Kindle Rewards 2X Points: A Two-Day Genealogy Book Haul Alert - Genealogy Bargains Amazon Kindle Rewards 2x points on April 21–22, 2026. Stack your genealogy ebook library during National Library Week and shop Thomas MacEntee's Kindle books.

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Sharing AI Stories beyond the Blog Using AI (and AI Advice!) to Share Family Stories with Cousins Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It’s time for a little more genealogy fun—this time with a practical twist! Over the past several months, I’ve been using Randy Seaver’s ABC Biography process (from Genea-Musings) along with AI tools to create narrative biographies, songs, and videos about my ancestors. I’ve been sharing those stories here on…

I asked 4 AI tools how to share my genealogy stories beyond my blog—and turned their answers into a simple workflow to reach cousins through DNA matches, family trees, and Facebook. Here’s what I learned!

Best of the Genea-Blogs - Week of 12 to 18 April 2026 Scores of genealogy and family history bloggers write hundreds of posts every week about their research, their families, and their interes...

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Monday’s Diggings – Wells Chancery Record Do you have documents in your files that you know are important… but you don’t quite remember how you obtained them? That was me this week as I dug into my WELLS research folder. Tucked inside was a multi-page chancery case from Eaton County, Michigan, involving Thurston K. Wells vs. John Graham (1859). The document clearly had value—it included a court decree, land description, sale report, and even a publisher’s affidavit—but there was one problem:

A forgotten file in my WELLS folder led to an 1859 chancery case, a foreclosure, and a lingering debt. Even better—an old 1998 letter revealed exactly how I found it. Sometimes the story is in the paperwork!

Genealogy Roundup: The Big Stories from the Last Two Weeks (5 – 19 April 2026) Welcome back, fellow researchers. The last fortnight has been one of the busiest stretches of the genealogical year. A landmark Irish census is now open to the world, AI is rewriting how we read 20…

Surprised to find my blog on this list of excellent genealogy resources! verticalhorizonsoftware.wordpress.com/2026/04/19/g...

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun A Madison County, Kentucky land entry introduced “John Downing” into my Crawford research—and may point back to Virginia. Could this be the FAN club lead I’ve been missing?

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

A Madison County, Kentucky land entry introduced “John Downing” into my Crawford research—and may point back to Virginia. Could this be the FAN club lead I’ve been missing?

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This week's crème de la crème - April 18, 2026 - Genealogy à la carte Some of the bijoux I discovered this week. Blog postsLAC Departmental Plan 2026-2027 and Are You Ready? Irish Census Release by John Reid on Anglo-Celtic Connections. What to expect from the 1926 Iris...

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What’s New at Ancestry: Turning Names into Stories at RootsTech 2026 RootsTech 2026 focused on new Ancestry products like AncestryPreserve, features such as AI-powered insights and transcriptions, and fully text-searchable Revol

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Richmond Fisk Hammond A Life of Service, Family, and Resilience Introduction How do we truly understand the life of an ancestor? For my 2nd great grandfather, Richmond Fisk Hammond, the answer comes from weaving together records—military, census, and family sources—into a story that spans from Ohio to Kansas and finally to California. His life reflects not only the experiences of one man, but also the broader story of 19th-century America.

Tracing the life of Richmond Hammond—from the Civil War to Dodge City and beyond. Records reveal the story of a soldier, settler, and family man. #Genealogy

Find the Faces Faster: Why Facial Recognition Is a Game-Changer for Family Photos Over the weekend, I uploaded around 2K photos to my Forever.com account.  These were family photos, vacation images, and a catch-all of older photos.  To speed up the process, I upgraded my free Valet...

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Ellis Island Family History Day: How to Find Your Immigrant Ancestor's Records on April 17th - Genealogy Bargains Celebrate Ellis Island Family History Day on April 17th by searching immigration records, ship manifests, and naturalization papers for your immigrant ancestors. Tips, tools, and deals to help you fin...

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Friday Finding: A Mystery – Polly Crawford, Orphan of 1816 How broadly do you research? Do you stick strictly to your known family lines—or do you take notes on everyone with the same surname in a particular place? Over the years, I’ve definitely leaned toward the second approach. If a record mentions a surname I’m researching in a specific location, I save it. That habit has left me with a collection of notes about people I can’t yet connect—but every now and then, one of those records deserves a closer look.

A mystery Crawford! An 1816 court record from Garrard County, Kentucky names Polly Crawford as an orphan choosing a guardian. But who was she? #genealogy #FridayFind

WikiTree Connect-a-Thon Are you a WikiTree user? If so, how much of your tree is actually represented there? While I have most of my RootsMagic database linked to the FamilySearch tree and reflected in my public tree on Ancestry, I have to admit that only a small portion of that work has made its way onto WikiTree’s collaborative tree. Those missing profiles are exactly why I signed up for my second WikiTree Connect-A-Thon.

Not the Connect-A-Thon weekend I planned—thanks to a fiber outage—but I still added 121 family profiles to WikiTree. Team Tree Nuts added 2,301 total! 💪🌳 #WikiTree #Genealogy

A Family Reconstructed from a Pension File Introduction Do you have records that you originally used for one purpose, only to discover they contain much more information than you first realized? That was the case when I revisited the pension file of my 2nd great grandfather, Richmond F. Hammond. While I initially focused on his Civil War service, a closer look revealed something just as valuable—clear genealogical information about his wives, children, and extended family.

