The Formidable Genealogist

07/26/2025

On sale! Is this the weekend you break down your research brick wall with new strategies? And especially with Full-Text Search, which is the best genealogy tool since the internet was invented.

Want a paper copy? If you don't want to print my PDF guide on your home printer, you can get it printed at a local UPS store or print shop for less than $10. You can also upload the PDF to many online print shops and they'll mail you a copy. (FedEx does this.)



https://www.theformidablegenealogist.com/category/all-products

07/26/2025

Here's another Now and Then photo from my archives.

My great grandfather, Lewis Edwin McFarlane, was born at the close of the Civil War in 1865. He built this grand home in Lake Andes, South Dakota around 1910. He ordered it from the Sears Catalog.

My grandpa is on the left on the porch. They lost the farm in the 1930s due to financial trouble.

The house is still standing and in great shape. It's even still the original yellow that it's been for over 115 years.

07/26/2025

I have a confession. When I first started researching, I would be so excited at every fact I found on Find a Grave and eagerly add it to my tree. For the first several years I researched my own family, I believed it all. I had not realized that it was all user sourced information and much of it was incorrect. One of the biggest pitfalls as a new researcher, is believing that someone else knows more than you do. Research everything. Don't trust a single unsourced thing.

I wanted to help other researchers avoid that, so I wrote a 72-page research guide about exactly how Find a Grave works, search tips and red flags. On sale for $13.

Below is a tip from the guide. It took me so long to realize that I shouldn't just accept Ancestry hints and be done with it. I need to look in the cemetery on Find a Grave for other related memorials. I have linked so many families that way.

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07/25/2025

Anyone I know have any insight into this potential for discarding 60% of the collection from the Iowa City State Historical Society of Iowa? Just sent to me by a friend.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IowaCity/comments/1m8za9u/state_historical_society_library_to_close_in_iowa/

https://www.press-citizen.com/story/opinion/columnists/2025/07/03/speaking-for-the-stuff-of-iowa-history-guest-column/84449857007/

Association of Professional Genealogists Advocacy committee - Any ideas or insight?

07/25/2025

One of my favorite things to do is take updated photos to match some of the photos I've found in my family history research.

This is my great grandpa's farm. John Jensen lived 1875-1965 and lived his whole adult life on this farm. He homesteaded here in 1902 and they lived in a one room cabin until this house was built sometime around 1906-1908. He was so proud of it and had the above painting made sometime in the 1910s.

I went out there a few years ago with my parents and we walked around the property. Unfortunately, everything burned down not long after.

I'd love to see any Now and Then photos you have, too.

07/25/2025

Check out this resource from my friend and colleague Julie.

Genealogy Quest has a section of its website dedicated to a listing of old occupations. This is helpful if you want to define a specific occupation, but it is also helpful if you’re trying to decipher an occupation in a record.

Head on over and check it out 👇
http://genealogy-quest.com/glossary-terms/old-time-occupations

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07/25/2025

One of the biggest detours I see in client research cases is where someone has found an exact birth date/death date or a middle name and they have blinders on when looking through records because they are so focused on finding the record to match that EXACT fact. They have not realized that the only place that info exists is on Find a Grave and is entirely unsourced. Despite that, every single online tree will relentlessly copy that information, giving the false impression that it is fact and that someone else must have documentation. Don't fall into that trap as it will stall your research.

Find a Grave is a great resource if you understand its limitations and how to use it.

My new 72 page research guide on Find a Grave is on sale for $13.

https://www.theformidablegenealogist.com/category/all-products

07/24/2025

Since I knew I would be away from client work this week helping my dad recover from a hip replacement down in Iowa, I wanted to have a new PDF research guide ready to launch this week.

Live on my website right now is a 72-page guide that I've written about how to use Find a Grave. It's such a useful and free website, but you need to know what info you can trust, what you can't, where everything comes from and red flags to watch for. I've also included helpful tips that I use for the website.

Grab it now for $13 through 27 July! My other guides are on sale for $15 each.

https://www.theformidablegenealogist.com/category/all-products

07/24/2025

Have you visited any farms of your ancestors and found anything frozen in time? I visited my great grandpa John Jensen's farm near Lake Andes, South Dakota. He homesteaded there in 1902 and lived there the rest of his life. He died nearby in a nursing home in 1965.

When I visited, it was the details that were frozen in time that really jumped out at me - one of his 1940s cars out in the trees with new, large trees growing directly through it. And the shed that was built by him that was still inexplicably full of some of their belongings. There was a pie safe visible in there that my mom remembers sitting in their kitchen and my mom remembers that the shelves of it were covered in lard.

07/23/2025

Here's a reminder to check newspapers for mentions of someone LONG after they would have died. This is a 1978 article that reposted a photo of my husband's 3rd great grandfather Ambrose Kelly. Ambrose died in 1922, but here's this lovely photo of the G.A.R. in Irving, Illinois.

Also of note - when he died in 1922, he was living in Kansas, so also check more than just an area where someone died. Check all known locations. You never know what you'll find or when you'll find it.

07/23/2025

I’m down at my parents’ house helping my Dad recover from a hip replacement, so may not have many videos this week. But check out this enormous baptism certificate on their wall. This is for my paternal grandfather, Oliver Vern Smith. Do you have similar ornate baptisms in your family? And have you also framed them?

07/22/2025

I've had about 20 people contact me today saying that they received the receipt, but not the download link on these guides. I think some email programs aren't delivering the product links because they think it's spam.

Please email me at theformidablegenealogist@gmail.com or forward me your receipt if you haven't received the download link. It should arrive immediately after purchase.



https://www.theformidablegenealogist.com/category/all-products