Your surname tells a history of your family. Surnames can generally be traced to an origin point and even though people have migrated to other countries, there are still folks who stayed behind with those surnames and live there today. The creators of MapYourName.com have made it easy to see where your surname originated from and if anything, can give you a small clue on where to start looking if you are not sure of the country of origin for your ancestor. Or you may find some surprising occurances of your surname in another location. It’s a fascianting website that I couldn’t stop playing with. I entered just about every surname in my tree to see it mapped.

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Another often overlooked resource researchers neglect when searching for their ancestors is land records. There is a lot of information recorded during a land transaction and it could be just the document that ties your research together. The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) General Land Records Office (GLO) provides a wonderful service as you search for your ancestors’ land records. Read more »

I’ve created a little video for you that shows you how to take the results from your search at the BLM-GLO website and view them live in Google Earth!! I show you how to take the township and range information, input it into a conversion tool and voila – instant map of your ancestor’s land! You can then create a whole file of these land records in Google Earth and save the maps as part of your research. I hope you enjoy the video and please share the link with others if you did

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It’s truly amazing how much information is available online now. I started searching for genealogy online back in 1999 or so and I was stunned back then! Not only can you find transcribed records these days but there is a wealth of other information to help you create a “picture” of your ancestors.

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Plat maps are an underutilized resource for genealogy researchers. Plat maps show ownership of land in rural areas. Plat maps were (and still are) used in the states that adopted the Public Land Survey System which for all intents and purposes is a “square” system. Township and Range is the unit of area in the Public Land Survey System. It is most common in the Midwest and Plains states.

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