Free Website Makes You a Genealogy Genius

Last week I scolded those who give up at the sight of a foreign-language genealogy document. My goal was to encourage you to learn. I won't accept "I can't" from anyone who won't make the effort.

This week I'll show you a way to learn what you need to know—with very little effort.

DailyAncestor.com is a free website that helps you master family tree research in tons of ways. Fun ways! Picture this. You're in a research library with rows of old-fashioned, wooden card catalog drawers. Inside each drawer are the answers to your genealogy questions. And they're easy to find.

This website helps you overcome any problems you're having in reading and understanding old genealogy records.

Launched last month, Daily Ancestor will keep you coming back again and again. Throughout the website you'll find printable one-page cheat sheets. These cover topics such as Latin, abbreviations, occupations, causes of death, and more.

The Daily Ancestor team created the site because they know the hard part isn't finding a record. It's reading it. Old handwriting, abbreviations, foreign words, and outdated terms stop people in their tracks. So they provided one free place where anyone can look up words and learn about family tree records.

Much like an old library card catalog, Daily Ancestor helps you quickly find the answers to your genealogy questions.

Here are the website's main features:

• Click the TODAY tab. Each day you'll find a real record image from a public archive along with a question and an explanation.
• Click the WORDS tab. Here you'll find a dictionary of more than 2,500 old record words. Click any of them for a plain definition, an example, and source citations. For instance:
  • In the Relationship Words drawer you'll find "Double cousin". Click the card to read the definition. "A double cousin is related through both parents; double first cousins come from two siblings who married two siblings, sharing all four grandparents." (Don't forget to download your free relationship calculator.)
  • In the Immigration and naturalization drawer you'll find "Picture bride". Click the card to read the explanation. "A picture bride was a woman, usually Japanese or Korean, married to an immigrant in America through an exchange of photographs, who then sailed to join him."
  • In the Old nicknames drawer you may be surprised to learn that Patsy was a nickname for Martha. Click the card for some background. "It comes from an old habit of turning a first M into a P, which also gave Peggy for Margaret, with a pet ending added."
  • Need help with a foreign language? Click to open the drawer for words in old records for each of these languages:
    • Latin
    • German—The German word for twins is Zwillinge.
    • Swedish
    • Polish—The Polish word for February is luty.
    • Italian—Boo yah. I knew all 45 words.
    • Norwegian
    • French
• Click the RECORDS tab. Browse through guides explaining what each of several types of record holds. You'll learn where to see them for free, and what to look for on the page. Scroll down to find individual guides to the records for each of the United States. Then there's a thorough guide to each U.S. Federal census through 1950.
• Click the GAMES tab. Here you'll find a series of quizzes that will help you learn more about several different topics. Topics include:
  • causes of death
  • census words
  • military records
  • immigration and naturalization
  • and quite a few more.
• Click the WRITING tab for tips to help you understand old-fashioned handwriting. Can you relate to this one? "Capital letters that fool everyone: I and J, L and S, T and F."
• Click the STORIES tab. Each card you find here will teach you how to read a type of record using a real example.
• Click the TOOLS tab. I found the first part of this page fascinating. It says, "What records exist for my ancestor?" This simple tool helps you form your research plan with some basic input. Learn which documents you should be able to find for a person who lived at a certain time and in a certain place. The TOOLS tab also offers calculators for:
  • relationships
  • birth date based on date of death and age at death
  • Soundex code
  • what day of the week was a particular date
  • how much a dollar was worth in a given year
  • and a lot more.

On any given page, keep an eye out for links to articles and goodies that can help you even more. These include:

• What to try at a brick wall
• Free printable genealogy forms
• Free family tree maker: fill it in, then print it
• Cousin chart: second cousins, once removed and more

Spend a bit of time with this website and you will learn a lot. Bookmark it today so you can go straight to it when your next genealogy question arises.