The In-Depth Genealogist a digital community for all genealogists

In celebration of the wrap up of our first calendar year, we're highlighting YOUR favorite reads. Today we are presenting the Top 3 Guest Blog Posts. Read More »

From the Editors: The In-Depth Genealogist would like to thank Gena Philibert-Ortega for sharing her knowledge of researching the women who proudly hold up the roots and branches of our family tree. We are lucky to learn from her experience! My interest in researching female ancestors began over 20 years ago. The more I thought about the challenges facing genealogists researching the women in their families the more I started to wonder why we were trying to research women in the same way that we were researching male ancestors. Women historically did not always leave the same type of paper trail and didn’t have the same legal rights. When thinking about a female ancestor the first and foremost thing you should be thinking about is what she did that could have left a paper trail. What clubs, churches, membership organizations existed in her community? What was historically happening? Researching female ancestors can be challenging. While you should start with a similar methodology when researching women as you would men there are some additional strategies to consider. The three steps I describe below will assist you with finding your female ancestors when the usual techniques fail. Expand Your Research It can be easy to rely on searching just on a person’s name as you use genealogy subscription websites. But as you research you may find more relevant information if you expand your search beyond the person themselves. Research should include the clusters that were a part of the person’s life like extended family members.  In researching women consider expanding your research to also include her community (you can’t know all the resources available if you don’t have knowledge of the community she lived in)  and her historical era. Most genealogists start a family history project by focusing their research on the ... Read More »