Until 1821, most of the southwestern United States was part of Spain, then part of an independent Mexico. When the United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, making it the twenty-eighth state, Mexico declared war.
The ensuing war (1846—48) saw Mexico lose large amounts of its territory in western North America, including what is now Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Why are archivists so reluctant to digitize their records? The answer is not as simple as you may think.
Everything is on the Internet. Isn’t that what you’ve heard? Many media reports on genealogy would lead you to believe that you can research your entire ancestry on the Internet, without leaving the comfort of your home.
The new search engine at Ancestry.com will rank your results and place the best possible matches at the top. You’re gonna love it.
Ancestry.com recently unveiled a new “best matches” relevance-ranked search method to add to its traditional “exact matches” search.
Your research work at the library will go better if you follow the practical guidelines recommended here.
Yesteryear’s stereotype of the little gray-haired librarian, with her hair in a bun and her eyeglasses perched on the tip of her nose, pacing the library shushing people, no longer exists.
Whether your ancestors were childhood photographers or favored subjects in snapshots, you’ll learn lots from the childhood photos in your family’s collections.
When an online photographic magazine asked its subscribers to relate their early experiences with photography, one woman remembered lying on the sidewalk and taking a picture of a snow-covered rose in May.
Inspiring story from a fellow reader.
The Civil War battle, reenacted with crumpled paper that served as bullets we threw across the room, helped me fall in love with history. As an eighth grader, I was proud to fight against the other half of the class for the Confederate States because I knew that my ancestors probably did the same.
Serendipity played a key role in the resolution of this award-winning writer’s search for her British family.
The e-mail didn’t look like anything special. It certainly didn’t look like the end of a thirty-year quest. The morning after Thanksgiving I sat down at my computer to clear out my Inbox and came to an e-mail with a subject line that read: Phyllis Bat es.
If your web browser is doing strange things lately, you may be a victim of a new PC problem—virtual hijacking.
There is a new and insidious threat lurking on the Internet these days. While you are casually surfing the Web, some unscrupulous webmasters have laid a trap for you that is camouflaged as a desirable link. Clicking on a deceptive link may cause your web browser to be hijacked.
An in-depth exploration of the offerings at FamilySearch reveals much more than the library catalog you’ve come to appreciate.
Today’s family historians have a great advantage over the researchers of yesteryear in the quantity and quality of information that is as close to them as a keystroke and an Internet connection.
Vital records access for family historians is growing ever more difficult and it’s not likely to change. Here’s why.
Vital records—the certificates recorded in local or state vital statistics offices—have traditionally been the first original records sought by newcomers to family history once they have exhausted home sources and the recollections of living relatives.