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Building your family tree has never been easier.

With this simple, three-step plan, even beginners can quickly master the basics of family history research.

Step 1: Gather the information you already know about yourself and your family using sources you can find at your fingertips—photo albums, school records, letters, birth certificates, and more.

Step 2: Organize your discoveries in handy worksheets and the easy-to-use Family Tree Maker software.

Step 3: Search for information about your ancestors using tips and tricks practiced by professional genealogists. You’ll learn how to use sources like the U.S. federal censuses and discover great ideas for tapping into a wide range of resources on the Internet, from online family trees to message boards and mailing lists.

To discover the grandfather he never knew, Jeff Badger began tracking down dozens of World War II veterans from his grandfather's unit, the 978th Engineer Maintenance Company. Through the stories and recollections shared by his new war buddies,"Badger began to reconstruct a personal vision of his grandfather, the war, and the men who fought it. Original photographs and illustrations throughout."

For millions of Americans, home means Italy, where their roots started years ago. In Finding Your Italian Ancestors, you'll discover the tools you need to trace your ancestors back to the homeland. Learn how and where to find records in the United States and Italy, get practical advice on deciphering those hard-to-read documents, and explore valuable online resources. The guide also includes maps, multiple glossaries, and an extensive bibliography.

The search for home starts here.

How do family historians know they are producing or receiving trustworthy results? 

This official manual from the Board of Certification for Genealogists, essentially a users' guide for family historians, provides standards for genealogical researchers to assess their own and others' work. The revised second edition, published in 2019 with additional revisions in 2021, increases the clarity of DNA and privacy standards. Those standards are especially useful in the twenty-first century, when many genealogists use a complex new tool—DNA testing—and trace living people more often than they did in the past.

It's easy to record your ancestry when your family looks like it stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting. But what do you do if your relatives don't fit the cookie-cutter mold? Whether it's figuring out the best way to enter adopted individuals in your tree or creating a family health history, the Little Book of Answers can help. Each quick and easy-to-understand topic will help you learn how to make Family Tree Maker 2009 work for you. In addition, you'll discover how to create custom reports that will help you organize your family history and become a more effective researcher. 

Learn the why, how, and when of using its most popular features; get advice for mastering advanced tasks; and read quick lessons that will make your family history research fast and fun. All in a fully indexed format complete with screenshots and straightforward instructions written specifically for the newest and best Family Tree Maker ever.

They Came in Ships

No doubt your ancestors came to America from somewhere—England, Spain, Germany, China, Africa. Can you imagine how they felt and what they left behind? Do you want to know more about them? Do you know where to begin?

Author and genealogist John P. Colletta helps you navigate through the numerous records, ship passenger lists and indexes, naturalization and immigration records, and genealogy websites, to find your ancestors who came in ships to the New World.

The author shares dozens of specific and helpful hints, warnings, and suggestions based on his twenty years of experience researching ship passenger lists and lecturing on them at the National Archives. Learn how to determine your ancestor’s most likely port of departure and arrival, whether your ancestor was a stowaway or a member of the ship’s crew, how to obtain a picture of your ancestor’s vessel—and much more. Begin the journey to discover your ancestors today!

Some people are intimidated by the prospect of organizing a full-scale family reunion. This book is a guide for organizing a successful and exciting family reunion. It includes chapters about getting started with the organization process, determining how to finance the event and work with vendors, deciding where and when to hold the reunion, creating a simple and effective record-keeping system, figuring out how to locate and invite family members, planning opportunities for family members of all ages to get to know each other, setting up the actual reunion site, managing the reunion onsite, and conducting a post-reunion review so that the next one will be even better. 

Because the Internet has changed forever the way we obtain information, this book also includes a wealth of Web-based reunion sites that are filled with great information. In addition, because Web sites change and because there is so much information on the Internet, a short guide to using Internet search engines, directories, and other tools to locate information is included. By studying the techniques there and referring to the tutorials at the Search Engine Watch Web site, you can quickly become adept at structuring effective searches for information all over the Internet. Finally, you’ll find sample charts and forms that will help you track your planning and make sure you’ve covered all your bases.

Regardless if this is your first family reunion or your tenth, it is important to do whatever it takes to make your event a success—one that your relatives will remember and talk about for the rest of their lives.