Controversy was recently stirred up when the Vatican sent a letter to the Catholic bishop of Utah, asking that the Catholic dioceses refrain from cooperating with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Most people are aware that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) hold one of the largest (or quite possibly the largest) genealogy collection in the world. So why would the Vatican impose such a ban? The actions have created a hushed reaction from both churches, as well as controversy over the letter.
While for many years, the LDS have been quite open about the collection of genealogical records, the Catholic church has been known throughout it's history for sweeping matters under the rug, and have long been accused of hiding or destroying historical and Biblical records.
While arguing the religious rightness of either church distracts from the true point, it remains unclear whether or not the historical records will be recovered from the Catholic church anytime soon. However, you can presently search through the LDS world genealogy records online for free.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
LDS and Vatican Argue Over Genealogy Records
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Obtaining Marriage Records Online
You don’t have to travel to the county that the bride and groom tied the knot, or search out directions to the courthouse. In fact, with enough information at hand, you won’t even need to leave the comfort of your own home because many counties actually offer the information online. There are also quite a few websites that can obtain the records for you. But a few key pieces of information might be necessary if you want to make sure that you get the right 
records. The county where the bride and groom were married is essential in most cases, in order to prevent incorrect results to your search. You would be surprised how many marriage records are similar to yours if you have a common name. There may be a few databases that can search for records in all counties and states, but most of the time you will need a county and state to find the correct records. If you don’t want to purchase over the internet, you can also locate the county records office online, and then send payment and order the records directly from the county. In this case, you will definitely need the names of both the groom and the bride, including the maiden name.
Public records are available right over the internet, but with so many similar names, it’s best to gather as much of the information necessary to distinguish the bride and groom from similarly named people. Jane (who’s maiden name is Smith) marries Bob Johnson and Susan is searching for Jane Johnson. To find the marriage records, Susan would need to know Jane’s maiden name is Smith. The name of the county is necessary in order to purchase the online records. However, if Susan performs a people search on Bob Johnson, a comprehensive report should show that he married Jane, and that her family members all share the common name Smith. Then Susan can order the marriage records with Jane Smith listed as the bride, and Bob Johnson listed as the groom.
The same method can be used when searching for a woman you have lost touch with over the years, because there is a strong possibility that her name has changed over the years. Women can sometimes be the hardest to track once they have been married, so if you only have the groom’s name, this could prove to be a very difficult search. In fact, you may actually need the bride’s maiden name to track down the correct bride and groom. This issue can become quite interesting if the bride has married more than once. In some cases, the woman may opt to keep her married name after a divorce, so knowing which last name she would use on her next marriage certificate can be tough as well. In other cases, the divorce records could mandate that the woman revert to her maiden name after the divorce has been finalized. When you come across a stumbling block, try a different route. If one way doesn’t work, try something else. Don’t frustrate yourself by trying the same thing, hoping for different results.
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Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Using US Newspapers in Genealogical Research
READ MORE - Original Article can be found HERE.
read more digg story
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Thursday, January 18, 2007
Contacting Loved Ones from the Past
Ever wondered about contacting that lost love of yours? With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, it’s time to take action! What a perfect time to reconnect, and possibly rekindle that old flame. It may be easier than you think. But what will you say? It’s been so long, and your nerves take a jolt when you think of saying ‘hi’ for the first time in years. But if you don’t do it, you’ll keep thinking about what could have been.
If you’re considering finding people from your past, and searching for and contacting your lost loves, there’s a few things you’ll need to have to be prepared for the search. People are relatively easy to find, as everyone leaves a paper trail behind them as they travel through life. These paper trails leave bits of information in the public records system, such as through marriage and divorce records, birth records, real estate information, and other common documents. The records are compiled into online databases, and are accessed when you use resources such as PeopleFinders.com to find your lost loves. So now searching for your lost love is quick and easy, and you could reconnect sooner than you had hoped.
It is very common that people will remember their past, and think…what if? I have known people who married their high school sweetheart – 30 years later! It’s a wonderful feeling when you first contact a lost love, especially when that person is equally excited to hear from you. Searching for lost loves is always going to bring up memories, so when you finally meet, remember to be sensitive to the fact that your lost love may be surprised to hear from you. Give everything time to sink in, it can be quite emotional when you first speak to one another.
Once you decide that you are going to search for someone, you have past the first hurdle. Sometimes it’s easier to find someone you haven’t talked to in a year or so than a person you’ve lost contact with for many years. Who you look for depends on how hard it will be. For instance, if you are looking for a man from your past, there’s not much of a chance that his name has changed. Perhaps the place he calls home changes over the years, but not so much his name. However, with women, it can be a whole different challenge. Generally a woman’s name will change when she becomes married, and sometime finding her with her new name is a challenge. For some people, they continue to live in the same area, and you may even know if she is married, and to who. But if you haven’t been in contact with your lost love in quite some time, the challenge may be finding her new name. You may consider contacting a close friend or relative, chances are they still keep contact with her, and may be easier to find. But even with the information you might have, it can be simple and easy, and in some cases, just a few clicks of your mouse.
