The Great Lakes area is one of my main areas of focus - and where my family tree has been concentrated for hundreds of years now (primarily in Michigan, but also Ontario, Quebec, Ohio, Indiana, and of course Wisconsin where I live now). How about you all?

For a few years in the early-20th century, if you wanted to drive a car in Prince Edward Island, you were out of luck. The vehicles made people scared to go to the markets and churches. So...the province banned them completely. This is the story of the PEI car ban. 🧵 1/9

I swear that I keep saying things like "I just have to get through [deadline, event, specific date, etc] and then things will calm down" and yet... things haven't calmed down all year. Might be my fault for trying to do two careers at once, travel occasionally, and have a regular life. Sigh.

It’s important not to get caught up in pastoral fantasies that before various technologies we didn’t have many of the same struggles concerning power and equality, but it’s likewise essential to recognize that industrial “progress” involved an era of machines ripping off the hands of child workers.

I have a talk this Saturday with the Irish Genealogical Society International - Irish Migrations to Canada! It's a topic near and dear to my heart, given that all of my Irish ancestors who came to North America settled in Canada! If you're interested: www.irishgenealogical.org/eventListing...

Headed to Salt Lake City to visit the FamilySearch library with a genealogy group this fall. I've already started a list of materials I want to see. Any other tips or tricks from the #genealogists out there?

This seems like a good thing: share.google/SCpOtqWNyYSQ...

Neat! share.google/M6PHvdkAppUP...

Historians: this is a worrying development. Historians use the Hansard to analyze what was said in parliamentary discussions. If the Hansard is subject to editing out things that are politically unacceptable at the time, we (and future historians) have a problem.

I did this before in German but I guess today is a good day to compile English resources on why AI isn‘t actually intelligent and also a real danger: 🧵

With all the media coverage today of @virtualtreasury.bsky.social releases, it might be a good time to watch my talk about it from #Rootstech this year. www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech... #IrishGenealogy #GenHour #AncestryHour

For those of us #genealogists who do Irish research, this is exciting: share.google/XEAClzi6akUb...

Starting my first institute today with virtual GRIP's course Beyond Digging Deeper: Sources, Methods, and Practices. Very excited for an intensive week of learning!

I thought this article was such a fascinating link of anti-DEI efforts, genealogy, and academia. I thought it was interesting as a discussion of how descendants of enslaved people feel when they learn of their ancestors. www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...

I'm pretty anti-AI, although I'm seeing some societies and genealogists use it in interesting ways. I always feel like such a curmudgeon about it, but as someone who values both creativity and our planet, AI is in direct conflict with those things. Curious how others in genealogy feel about it?

The legacies of 68 million women, including your ancestors, could go unrecognised in history, with census records labelling them as ‘unoccupied’. But what does this mean for the women in your family? Delve deeper ⬇️

This 🧵 highlights the importance of family history. Remembering our own family’s struggles helps us understand the challenges people face today. My first American ancestors arrived as refugees fleeing famine in 1847. How were they any different from many current immigrants? #genealogy

Step 1: Read this Vanity Fair piece. Step 2: Buy @greenwell.bsky.social's book, which is out tomorrow: silverunicornbooks.com/item/Vus7kAU... Step 3: Probably get a punching bag or something, because this book is going to make you justifiably angry.

Going to be doing my first genealogy talk later this year. I've presented many times in my other professional life, but I'm curious if the #genealogy pros here have any tips or things they learned from their early presentations?

Love this kind of project - hope folks who might be able to participate are aware of it!

www.forbes.com/sites/abigai... I thought this was an interesting analysis of the 23 & Me situation.

This is me trying to force some accountability for my to-do list for today: 1. Transfer my photography files to a backup harddrive and make folders online only in Dropbox to save my overloaded laptop HD. 2. Gather the key docs I need for my #genealogy class assignment and get my file set up

I have nothing to do this weekend in terms of commitments so my to do list has a lot of research and writing on it! (Plus finally getting started on my website design) What about you all? Any fun #genealogy plans?

There’s a lot of bad info and misleading commentary out there, so here’s one view shared by many genealogists. Also, while deleting your 23andMe data is a personal choice, in my opinion, the sensitive info people share on social media is much more valuable to bad actors. reason.com/2025/03/26/w...

A few years ago I visited the National Museum of African American History & Culture with my grandparents. When we stepped out of the building my grandmother kept repeating the words “I lived it. I lived it. I lived it.” She’s still here. That history is still in her bones. You can never erase that.

