Taneya Y. Koonce

09/02/2025

It's so fun to rescue books! The Book Rescuers FamilySearch WikiTree

08/31/2025

What motivates you to keep going with your family tree research? Numbers do it for me! (Well, not entirely, but I sure do love them).

Check out my latest post on how using stats can help your tree thrive! I include some WikiTree love in this post too LOL.

Link to post is in comments below 👇. Like this post? Share with a friend!

08/30/2025

Sharing about this newspaper resource!

If you have ancestors who explored the western United States, particularly Wyoming, you’ll want to check out the Wyoming Digital Newspaper Collection. This website contains more than 5.2 million newspaper pages, dating back to 1849. You can search all newspapers across the state or limit the search to specific counties, cities, or newspaper titles. To select multiple counties, cities, or titles, click one, then holding the Shift key (on a PC; might be Option on a Mac?), click others of interest. You can also browse the collection by title, date, or county.

When you find something of interest, you can download a PDF of the issue or an individual page or save it to a “private” list. For any of these actions, you must create a free user account. When you are logged in, you will see the option to download a PDF of the page in the viewer controls. Be sure to click on the page you want to download and then click the PDF button in the controls.

Head on over and check it out 👇
https://wyomingnewspapers.org

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08/27/2025

Don't leave your story blank - archive your life as you live it!

What are you leaving behind about your life for your future descendants/relatives? I invite you to read my latest post and share your thoughts! (see comments for link)

08/11/2025

If your family history were a coloring book, what would be on the first page? 🎨🖍️

A quilt pattern from your great-grandmother?
A map tracing your ancestors’ migration path?
A family farm or hometown street scene?

I recently shared about how my coloring hobby reminded me of genealogy (yes, there’s a connection!). In it, I share a few parallels between color-by-number and family history that you just may find interesting.

You can read it here ➡https://taneyakoonce.substack.com/p/ive-been-coloring-heres-how-its-similar

And if you want to follow along with my coloring journey, lessons learned, and maybe even see some genealogy-inspired coloring designs in the future, I’ve started a newsletter just for my coloring journey. It's called "Taneya Colors" and you can subscribe here ➡ https://taneyacolors.substack.com/

Now, if I were to answer my own question of "If your family history were a coloring book, what would be on the first page, just as you see a house in the image of this post, mine may be of the house my maternal grandmother grew up in. She is the anchor for my interest in family history and it would be cool to have that as my cover.

Your turn — what would your first page be?

Image credit: created with ChatGPT-5 by Taneya Koonce

07/22/2025

📚 New genealogy books you haven’t heard of yet? Yes, please!

Did you know that Lori Thornton administers a genealogy group over on LibraryThing and this year has started a running list of genealogy books as they get published? It’s a fun resource us all - researchers, memory keepers, and curious minds. It can be fun to check the list often to see what’s been added—there’s always something new to discover!

👉 Browse the 2025 list here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/372167

🔍 What’s the last genealogy-related book you added to your reading list?

07/19/2025

Such a cool way to see the city!

07/13/2025

Did I tell you that I went "viral" on TikTok!!! Okay - maybe not "viral" but I have one video that's been viewed almost 16,000 times and that's just cool! It's a video I made as I shared how a local bookstore creates "ephemera" packs. 😂 At the time I posted it originally (April 2024), I was starting a video series for National Preservation Week.

I continue to remain interested in these ephemera items and I now am going to occasionally share about them in a new section of my Academy of Legacy Leaders newsletter (taneyakoonce.substack.com).

What kinds of ephemera do you have in your family history files?

06/09/2025

What genealogy materials/books/databases have you used through your local public library?

I moved to Tampa 3.5 years ago and why am I only just now, getting my library card? It's great though because now I can use it for all kind of goodies - including goodies of the genealogy type!

Currently in my borrowed books -- the Board of Certified Genealogists book, Genealogy Standards (2019) that this provides guidance for the standards for documenting genealogy research and what to look for if someone else does your family history research.

What about you? What do you love using through your public library?

03/23/2025

Let's have some numbers fun in our family trees! Share a numbers fact or two from your own tree 🌳!

Examples include (but you can come up with your own):

✅ oldest person on the tree?
✅ family with the most number of kids?
✅ biggest age gap of a marrid couple?
✅ longest marriage?
✅ number of direct ancestors you've documented?
✅ number of multiple births you've found?
✅ family with the most kids?
✅ number of surnames represented?

What numbers can you share?



photo credit: generated by me in ChatGPT

03/20/2025

What worries you most as you think about whether your family history research and work will last beyond you? 🤔

Many thanks to the Society of New Jersey—GSNJ
for hosting me as I shared my presentation on Documenting Your Family History in the Digital Age - it was fun! I had the opportunity to share my three-pronged strategy for ensuring your efforts are long-standing!

Key to this is open, public sharing on collaborative genealogy platforms such as FamilySearch Family Tree and WikiTree. These two sites, when used together in tandem, are powerful for disseminating discoveries for long-term access. I hope to come back again next year! 🙏🏾

03/11/2025

5 years ago today - on March 11, 2019, the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. How have you documented your experiences during this transformative time period?

Generations from now, what will your ancestors know about how your life was changed?

photo credit: Morning Brew newsletter