- Did Your Ancestor Serve in the Civil War? Don’t Forget the 1890 Special Census, Dr. Kenneth W. Heger, Ph.D.
There is plenty of excitement in the genealogy community recently with the public release of the 1950 census. But there are things to learn and get excited about with censuses from other years as well. Dr. Kenneth Heger introduces us to The Special Census for Union Veterans and Their Widows from 1890 (which also included many Confederate veterans).
- Finding Germans in Institutions, Debra A. Hoffman, PLCGS
Debra A. Hoffman, PLCGS, introduces us to a couple examples of enumerations of Germans in different types of institutions, and shows how to use the MAGS website and databases to access indexes of one of the institutions in particular.
- Friedrich Armin Ausfeld—Pastor, Calligrapher, and Family Historian, Bob Greiner
A chance find while doing unrelated research led Greiner to a pastor who wrote a full “life account” (Lebensnachrichten) of people in his parish who died. Greiner shows how this type of record can be used to fill out the details of the lives of the deceased as well as their parents and descendants.
- Autosomal DNA: Understanding the Results—A Popular and Valuable DNA Test for Family Research, Andrew Hochreiter
When deciding to take a DNA test, your first questions will include “What type of DNA?” and “Which test company do I choose?” As discussed in previous articles, there are different tests for various types of DNA. The choices include Y-Chromosome DNA (Y DNA), mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), X-Chromosome DNA (X DNA), and autosomal DNA (atDNA). The most widespread test of all is the autosomal DNA test. Not to mislead, the X Chromosome is included in the autosomal test and does not require separating testing, although test companies handle reporting differently.
- From German to English and Back, Ken Weaver
Weaver recently completed a webinar for the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, the topic of which related to the connections between German and English. In this article he discusses many of the items that he presented, since an understanding of the connection between the two languages can assist genealogists in their quest to deal with the records and documents they find.
Synopsis of articles in recent issues
