Genealogy - United States
Below are genealogy and family history news stories related to the United States. Click on the links for the full articles.
Facebook Announces Tighter Privacy Standards - Facebook announced this week that they were going to implement tighter privacy standards. The announcement came after a year in which Facebook was heavily criticized on multiple fronts for its weak privacy settings. We were part of that criticism as the first genealogy website to warn people in the spring of this year that there were serious privacy concerns with popular genealogy applications on Facebook like We’re Related...{Click here to read the full article}
Obituary Photos are Getting Younger - An interesting genealogy study from Ohio State University suggests that obituary photos are showing a growing bias against aging faces. The study conducted by Keith Anderson, assistant professor of social work at the university and his graduate student Jina Han examined newspaper obituary photos in Ohio over a thirty year period from 1967 to 1997. What they found was that “age-inaccurate” obituary photos had increased significantly since the 1960s...[More]
Africa Has the Highest Genetic Diversity - Genetic genealogy testing has become a popular tool for people wanting to map their ancestry. It can be particularly useful for people who want to trace their ancestry in a part of the world that lacks official government records. However, the most comprehensive genetic study of Africa suggests that there are practical limits for African Americans trying to trace their roots using genetic genealogy tests...[More]
Germany Bans Genetic Genealogy Tests - Germany has passed a law that bans all direct-to-consumer genetic tests. Although the new law does not appear to be directly written to ban at-home genetic genealogy tests, one consequence of the law is that people in Germany will no longer be able to order genetic genealogy tests online...[More]
Native Americans Have a Common Ancestry - New genetic data suggests that Native Americans from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska across to Greenland and down to the southern tip of Chile all share a common ancestry...[More]
Cache of Benjamin Franklin Letters Discovered - Benjamin Franklin was one of the founding fathers of the United States and a noted politician, political theorist, author, scientist and diplomat. His writings are valued for their clear, concise style. Recently, a very large and previously unknown cache of his letters (47 in all) was discovered in the British Museum...[More]
Tracing Abraham Lincoln’s Health - Abraham Lincoln was a pivotal figure in US history. As America’s 16th President, he led the country through the Civil War and was responsible for ending slavery. He was also the first president to be assassinated. Abraham Lincoln was also something of an enigma in regards to his health...[More]
Dead Man Elected Mayor - For a genealogist, one of the most difficult things to do is letting go of the legacy of our ancestors. Apparently, this problem extends beyond genealogy as a town in Missouri voted in for mayor a man who had been dead for a couple of weeks...[More]
Roots Author Alex Haley Had Scottish Ancestry - The late Alex Haley, author of the popular novel Roots, really did have Scottish ancestry. His nephew Chris Haley took a DNA test in 2007 and results showed that Alex Haley had a Scottish ancestor who likely lived in the 1600’s or 1700’s. Alex Haley is perhaps best known for inspiring a whole generation of African Americans to trace their genealogical roots...[More]
Why Are Newspapers Dying? - One of the unfortunate aspects of the global economic downturn is that newspapers are folding at an increasing rate. Advertising revenue is down significantly and newspapers are being forced to take significant steps to align their costs with the new economic reality. Is this a concern given the traditional role that newspapers have served as a chronicler of the life and times of our ancestors?...[More]
Waterford Wedgwood Emerges from Bankruptcy - Waterford Wedgwood, the celebrated crystal and ceramic tableware maker, has emerged from bankruptcy with a new lease on life and a radically different approach to business...[More]
First European Explorers to America May Have Included Africans - History books suggest the first Africans arrived in the Americas with the slave trade, which began soon after the Virginia Colony was founded in 1607. However, a new study suggests the first Africans may have arrived in the New World over one hundred years earlier than previously thought...[More]
Why Immigrants Change Their Name - A common problem in genealogy is tracing people who have changed their name. This occurs most often when someone immigrates to another country...[More]
Cemetery Theft on the Decline - Grave robbers have been a constant curse of burial grounds for centuries. As attested by warnings against grave robbers on the walls of ancient Egyptian pyramids, stealing from the dead is a practice as old as civilization itself...[More]
Geronimo’s Descendant Sues to Recover His Bones - What does the Apache leader Geronimo, George W. Bush and a secretive society at Yale University all have in common? According to Harlyn Geronimo, the great grandson of Geronimo, the secretive Yale society known as the Order of Skull and Bones that George W Bush belonged to has some of his great grandfather’s bones and he wants them back...[More]
The Changing Face of Immigration in America - Genealogists in the US might be interested in a study just released by the US Census Bureau detailing the characteristics of recent immigrants to America. Given that the United States is a country of immigrants, it is interesting to note how much the pattern of immigration has changed over the last two hundred years...[More]
Who Owns Your Online Genealogy Information? - A significant number of genealogists store personal genealogy information online. This raises an interesting question: Who owns the information you post online?...[More]
Abraham Lincoln’s Fingerprint Discovered on a Letter - Many genealogists are in possession of old family letters. Have you ever considered the possibility that these letters might contain more than just handwriting from your ancestors?...[More]
Old Manuscripts Dated by Genetic Testing - Genealogists fortunate enough to have very old books or manuscripts in their possession will be happy to know that a new technique is being developed to determine the age of ancient documents...[More]
First Native Americans Arrived in Two Separate Migrations - An international group of genetic researchers from the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City, Utah working with scientists from the University of Pavia in Italy have released a study that questions the traditional view of how the Americas were originally populated...[More]
Waterford Wedgwood Goes Bankrupt - Many genealogists are familiar with Waterford Wedgwood, the maker of fine crystal and luxury ceramics...[More]
New Standard Proposed for Genetic Genealogy Tests - Tracing ancestors through genetic genealogy tests has become popular amongst some genealogists...[More]
Gene Study Shows Most Black Americans Have Some European Ancestry - Harvard University’s School of Public Health has just concluded a genetic study on Black American heritage...[More]
A Very Interesting Definition of Spouse - There has been much discussion during the last few years over the definition of marriage and what constitutes a spouse...[more]
Does the US Census Undercount? - As the US gears up for the next census in 2010, questions continue to linger over the accuracy of the last census conducted in 2000...[more]
How Accurate are Genetic Ancestry Tests? - Genetic ancestry tests have become popular with genealogists wanting to know where their ancestors lived...[more]
Does a Company Define Your Neighbourhood? - Neighbourhoods are very important to family historians...[more]
If George Washington was King - Here is an interesting question: if the United States had not become a republic and George Washington had become king then who would be the king today? [more]
Follow the Beer Trail to the Courthouse - Every family historian has gotten frustrated at some point in time with their inability to find a lost ancestor...[more]
California Licensing Genetic Testing - California has become the first jurisdiction in the world to require companies to be formally licensed before they can offer genetic testing directly to consumers...[more]
Genealogist Helps Solve Mystery of 60-Year Old Plane Crash - It had all the makings of a Hollywood movie script: a plane rumored to be loaded with gold, a crash in the wilds of Alaska, a mummy and a mystery that took 60 years to solve...[more]
How to Change Your Family History with Photos - Tracing your family history through old photos is about to get much more difficult for future generations...[more]
Minorities to Become the Majority in a Generation - A generation is not a long period of time from a genealogist’s point of view...[more]
US Government Detects Immigration Fraud with DNA Testing - Governments have long used medical tests on immigrants to screen out potentially unwanted applicants...[more]
US Immigration Service Considers Genealogy Program - The United States is a country that was built by immigrants...[more]
