I’m preparing for my RootsTech talk Research Guides: Researching Everything But People.  If you are at RootsTech, the talk is at 4:30, March 1st in room 250A

I’m going to show you how to gather bits and pieces of information so that you can create a research guide about places that will remind you where to look and hopefully inspire you a bit.

First we will start with the basics and they should be the same for every state, more or less.  You will want to find links or information about:

• State Archive
• State Library
• History for the State
• State Genealogy Society
• State Historical Society
• State GenWeb Page
• Ancestry Wiki
• FamilySearch Wiki
• Cyndi’s List
• Ancestry Research Guide
• State Historical Markers

Not every state will have all of these, but most will.

Replace all of these prompts above with the link and then create a blog page, a OneNote or Evernote page or a word document so that you can access it again.  You can check out Virginia  Resources, North Carolina Resources and South Carolina Resources to see what I have done.

One of the many great things about writing a blog about your ancestors, is you sometimes find family members who have something to share with you.  And every time it happens, it fills me with delight.  If you’ve been following  me since the beginning you might remember my article about the 8 Payne children who were living without their parents: How Eight Children Ended Up Living Alone In 1930

I wrote that article almost 6 years ago.  And this year, courtesy of a newly found cousin, Robert Payne, I received this:

From left to right, in order of age: Otto, Eva, Daisy, Robert, Thomas, Floyd, Jennie, Jack and Lela.

Sadly, Eva passed away two days ago at the age of 98, the last of this generation.  The expressions on their faces make me smile.  And I’ve never seen a picture of my Grandmother Jennie when she was so young.

And then Robert sent me this picture of James Robert Payne and Georgia Eva Baxter Payne, the parents of the 9 children above.

I’ve never seen any pictures of my great grandparents.  If you belong to the group of us who have very few pictures to pour over and catalog, you know how delightful and meaningful these two pictures are to me.

Some days are better than Christmas. 🙂