Do you have mining ancestors? Get ready for a compelling dig (pun intended)!

Do you have mining ancestors? Get ready for a compelling dig (pun intended)!

Nearly every family oral history contains a story about how the family is related to some rich and famous person, perhaps even to royalty. And while many people can trace their family line back to Kings and Queens, the truth is that most of us will be researching for a VERY VERY long time before we can actually prove our connection to these individuals, if at all. The fact for many Americans is that we likely descend from more “salt of the earth” kind of people. And if your ancestors happened to be salt miners, I mean that quite literally. Historical records will show that many of our family trees include those who earned their living in the mining occupation.

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The Best $50 I’ve Ever Spent as a Genealogist — updated for 2023

The Best $50 I’ve Ever Spent as a Genealogist — updated for 2023

Most genealogists, myself included, cannot afford to purchase every item on our genealogy wish list. If we could – wow – my mind can barely list the possibilities fast enough: DNA tests, including Y and mitochondrial DNA kits going out to cousins around the globe. . . subscriptions sites? Sign me up for ALL of them. . . . Record retrieval services in repositories around the world?. . . .maybe . . . or would I prefer to spend my time traveling the world, going from repository to repository, obtaining those records for myself? And then there’s books. So. many. books. . . . Continuing education, genealogy institutes and conferences, etc. etc. To quote the song by Queen, “I want it all!”
Ok, back to reality – because that’s never going to happen.
No, we all have to pick and choose how we spend our genealogy dollars with the hope that we receive the greatest return on our investment

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