Learning your family tree doesn't have to be difficult. Genealogy can start at home.

Credit: Library of Congress

Author: Mia Gradney

Published: 3:23 PM CST February 25, 2025

Updated: 3:25 PM CST February 25, 2025

HOUSTON — Inspired to learn more about your roots? Here’s how to start your journey into family history.

RELATED: Family ties: Reunions and Roots

 Step 1: Start at home

• Gather what you already have: Old photographs, family Bibles, letters, birth/marriage records, military records, obituaries, quilts, or heirlooms.
• Digitize important documents for safekeeping.

Step 2: Talk to your elders

• Interview your oldest living relatives—parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or family friends.
• Ask about names, places, traditions, and stories passed down.
• Record conversations using your phone or a voice recorder for future reference.

 Step 3: Visit your local library

• Get a library card—most libraries offer free access to genealogy databases.
• Use resources like census records, city directories, and historical newspapers.

Step 4: Use free online resources

• Create a free account at FamilySearch.org for access to a vast collection of genealogical records.
• Explore databases like:
  • Ancestry.com (some records free, others require a subscription)
  • FindAGrave.com (cemetery records and family connections)
  • African American Genealogy groups on Facebook and online forums.

 Step 5: Join a genealogy research group

• Learn methods, strategies, and documentation tips from experienced researchers.
• Connect with local or national genealogy societies for African American family research.

 Step 6: Be patient – it’s a journey, not a destination

• Researching family history is not a weekend project—it unfolds over time.
• Each new discovery leads to more relatives, more stories, and more history to uncover.

The next meeting of the Genealogy Club of Newtown will be held on Wednesday, March 12, at 7 pm via Zoom. The meeting will feature Stephanie O’Connell, a professional genealogist, on the topic of “Finding Your Irish Female Ancestors.”

O’Connell specializes in Irish research and is passionate about delving into the social histories of ancestors, especially women.

Researching female ancestors can be an incredibly rewarding, yet at times frustrating journey. Meeting these challenges requires employing multiple research strategies. O’Connell’s presentation will showcase strategies for uncovering the identities and life stories of these often overlooked women.

O’Connell holds the Certified Genealogist credential from the Board for Certification of Genealogists. She has served as an instructor for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), which offers a variety of courses from high-intermediate to advanced education for those seeking to become professional genealogists.

She has been a speaker at major genealogy conferences, including Roots Tech, the National Genealogical Society Family History Conference, and the New York State Family History Conference.

The Genealogy Club of Newtown meets the second Wednesday of every month from September through June. Programs are co-sponsored by C.H. Booth Library.

All who are interested in genealogy are welcome to attend. Guests can join the meeting by emailing a request for the program link to genclubnewtownct.secretary@gmail.com by March 9. Requests should include name, address, phone number and email address. A program link will be sent on March 10 or 11.

Those planning to attend are requested to join the meeting starting at 6:45 pm so that everyone can be admitted before the meeting and program start at 7 pm.

Archives Revealed has awarded 12 cataloguing grants and its first ever consortium grant to archives across the UK.

Archives Revealed is a partnership programme between The National Archives (of Great Britain), the Pilgrim Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and The National Lottery Heritage Fund which helps unlock collections across the UK and build the skills needed to care for them into the future.

These are the first grants of their kind awarded since The National Lottery Heritage Fund invested £5 million in the Archives Revealed partnership programme. In total, £675,000 has been awarded in this round – more in a single round of applications than ever before.

The new consortium grants offer up to £150,000 in funding for groups of archive and heritage organisations to collaborate on projects for the cataloguing of archive collections in the UK. Cataloguing grants provide individual organisations with up to £50,000, also for the cataloguing of significant collections.

In addition, both programmes offer funding which supports grantees to share their collections with new audiences through engagement and educational activities.

The first successful consortium grant, worth £145,000, has been awarded to The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in partnership with the Nerve Centre, Northern Ireland’s leading media arts centre.

Their proposed project, “Now We’re Talking”, will catalogue and widen access to the papers of two significant cultural figures from Northern Ireland: the author and broadcaster, Sam Hanna Bell, and the folklorist, writer and broadcaster, Michael J Murphy.