So once you have the information, it’s time to go for it, procrastination never found anyone, but searching for them does. So be brave, and take on the challenge to find someone you miss, someone you haven’t been in contact with, and old friend or an old flame, just in time for that romantic day. Can you imagine anything more romantic and meaningful than receiving a card or flowers from someone you’ve thought about over the years? Well now’s your chance to do that for your lost love.
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Friday, November 24, 2006
Organizing Two Sides of the Family Tree
If you're not married, and/or don't have children, your family tree will begin with two sides – your mother's side of the family, and your father's side of the family. But if you are married, then starting with yourself, take a look at bith sides of the family, starting from either your wedding. Remember those seats with the bride's family on one side of the isle, and groom's family on the other? Well, that's where your children's family tree begins. Those seats would most likely have been filled with people who you can begin to piece together the first few pages of your family tree. If you're working in your complete family tree, you will want to keep records on both sides of your family, and keep them separated. As you delve deeper into your family line, you will find many names of people you have never heard of, and you don't want to mix the family records, complicating the process. By keeping the two sides of the family separated, you will be better able to keep track of the names, the relations, and it will make the long term goal of the project easier to see. There will inevitably be times when you'll feel as though you've hit a road block, and it can be very helpful to have another area you can concentrate on while you contemplate your options. 
When you are ready to begin, there is one key factor that will help you trace the lines of relatives in your family. With common names, simply Googling for information may not be enough. Start with someone who is LIVING. Many people make the mistake of trying to begin with someone in the family who has already passed, which can work in some cases, but in others, it creates a dead end too early in the project. This is especially true when searching online for answers. When it comes to information online, let's face it, there's a lot to sort through. If you're starting with yourself, work your way up to your parents and grandparents, because you may end up with information that can lead you to more. For a really privileged start, run a report on yourself using a company like PeopleFinders, which will give you specific information to work with. Memories fade, and names, addresses, and other information becomes harder to precisely remember. Without correct details, you could halt your search before it has truly begun.
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Saturday, November 04, 2006
Searching Your Genealogy – Your Family Tree
The family tree is often one of the most valuable heirlooms within a family. There are a great number of families in the United States that places a great emphasis on their genealogy and family history. Other families struggle through long searches trying to find answers as to where they came from, and how they got where they are now. Questions about who they look like go unanswered, but the desire to see their own faces in another human being grows with intensity.
But for many families, even though the information may be readily available on their genealogy, a wonderful family tree could be build, but it simply hasn't been started yet. These records can be extremely useful when researching the genealogy of your family. But record keeping wasn't a strong point of many of our ancestors, but birth, death, and marriage records have proven to be extremely useful, and are readily available online, as well as directly from the public records of many courthouses.
Putting together a family tree can be a difficult task. But in recent times, most people leave a paper trail, detailing records back as far as 20 years. As we fill out forms and sign documents, apply for loans, purchase property, get married, divorced, gain credit, and even destroy credit, we ourselves create this paper trail. It helps when you can give your project some organization right from the beginning. Set goals of how long each day or each week you would like to spend on your project, because there will be times you are truly addicted to your project, and just don't want to quit for the night, and other times you are completely frustrated, and won't want to touch it again for a year!
Frustration is one of the major reasons why people just starting to build their family tree end up quitting halfway through, never to pick up where they left off. Keep your project moving, and if you loose motivation in one area, try going back to an area you got stuck on in the past. A break in your thoughts can provide the ability to see clues you were blind to in your frustration. Try working on another area of the genealogical line for a while, and then later, come back to that which you were having trouble with earlier. If one relative seems to continue to provide dead ends, try a different relative. That's the true beauty of building a family tree. With extended family relationships, you have the option of using several different people searches to get information about the same relative.
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Monday, October 02, 2006
Before You Hire Anyone to Help You Search...
Be sure you have covered as much as you can do on your own. There are a plethora of free websites, databases, and government entities that hold information on you, your family, and those who you have associated with in the past. If the person you are looking for was close to you (such as a family member or ex-spouse), you may even have the option of looking yourself up in a few online databases, and you may find information leading to the person.
The first place (always) to start online when searching for anyone is a ZabaSearch. It has one of the best free online searches I've yet to see. You can try search engines, such as Google or Yahoo. But you should remember that these are not sufficient most of the time for pinpointing someone you lost contact with. The results come up in the millions, and most of the time you will get similar name matches, doctors, lawyers, and such. But never-the-less, it's worth a try; just type in as much information as you have on the person, such as a city and state, their name, year of birth, all of which are pretty specific bits of info. Chances are you would come up with little or nothing of importance. However, some search engines have been known to bring up the darndest things. It's worth a shot.
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