A Civil War pension file can tell more than a military story. It helped me reconstruct the family of my 2nd great grandfather, Richmond Hammond. #Genealogy

Option 3:

FamilySearch Merge Tool Changed — Here’s How to Use It Correctly YouTube video by Family History Fanatics

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A Different Look at Richmond Hammond’s Military Career What is your learning style? Do you prefer videos or the written word? I have to admit—I’ve always preferred the written word when learning something new. There’s something about being able to read, re-read, and process information at my own pace that works best for me. But recently, using AI tools to create songs, audio overviews, and even videos has shown me that an ancestor’s story can be told in far more ways than I once imagined.

From handwritten pension file to cinematic video—plus audio and a song. Exploring new ways to tell Richmond Hammond’s story using AI tools. #Genealogy #AI

Using Artificial Intelligence In the Ancestor Biography Creation (ABC) Process - Updated This is a one-year update to my initial blog post defining the ABC Biography Creation Process .  The intent has stayed the same, but the pro...

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Best of the Genea-Blogs - Week of 5 to 11 April 2026 Scores of genealogy and family history bloggers write hundreds of posts every week about their research, their families, and their interes...

www.geneamusings.com/2026/04/best...

Monday’s Diggings – Two Marriages from my WELLS folder Do you have documents tucked away in your files that you obtained years ago—but haven’t fully revisited? That was the case for me as I pulled out my WELLS folder and found two marriage records from Calhoun County, Michigan. Based on the format and certification stamps, I’m fairly certain I requested these directly from the county years ago. At the time, they were important enough to save—but not fully analyzed or incorporated into my research.

Two old records from my Wells folder led to new insights! 📜 Marriage records from Calhoun County, Michigan connect Benjamin Wells and Nancy Wells in Clarence Township. Sometimes the best discoveries are already in your files. #Genealogy

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It’s Saturday Night again –Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): Do you have an ancestor with no defined birth and death dates or places? This week, please tell us about that ancestor and what clues you used to estimate a birth and death dates and places.

No exact birth or death dates? No problem. I trace the life of Hiram Currey—Ohio’s early state treasurer—using census, tax, and church records to build his timeline. #Genealogy #FamilyHistory

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This week's crème de la crème - April 11, 2026 - Genealogy à la carte Some of the bijoux I discovered this week. Blog postsFinding LAC’s Upper Canada Land Petitions by Ken McKinlay on Family Tree Knots. United Farm Women of Alberta and The U.F.A. Newspaper: 1922-1933 by Tara Currie on United Farmers Historical Society. The … Continue reading →

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Richmond Hammond’s Civil War Service When researching our ancestors, we sometimes uncover stories that don’t quite make sense at first glance. That was the case when I began digging into the Civil War service of my 2nd great grandfather, Richmond F. Hammond. One record labeled him a deserter—but as I pulled together additional records, a very different story began to emerge. It’s a good reminder that researching Civil War soldiers can appear straightforward—until it isn’t.

One record said “deserter.” The full story says otherwise. Discover the Civil War service of my 2nd great grandfather, Richmond Hammond. #Genealogy #FamilyHistory

This is WikiTree Connect-a-Thon Weekend Genealogy research and commentary by Marian Burk Wood, speaker and author of "Planning a Future for Your Family's Past," available from Amazon.com.

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Friday Find: A Crawford Family Bible Record…But Not My Crawfords Do you ever come across a record that looks incredibly promising—only to realize it may not belong to your family at all? This week’s Friday Find is exactly that kind of discovery. While digging through my Crawford Kentucky file, I found a photocopy of a published collection of Bible records from Mercer County, Kentucky, compiled by Alma Ray Sanders Ison in 1986.

This week’s #FridayFind: a detailed Crawford Bible record from Mercer Co., KY—full of names and dates… but not my Crawfords. A great reminder that not every same-name record belongs in your tree.

Five new genealogy videos on Allen County Public Library's YouTube channel - Genealogy à la carte The Genealogy Center at Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana continues to treat us with new videos on the library’s YouTube channel. In the description of all but one of these new videos, you’ll find a link to … Continue reading →

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The Crawford-Craig Connection in a Compiled Source What the Forbes Book Adds (and What It Doesn’t) As I continue working through the Craig and Crawford families of Augusta County, Virginia, I’ve been revisiting a familiar compiled source: Descendants of Alexander & Mary McPheeters Crawford. This book, compiled by Amanda Crawford Arbogast Forbes and Lucetta Crawford Sammis, is widely used in Crawford research—and for good reason. But like all compiled genealogies, it raises an important question:

How reliable is the Forbes Crawford genealogy? 🤔
This post explores its Craig–Crawford connections and compares compiled claims with original Augusta County records. #genealogy #familyhistory

Checking Out Newspaper Finder Genealogy research and commentary by Marian Burk Wood, speaker and author of "Planning a Future for Your Family's Past," available from Amazon.com.

climbingmyfamilytree.blogspot.com/2026/04/chec...