David Huddleston, acting PRONI Director, said: “Murphy and Bell were chroniclers of Northern Ireland’s people, culture and traditions and their works provide a unique lens through which to view the region’s history. Using their extensive archives as a starting point, this project aims to reconnect communities with their shared cultural heritage through an exploration of tradition, memory, and identity.”

The successful cataloguing grant applicants are:

Between them, these organisations will be cataloguing collections with records dating as far back as 1792. The topics covered include influential women in the paralympic movement, The Cassell Hospital in Surrey (recognised for its role in de-medicalising hospital treatment for people struggling with poor mental health), community youth theatre in Nottingham and much more.

Through their project, “Landscapes Unlocked”, the Peak District National Park Foundation (PDNPF) will be working in partnership with the Peak District National Park Authority (PDNPA) and Derby Record Office to catalogue, and open up to the public, PDNPA’s image archive. This features over 40,000 images spanning the 20th century.

Roisin Joyce, PDNPF Director, yesterday said:

“This collection tells us about the changes to people and nature in our national parks […] it also has huge potential to help us better understand landscape change, a vital research area in the face of climate change. We look forward to opening up the collection and drawing out stories to share with communities inside and beyond the boundaries of the park.”

Eilish McGuinness, Chief Executive of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, yesterday said:

“Our archives are home to our stories. Records, collections and histories all shine a light on who we are, how we live and what is important to us. I am delighted that funding from all four partners is enabling Archives Revealed projects to unlock and share many more of these stories right across the UK, safeguarding them for future generations. It is incredibly exciting to celebrate these grants, including the first consortium grant which represents a step-change for the archive sector and an opportunity to share skills and knowledge, foster partnerships and build organisational resilience in the sector. All of this is vital for protecting the future of our archives and delivering our vision for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future.”

Sue Bowers, Director of the Pilgrim Trust, yesterday said:

“I would like to congratulate all the fantastic projects that have been awarded funding. As a founder member of the scheme 20 years ago, we are delighted that the newly expanded partnership enables the unlocking of so many more UK archive collections representing the lives of people across the UK for research and for all to enjoy.”

Archives Revealed is the only funding programme in the UK dedicated to the cataloguing and unlocking of archival collections.

The next round of applications for catalogue and consortium grants opened on Monday 24 February. We will be hosting a webinar for potential applicants to ask questions about the cataloguing and consortium grants on Thursday 6 March. Archives Revealed will also be running a series of trainings and skills development opportunities throughout its delivery.

23andMe is a company on the ropes. The one-time leader of the DNA analysis market – valued at $6 billion in 2021 – is now worth less than $100 million, a 99 percent drop that makes Labour’s autumn Budget look like a roaring success.

2024 saw 40 percent of staff laid off and a mass exodus from the board of directors. Now, potential buyers are circling at the smell of blood and Anne Wojcicki, CEO and founder, is struggling to keep the company’s head above water.

Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe (23andme)

How did a successful Silicon Valley startup – an offspring of the tech boom that produced monolithic companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter – suffer such a fall from grace?

23andMe was co-founded in 2006 by Anne Wojcicki. With her ex-husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and her sister Susan, the former CEO of YouTube, Wojcicki quickly became a Silicon Valley power player: her family emblematic of a rare female presence in the male-dominated tech world.

The company’s USP was simple but revolutionary: spit into a tube, send off your saliva samples, and receive a detailed DNA analysis just a few weeks later. It was named Time’s Invention of the Year in 2008. With these results, customers could supposedly discover everything from personal disease risks to far-flung ancestry.

Unlike AncestryDNA, a competitor that stuck to genealogy, 23andMe also provided health reports, eventually diversifying into pharmaceutical development both internally and externally. The company’s pivot towards commercial research projects was made clear in 2018 via a well-publicised deal worth $300m with Glaxo-Smith Klyne; essentially, selling the genetic data of five million customers to the pharmaceutical company for drug research.

This move rapidly accelerated their value as a business – but ethical questions undercut their success. For some, 23andMe were nothing more than data harvesters who exploited customers’ existential curiosities in return for their genetic fingerprint.

