Latest issue of genealogy magazine chock-full of research tips

Sometimes, a single issue of a genealogy magazine can provide a good number of research tips. The November-December issue of Family Tree Magazine is a case in point.

Just about every article is worth sharing, but I will highlight some of the information that readers might find useful. Such as:

• Chronicling America, which can be found on the Library of Congress site, now has an interactive map that leads you to cities where newspapers are digitized. Go to chroniclingamerica.loc.gov to check it out.
• Ancestry.com now has a DNA chromosome painter under in its DNA Story area. The feature was added this past summer, and I had not noticed it. It’s under your Ethnicity Inheritance and is in the Beta stage. To see it, click “Explore now” on the far right. Check out other new options you might have missed.
• Another article focuses on information available for free online and the things you get “free” from Family Tree Magazine once you subscribe, which is substantial: genealogy worksheets, podcasts, a newsletter, e-books, and the U.S. State Research Guides, to name a few. In the list of free websites, the only new ones for me were “one-step webpages” from stephenmorse.org and genealogybargains.com.
• Other information in the issue include a thought-provoking article asking, “Were your ancestors Germans from Russia?” It has a lot of detailed material. In the list of “Genealogy Groups to Join,” one I had never heard of was the Virtual Genealogy Association at virtualgenealogy.org.

This issue is on newsstands now, at familytreemagazine.com, or available at some public libraries in Georgia.

Passports after 1925

U.S. Passport information is online at Ancestry.com to 1925. For those after 1925, you have to file a Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department to obtain a copy of a passport, according to an article in Family Tree. It can be a long wait, but could be worth it.

Scottish Genealogy insert

“Scottish Genealogy” is the eight-page insert in the issue and that alone is worth the cost of the magazine. These pages are chocked full of information, including a chronology of Scotland, name variations and origins, old terminology and an entire page of websites and books to consult.