for free genealogy help to improve your genealogy skills? This is one of my "mini-posts" to help you get some quick answers and then find what will really help you. This post is for people who have a difficult research problem and need to try a different technique to make progress. …

2:30 PM

What Is a Genealogy FAN Club?

If you got here because you Googled “genealogy FAN club,” you probably are embarking on a really fun stage of your genealogy research. At least I hope you are. This post focuses on what a FAN club is. It covers: What the FAN acronym includes A basic "what cluster research is not" …

1:48 PM

Finding Female Ancestors: The Importance of Siblings

The importance of siblings is a topic that can be discussed for any genealogical problem but sometimes it may be the best or only way to research a difficult female ancestor. How Do You Find a Woman's Maiden Name? A Grayscale of Social Interaction There are lots of suggestions for identifying records abou…