Dr Adam Rutherford, a British geneticist and broadcaster, has long been sceptical of the company’s motives, despite having a 23andMe account himself. “They appeal to our sense of belonging and storytelling,” Rutherford argues, “But they were specifically set up in order to harvest people’s genomes: the densest amount of information that exists in the known universe.”

In 2023, the genetic testing company had its biggest setback: a scandalous data breach. After trying to squash the problem, they were forced to admit that the hacking incident hadn’t just accessed 14,000 accounts – as they originally claimed – but almost seven million. A subsequent lawsuit forced them to pay a settlement of $30m but damage to their reputation was incalculable, going on fatal.

23andMe also faced fundamental structural issues. The one-use nature of DNA tests (once you take a DNA test, there is not much point in getting another) meant a shrinking customer base, with consumer revenue falling eight percent yearly since 2021. In a bid to diversify and stem toppling share prices – those fell 70 percent last year – the company pivoted towards healthcare, launching a weight-loss program offering access to drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Whether this last-ditch effort can reverse their decline or merely delay the inevitable remains to be seen.

With Wojcicki reportedly looking to sell, the fate of 23andMe’s vast genetic database is now the biggest unanswered question. The chief concern of Nancy Kass, a Bioethics professor at Johns Hopkins University, is to do with custodianship. “If 23andMe does go under, who’s going to buy this data?” she asks. “That’s the real question.”

23andMe’s decline is a case study of a company’s mishaps and a growing distrust of Big Business’ use of data. However, as Dr Rutherford points out, it could be far more straightforward than this. “These kinds of tests are essentially a fad,” he says, “And in the current climate, people are prioritising spending money on heating bills over finding out they’re 40 percent Swedish – which by the way, is impossible.”

RootsTech is being held March 6-8, 2025, and is the largest genealogical conference in the world with millions of participants, content in 23 languages, and experiences in-person and online.

RootsTech offers classes for beginners to experts and everything in between.

There are different topics and specialists for all kinds of learning, including some cool forums.

If you attend in person you will get exclusive discounts, and you can get your photos and memories digitized for free!

There's also a "Night at the Expo Hall" with deals on top of deals all night!

You won't want to miss Relatives at RootsTech. Whether you are joining online or coming in person, you can see who you are related to with a special experience. Anyone around the world can join to see how they're related to other RootsTech participants.

For those joining online, RootsTech is free!

If you're joining in person in Salt Lake City, use promo code: RT25FOX13 for 10 percent off tickets.

For more information please visit: rootstech.org.

From golden-age radio scripts to rare recordings of legendary broadcasts, the American Radio Archives (ARA) hold a trove of stories that shaped the airwaves. 

Now, thanks to a $100,000 grant from The Ahmanson Foundation, UC Santa Barbara Library will be able to bring those stories to a wider audience. The funding supports the cataloging and digitization of the archive’s rare materials, making them accessible to researchers, students and the public — and ensuring that the voices of radio’s past continue to be heard.

The collection was acquired by UCSB Library in 2021 from the Thousand Oaks Library Foundation, which was supported for many years by the late Robert Ahmanson, founder of The Ahmanson Foundation. The ARA, one of the nation’s largest collections documenting the history of radio broadcasting, comprises over 50 collections, including the papers of radio legends Norman Corwin and Rudy Vallée, the archives of the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters (PPB) and KNX radio materials. With thousands of scripts, tapes and transcription discs, this remarkable archive complements UCSB Library’s extensive collections on broadcasting, media and the performing arts.

“The American Radio Archives hold an extraordinary place in preserving our cultural and media history,” said David Seubert, curator of the library’s Performing Arts Collection. “The continued support from The Ahmanson Foundation ensures that we can complete the work of cataloging and digitizing this essential collection, making it accessible to scholars, students and the public.”

The recent award is The Ahmanson Foundation’s second grant in support of the ARA. The first, made in 2022, supported the initial processing and cataloguing of the collection by UCSB Library staff, and the integration of collection inventories and finding aids into library systems. To date, approximately 40% of the ARA has been processed. 

With the new grant, the library will complete cataloging the collection and further integrate its materials into library systems. The project will also digitize select high-research-value materials, making fragile audio recordings and rare documents accessible online to support research and scholarship in broadcasting and media history.

