McDonald Genealogy

11/04/2021

Happy Birthday Jake, can’t wait to get you home!!!

10/31/2019

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/worlds-largest-holocaust-archive-available-on-the-internet/?fbclid=IwAR14sbRg-uluxVevfB76W9xbt8z4NhV_i46oAVheKKbE4Z_lSFC-49V2csQ #.XbnaLKWIkJF.facebook

More than 30 million documents on the victims of N**i persecution are now available for free on Ancestry.com for all generations to come.

09/13/2019

Announcing....my 5 favorite books for deciphering German records! Do you have any of these? Any books you would add? https://buff.ly/2Naw2KO

09/10/2019

As a genealogy translator, I’ve translated my share of old letters. While many of these letters simply speak of family matters, farming information, financial issues, etc., every once in a while, sage words of wisdom seem to jump out at me from across the page. Of course, these words of wisdom are...

09/03/2019

Got asked to share my favorite genealogy books for the fall issue of APG Quarterly! If you want a personalized and signed copy of my own - either for yourself or for a gift - you can place an order on my site here: https://buff.ly/2JNdCdw. Just let me know in the e-mail who I should dedicate the book to!

08/09/2019

So you’ve discovered your family is from Germany…now what? If you’re anything like my family, you will want to go see the country for yourself. My family is from Germany and Austria. Like many families, we can trace our ancestry to varying degrees. My mom’s side is relatively well-documented...

07/29/2019

Congratulations to Renae H. for being the 100th (!) student of Reading the German Handwriting Online Course - you have won a month totally free of the Gold Premium membership! I also wanted to take a moment and thank you all for your support of my business and my course - I truly couldn't do it without you!

07/24/2019

For your German research!

Church records are a vital source of genealogical information, and this is certainly true for German family history research. Once you discover your ancestor’s place of origin, the local parish registers can take your as far back as the mid-16th century. Such research has challenges. Besides the l...

07/11/2019

Genius

The Census will have a “time capsule” blank box on the form, where citizens can leave their mark, to be revealed in 100 years’ time.

07/11/2019

Come learn from professional German genealogy translator Katherine Schober how you can easily recognize certain letters in the old German handwriting, what those pesky abbreviations mean in historical documents, the spelling variations you need to know to decipher the words of your ancestors, and mu...

07/08/2019

I recently translated a diary from the early 20th century, in which a German man, visiting his homeland after years in America, wrote "Germany in general is terrible regarding the drinking habits of the young and old, tall and short, rich and poor, everyone is yearning for beer, can’t live without beer, and is completely undone by beer." He was especially bothered by the quotes on tavern walls that encouraged people to drink. I had to laugh when I was at a restaurant in Austria this weekend, and the walls were filled with exactly those kind of quotes! Here, it reads, "Humans learn drinking first; they don't learn to eat until much later. Therefore, one shouldn't forget about drinking - for reasons of gratitude."

07/07/2019

https://apple.news/A83gEqMJfSnqWhmDJsLCGTg

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — A jury convicted a Washington state man Friday in the killings of a young Canadian couple more than three decades ago — a case that was finally solved when investigators turned to powerful genealogy software to build a family tree of the then-unknown suspect.

06/28/2019

This week, I got to translate a photo album of the couple shown in this 1953 German newspaper - they had emigrated to America 25 years before and, as it says in this article, come back to visit their hometown for the first time. The newspaper tells their story briefly, but the photo album of the trip that was gifted to the couple their last day in Germany was even more moving. Complete with the transcripts of welcome speeches given by family members about how happy they were to see them for the first time in a quarter of a century, photos of them together with loved ones on their six-week trip, and then farewell speeches on how the family hoped to see them again sometime in this lifetime were incredibly touching for me to translate. So happy I get to do a job I love - thank you all for making it possible!

06/26/2019

https://apple.news/AtnLHeSFpScCSDZ9UKyVL9w

A Boston-based genealogical organization and a Georgetown University graduate who launched a project to trace the family histories of hundreds of black slaves sold by the Jesuits who ran the college in 1838 have teamed up to digitize the information and make it available to people researching family...

06/26/2019

06/22/2019

Free Signed Copy of Tips and Tricks of Deciphering German Handwriting by Katherine, SK Translations. Hosted by KingSumo Giveaways

06/19/2019

Share0While learning German is obviously not required for German genealogy research, it often helps to have at least a bit of understanding of the language when looking for your ancestors.  In addition to being able to recognize the most important genealogy words in German records, knowing a littl...

06/14/2019

The conference runs June 15-17, 2019. Registration opened on November 1, 2018. Here is the website: https://iggpartner.org/cpage.php?pt=73

06/10/2019

Genealogy can be an exciting journey, full of intriguing discoveries and amazing breakthroughs. But true genealogists know that the search for your ancestors can also mean long hours, brick wall after brick wall and months or even years of frustration. So by the time you finally get your hands on an...

05/07/2019

The National Genealogy Society Conference is in 2 days - and in my hometown! Are you coming? If so, I hope to see you at my booth or one of my events below - mark your calendars!

04/26/2019

The Golden State Killer case was just the start. Hundreds of cold cases are hot again thanks to a new genealogy technique. The price may be everyone’s genetic privacy.

08/14/2018

Very excited to receive our print from Family Tree Prints. It came out so nice. The chart was super easy to create on their website www.familytreeprints.com and I used one of their suggested printers. It’s going to look awesome in our home. I’m always looking out for great products to share with you, this one gets a 10 out of 10. 👍👍

07/16/2018

https://www.facebook.com/197848086903715/posts/1989872204367952/

Meghan Markle was presented with documents detailing an Irish ancestor during her visit to Dublin with Prince Harry. The young duchess discovered she is descended from a young Belfast w

07/06/2018

https://www.facebook.com/AncestryUS/videos/10156428636851788/

07/05/2018

https://www.facebook.com/179341265453073/posts/1701070153280169/

Police arrested a D.J. in Pennsylvania and a nurse in Washington State this week, the latest examples of the use of an open-source ancestry site since the break in the Golden State killer case.

06/04/2018

https://weather.com/news/news/2018-05-30-pompeii-eruption-man-crushed-by-stone

The archaeological site’s general director called it “an exceptional find."

05/26/2018

Like and Share for this family!!
http://www.localsyr.com/news/local-news/oneida-man-unexpectedly-finds-birth-mother-through-dna-ancestry-kit/944678567

Nearly 65-years after he was born, an Oneida man unexpectedly finds his birth mother living in Canastota...thanks to a $79 ancestry DNA kit.

05/26/2018

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586714/Arrest-made-in-1995-Wasatch-County-cold-case-killing.html

Wasatch County sheriff's investigators have made an arrest in a nearly 18-year-old cold case murder mystery.

05/17/2018

If you haven’t tried DNA Painter yet, you should register for a free account and check it out. This user-friendly chromosome mapping tool lets you map several ancestors at once to paint a picture of who you inherited specific segments of your DNA. Useful tools and advice. Two thumbs up 👍👍😆 www.dnapainter.com

05/16/2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/podcasts/the-daily/golden-state-killer-dna.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FGenealogy&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

The decades-long effort to catch a serial murderer and ra**st reached a turning point when an investigator decided to upload DNA evidence to a genealogy website.