Genealogy puzzle: I finally found a client's 3x great grandmother via death certificates and obituaries so now I'm trying to track her down in the census. But there's a puzzle here that I'm struggling with. Going to use initials to explain:

Hard at work today at the Irish Genealogical Society International's Irish Heritage Day 2025! A marketing chair's work is never done (but tonight when it is, I'll be cheering with some whiskey)

#genealogy folks: If you could sit down with one of your ancestors for a while, who would it be and what would you want to ask them?

At Women Also Know History, we know that women make history every day of the year. This Women's History Month, we want to take the opportunity to celebrate the women whose scholarship enriches the historical profession and expands our knowledge of the past. womenalsoknowhistory.com

Timely find: "[public archives] are treasures of so sacred a character, that the public enemy who wantonly devotes them to the flames is... branded as a barbarian; and of so priceless a value, that no money could purchase them of the poorest state in the union, or replace them when once destroyed."

Absolutely overwhelmed to be in the presence of the first-ever printed book to use the Cherokee syllabary, the Cherokee Constitution of 1827. At the American Antiquarian Society.

Attending a new member meeting with @apgenealogists.bsky.social President and team members - so neat to see so many others in a similar boat of going from hobbyist to pro and so many different areas of focus.

Newest arrival in my collection of random family history things - a photo post card of my great great uncle's business with a 70' milk bottle proclaiming our surname! Probably from the 1930s or 1940s (I don't know much about cars so I'm basing that on the buildings and the type on the back)

Someone should've warned me how much genealogy requires spreadsheets 😂

Join APG on 2 March for a FREE webinar about the importance of the U.S. National Archives in our profession and how YOU can effectively engage with legislators to support archival access. Open to all; register at bit.ly/4hPJXRg. This presentation is underwritten by Civil War Records.

If you haven't already signed the petition to protect access to NY's vital records, please do so by 1pm Eastern today (2/11). www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/blog/call-ac...

Have you checked out our brand new website, all about the AWFUL proposed legislation that got snuck into New York's proposed budget, which would destroy public access to birth, marriage, and death records -- and even the basic indices? Well, you should. www.nysvitalrecords.org

#genealogy #FamilyHistory #RecordAccess #NewYork Upcoming deadline to speak out against new rules for Vital Records access in New York State (and NYC before consolidation). Act before February 11th! More details in next skeet. www.legalgenealogist.com/2025/01/28/c...

Am I missing something about GRIP registration? It should be open and yet I'm not able to register. Help #genealogists #genealogy

I feel even more so today than ever before, our history is important to research and document. Citizen historians, genealogists, and family history buffs, it is time to go to work! #genealogy #genealogist #history

Yikes. On top of all the other governmental things I'm worrying about, now genealogy is impacted too? www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/...

Yesterday I got the DVD of records I'd requested using this database, and learned a ton more about my mom's father's service. It was faster than I expected, and now I have a list of others to look for and request.

#genealogy Lots of great advice here. 👇

Tagging this for the #genealogy feed. #FamilyHistory

Photo history is a specialty of mine, particularly photographic methods/styles and women & children's clothing. I can mostly help with men's clothing too but I'm best with women's. And because photography and collecting vintage cameras is one of my hobbies, I know a lot about photo formats!

At my day job, we have a PhD historian on staff and basically since the day I started, we've been friends. Had dinner with her last night and picked her brain about organizing archival material, which is a passion for her, and it was great in general to talk research with someone who *gets it*

Friends of the SSNCI old and new, why not start off 2025 by catching up on essays from our first edited collection! Fearful Realities: New Perspectives on the Famine was edited by the brilliant Chris Morash and Richard Hayes! All available essays are Open-Access edepositireland.ie/handle/2262/...

Hi #genealogists - I'm planning to attend my first institute this year but I'm a little overwhelmed with all the options I'm interested in. For those who have done an institute: is it better to get deep into methodology/process or lean into areas of specialty (locations, etc)?

Went to an estate sale today for a prominent local artist who loved owls. My spouse and I collect owl stuff too (long story as to why that has little to do with the actual birds) so had to stop in. Turns out, he was also a queer person with no kids and obsessed with genealogy, just like me!

Hi #genealogy friends: the Irish Genealogical Society International (I'm the marketing chair) is looking for volunteers or board members as some leave in 2025. You have to be a member, but it's a great society with good benefits and the volunteers are a fun, nice bunch. Irishgenealogical.org