In October 1999, the decomposed remains of a woman were found in wooded area behind a truck stop near I-20 in Weatherford, Texas. Investigators believe she died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was found wearing a white bra, white socks, white or beige panties and a blue and white windsuit. She also had a large blue shoulder bag with expensive prescription beige glasses, a long brown wig and a bottle of mineral water. Investigators determined she was between 35 and 55 year-old and had $30,000-$35,000 worth of extensive dental work including gold foil fillings with porcelain veneers.

Despite an extensive investigation, her identity could not be determined and she became known as Weatherford Jane Doe. Details of the woman’s case were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP3572.

In September 2023, retired Deputy Chief Greg Lance encouraged Lieutenant Johnny Qualls and the Cold Case Unit to reexamine the case with modern forensic DNA technology. After consulting with Dr. Crowder at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office, the team decided to explore forensic genetic genealogy, a method that has helped identify unknown individuals in numerous cold cases. 

In 2023, the Weatherford Police Department and the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office sent forensic evidence to Othram's laboratory in The Woodlands, Texas in hopes that advanced DNA testing could help identify the woman. Othram scientists produced a suitable DNA extract from the remains. A comprehensive DNA profile was then developed for the woman using Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing®. Othram's forensic genetic genealogy team then conducted a genealogical search that resulted in new leads, which were provided to law enforcement. 

The follow-up investigation led investigators to potential relatives of the woman. A reference DNA sample from a possible relative was compared to the DNA profile of the unknown woman leading to the positive identification of the woman, who is now known to be Nellie Faye Gillespie. She was last seen in Jackson, Mississippi on August 15, 1998. She had called her son informing him she was planning on going to Arizona but was never heard from again.

The identification of Nellie Gillespie is the 18th case in Texas where officials have publicly identified an individual using technology developed by Othram. Visit DNASolves to learn about other Texas cases.

We are pleased to announce two new collections of Civil War records on Fold3: The Civil War Prisoner of War Records, 1861-1865, and Civil War Lists of Persons Employed in Army Hospitals, 1860-1865. These collections will provide new insights for Civil War researchers and family historians.

The Civil War Prisoner of War Records contains some 1.6 million records for both Union and Confederate POWs. Each soldier’s name is indexed and searchable. Please note when searching that the records often include a soldier’s initials rather than a full name (e.g., P. Jackson).

Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas, Chicago, Illinois, in 1862

The records in this POW collection are organized by location, allowing you to search all records for a particular prison camp. The information contained within the records varies but can include name, regiment, place of capture, date of imprisonment, information on exchanged and paroled prisoners, release date, date of death, location of burial, list of effects, letters, and more.

Our second new collection contains the names of female nurses, cooks, and laundresses employed at Army Hospitals during the Civil War. This single volume is not a complete list and does not include all hospitals or all women who served in these roles.

Elmina P. Spencer, Civil War Army Nurse 

Each person is listed by name, but the record does not include what specific position was held or the dates of employment. The records reference other volumes and “Old Books,” but those books have not been identified or located.

This collection is divided by the hospital and includes the following hospital transport vessels: Atlantic, Baltic, Ben DeFord, Charles McDougall, D. A. January, Daniel Webster, J. S. Pringle, John Warner, Knickerbocker, and State of Maine.

This collection may serve as a starting point for further research on women’s contributions during the Civil War.

Explore these new Civil War records today on Fold3!

Inspired to learn more about your roots? Here’s how to start your journey into family history.

 Step 1: Start at home

• Gather what you already have: Old photographs, family Bibles, letters, birth/marriage records, military records, obituaries, quilts, or heirlooms.
• Digitize important documents for safekeeping.

Step 2: Talk to your elders

• Interview your oldest living relatives—parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or family friends.
• Ask about names, places, traditions, and stories passed down.
• Record conversations using your phone or a voice recorder for future reference.

 Step 3: Visit your local library

• Get a library card—most libraries offer free access to genealogy databases.
• Use resources like census records, city directories, and historical newspapers.

Step 4: Use free online resources

• Create a free account at FamilySearch.org for access to a vast collection of genealogical records.
• Explore databases like:
  • Ancestry.com (some records free, others require a subscription)
  • FindAGrave.com (cemetery records and family connections)
  • African American Genealogy groups on Facebook and online forums.

