SNGF - Essential Tools For Family History Research

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:

1)  Linda Stufflebean posted "Essential Tools For Today's Genealogical Success" recently, and Teresa Basinska Eckford followed that with her list in "Essential Tools for Genealogists." 

2)  What are your essential tools for doing your genealogy and family history work? Please list five or more of your essential tools so that readers may find tools that may help us do our work.

Here’s mine:
I use very few tools, but I will justify my tools here.

1. Word. I primarily work in Word. I keep track of my findings and report my analysis and conclusions. I find it easier to create source citations as I’m researching. There is a lot to capture when finding documents of interest, especially at FamilySearch: the URL, IGN number, image number(s), record type, and the location of the record.

2. Excel. When I want to create timelines, I use Excel. I have more flexibility than making tables in Word, especially if I have a larger amount of data. This past week, I created a timeline for my husband’s ancestor, Amos Gorrell, and I was adding events completely out of order. The Civil War compiled military service record was not in order. But I can just have Excel sort it in date order.

3. Photoshop Elements. I use this program less than I used to, as I’m not scanning as much. I use it mostly to merge items. I use Paint to add white space at the bottom of an image to write a source citation. I use Photos in Windows to do any cropping and aligning that I used to do in Photoshop.

4. Websites: I have a few I use every day.

• FamilySearch. I use the catalog and full-text search the most. With full-text search, I locate documents that mention ancestors and family members, yet have not been indexed by those names. One such record was finding marriage records showing Amos Gorrell as the justice of the peace.

• Ancestry. I use Ancestry as often as FamilySearch. I dislike the two-factor authorization every day, but the website has census, directories, some vital records, yearbook images, and more, that I have found useful, especially when I first start with a new person.

• Evidence Explained website, particularly the Forum. I search there often for discussions about particular citation issues that I may also be having.

• Newspapers.com, GenealogyBank.com, NewspaperArchive.com, and the Portal to Texas History are my websites for newspaper research. I will occasionally use ChroniclingAmerica.gov, but have found that the other sites also have the same papers.

5. Helpful sites that make my work and research easier.

• Grammarly. I have the free version, so after one or two free correction suggestions, the rest of the hints are ghosted out. I then spend time trying to correct the sentences until the squiggly lines go away. This helps me improve my writing.

• ChatGPT. I have used this AI bot for suggestions about writing, such as asking for 10 possible titles for a presentation on a particular subject or for an outline after I describe what I want to write about. I do the actual writing. I have also asked ChatGPT to suggest how I could improve a piece of writing, just like working with an editor. I won’t let the bot change my writing, just make suggestions that I either accept or reject.

6. RootsMagic. I use a stand-alone genealogy program to input the family data. I don’t input every event or source I find. Instead, I have file folders for each couple on my computer where I keep all the files I have downloaded. I name them starting with the year of the event, so the files all sort in chronological order. So, when I work on a person's biography, I use RootsMagic, the images in their file folder, and any timelines or research reports I have written to gather the info for the story.

Conclusion
I’m probably forgetting other tools I use, but I just got home from driving down from Oregon, stopping three times to charge the car, so it took about 10 hours total. I’m tired!

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.