How should we interpret our ancestors' decisions to marry in a particular form or place, or at a particular time? Did their choices make them exceptional or normal for their day? Might their marriages have been bigamous, clandestine, or void? Or might they have conscientiously followed the rules set down by Church and State? Since its publication in 2012, Marriage Law for Genealogists has become the indispensable guide for everyone tracing the marriages of their English and Welsh ancestors between 1600 and the twentieth century. Based upon years of painstaking primary research and studies of thousands of couples, it explains clearly and concisely why, how, when and where people in past centuries married. Family historians just starting out will find advice on where 'missing' marriages are most likely to be found, while those who are already well advanced in tracing their family tree will be able to interpret their discoveries to better understand their ancestors' motivations. Rebecca Probert is Professor of Law at Warwick University and the leading authority on the history of the marriage laws of England and Wales, a subject on which she has written extensively.

Presents easy-to-understand strategies for researching family roots online. Featuring detailed explanations, each chapter teaches you how to navigate popular genealogy websites, decipher census data and other online records, and connect with other family members to share your findings. The book also includes tips on using free databases and genealogy apps.

Trace and record your family history online Are you a descendant of ancient kings? Were your ancestors fierce warriors? Are you related to an eminent scholar? With The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy, 2nd Edition, now you can find out! If you're interested in your family history, you have a wealth of information and misinformation at your fingertips. Enter expert genealogist Kimberly Powell to steer you in the right direction. Powell helps you: Effectively search various websites Decipher census data and other online records Choose the best way to share your data both on and offline Connect with other genealogists via social media outlets Packed with tips on free databases, search sites and downloadable government records, you'll have all you need to find your ancestors going back dozens of generations!

"I teach the kings of their ancestors so that the lives of the ancients might serve them as an example, for the world is old but the future springs from the past." Mamadou Kouyate "Sundiata", An Epic of Old Mali, a.d. 1217-1257 Two major questions of the ages are: Who am I? and Where am I going? From the moment the first African slaves were dragged onto these shores, these questions have become increasingly harder for African-Americans to answer. To find the answers, you first must discover where you have been, you must go back to your family tree--but you must dig through rocky layers of lost information, of slavery--to find your roots. During the Great Migration in the 1940s, when African-Americans fled the strangling hands of Jim Crow for the relative freedoms of the North, many tossed away or buried the painful memories of their past. As we approach the new millennium, African-Americans are reaching back to uncover where we have been, to help us determine where we are going. Finding a Place Called Homeis a comprehensive guide to finding your African-American roots and tracing your family tree. Written in a clear, conversational, and accessible style, this book shows you, step-by-step, how to find out who your family was and where they came from. Beginning with your immediate family, Dr. Dee Parmer Woodtor gives you all the necessary tools to dig up your past: how to interview family members; how to research your past using census reports, slave schedules, property deeds, and courthouse records; and how to find these records. Using the Internet for genealogical research is also discussed in this timely and necessary book. Finding a Place Called Home helps you find your family tree, and helps place it in the context of the garden of African-American people. As you learn how to find your own history, you learn the history of all Africans in the Americas, including the Caribbean, and how to benefit from a new understanding of your family's history, and your people's. Finding a Place Called Home also discusses the growing family reunion movement and other ways to clebrate newly discovered family history. Tomorrow will always lie ahead of us if we don't forget yesterday. Finding a Place Called Home shows how to retrieve yesterday to free you for all of your tomorrows. Finding a Place Called Home: An African-American Guide to Genealogy and Historical Identitytakes us back, step-by-step, including: Methods of searching and interpreting records, such as marriage, birth, and death certificates, census reports, slave schedules, church records, and Freedmen's Bureau information. Interviewing and taking inventory of family members Using the Internet for genealogical purposes Information on tracing Caribbean ancestry

For librarians and others who guide genealogical researchers, a handbook from one who learned the skill on a sink-or-swim basis as a reference librarian at Brigham Young U. Library in the 1960s; true to his name, he swam. It covers how to help researchers get started, develop collections, use technology to find out about other collections, provide instruction for genealogists, and stay current professionally. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Most of our ancestors were wed only once, and after the death of a spouse did not remarry. Yet every family tree has individuals whose lives did not fit that pattern: a minority of the bereaved chose to take a second or even a third spouse, and with some marriages breaking down and divorce increasingly an option there were always bigamists and divorcees ready to find a new partner. In this follow-up to the bestselling Marriage Law for Genealogists, Rebecca Probert explains divorce, bigamy, bereavement and remarriage from the 1600s through to the late twentieth century. How long did marriages last? Was the loss of a spouse in middle age as common as we might assume? And for those who did lose a spouse, what factors influenced their choice to remarry or remain single? What signs hint that a marriage might have been bigamous, or that a divorce had been hushed up? How were marital breakdown, bigamy, and cohabitation linked at a time when relationships outside marriage were rare and unacceptable? From the evidential requirements of the divorce courts through to the testimonies of convicted bigamists, and from men who married their late wife's sister through to couples who went through more than one wedding ceremony together, this book examines law and social custom from every angle. Rebecca Probert is the leading authority on the history of marriage law and practice in England and Wales. She holds a chair in family law at the University of Warwick and regularly appears on TV and radio.