 Step 5: Join a genealogy research group

• Learn methods, strategies, and documentation tips from experienced researchers.
• Connect with local or national genealogy societies for African American family research.

 Step 6: Be patient – it’s a journey, not a destination

• Researching family history is not a weekend project—it unfolds over time.
• Each new discovery leads to more relatives, more stories, and more history to uncover.

Ever wondered which ancient civilizations you descend from? Now you can find out! We’re thrilled to announce the release of Ancient Origins, a major new product that complements your MyHeritage DNA ethnicity reports. Ancient Origins enables you to trace your origins up to 10,000 years into the past and discover the ancient populations from which you descend, such as Imperial Romans, Norse Vikings, Phoenicians, and Ancient Egyptians.

Ancient Origins offers a comprehensive ancient DNA analysis and is a fascinating new addition to MyHeritage. It forms an important part of one’s wider family story, and is a must-have for lovers of history and archaeology, and anyone who is curious about their ancestral roots. The results are calculated based on your existing DNA results on MyHeritage, so there’s no need to take a new test. Ancient Origins is immediately available to all MyHeritage DNA customers and to all those who uploaded their DNA to MyHeritage from other DNA services. Ancient Origins is a premium feature on MyHeritage and requires a Complete or Omni subscription. It is available on desktop and mobile web, and support for it on the MyHeritage mobile app will be added very soon.

What is Ancient Origins?

The new Ancient Origins product is the result of a partnership between MyHeritage and Illustrative DNA, a startup company that is at the forefront of ancient ethnicity analysis. Ancient Origins complements MyHeritage DNA’s Ethnicity Estimate, which provides a percentage breakdown of an individual’s modern ethnic origins going back a few hundred years. Ancient Origins compares your DNA to ancient DNA samples uncovered in archeological excavations, and ancient populations from the Neolithic Period through the late Middle Ages.

Ancient Origins provides a set of detailed reports. They include a percentage breakdown of the ancient populations from which you descend in different historical eras; a breakdown of how much of your DNA traces back to populations of hunter-gatherers and early farmers; advanced reports that indicate one or more ancient populations that are closest to you genetically; and genetic distance maps visualizing your genetic proximity to ancient populations. A vast encyclopedia of ancient populations and ancient DNA samples is included for reference.

Ancient Origin reports are dynamic and will be updated periodically as more ancient DNA samples are added to the database, and as new scientific research papers are published with new findings on ancient DNA.

By the way, unrelated to Ancient Origins, the long-awaited update to the Ethnicity Estimate, v2.5, was released earlier this month. If you haven’t done so already, visit your DNA results on MyHeritage to view your Ethnicity Estimate v2.5 results. It’s also a great opportunity to check out your Ancient Origin results!

How it works

Ancient Origins is based on the latest developments in archaeogenetics, which is the study of ancient DNA. Advanced DNA extraction techniques that did not exist until recently enable scientists to analyze human samples excavated from archaeological sites around the world, date them, and extract DNA segments and genetic markers that are thousands of years old, or older. Using the location, time period, and additional archaeological evidence, researchers can associate samples with ancient civilizations. Many of these findings are published in scientific papers, and the samples are made publicly available.

The Ancient Origin reports are generated using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which is an approach used to measure genetic distances using multi-dimensional vectors. Subject to your consent, Ancient Origins first processes your raw DNA data to create a vector known as DeepAncestry Coordinates. DeepAncestry is a 25-dimensional vector derived by comparing your DNA data to a reference set of modern and ancient populations. The DeepAncestry Coordinates are then used anonymously to generate the Ancient Origin reports.

The results are presented in comprehensive reports that are both informative and visually appealing. These include ancient populations that are now extinct or that have merged into other populations over time, such as Canaanites, Scythians, Visigoths, Etruscans, and many others. The Yellow River civilization, Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greeks, Insular Celts, Ancient Bantus, Central Amerindians and Ashkenazi Jews of the Middle Ages are among the many ancient populations represented in the Ancient Origins product.

Accessing Ancient Origins

To access Ancient Origins, log in to your MyHeritage account on the web and select “Ancient Origins” from the DNA menu.