Guide to Obtaining U.S. Vital Records

Vital records are one of the best sources for family tree information.  These records are issued by state and local governments when a major life events happens (birth, marriage, death, etc.).  In addition to describing the event, these records typically reveal other information too - like who the person's parents or next of kin, when and where they were born, etc.   All these little pieces of information will help you piece together the larger picture ... that is, your family tree. Due to privacy reasons, however, these records generally aren't readily available to the public.  Your best source of vital records is to ask members in your own family for copies.  I've been working the last couple of years to borrow every vital record (and photograph) I can get...

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How to Customize Your View in Family Tree Maker

When you open Family Tree Maker 2010 and view your tree, you'll notice the screen is divided into different sections. On the left is a list of the people in your tree. In the middle is the pedigree view of your tree and below that are the family details of the current person selected.  And on the right, are the details of the person selected (or currently being viewed).  This right panel is the "View" and it can be customized to make editing easier. By default, you'll see the person's name and fields to enter that person's birth, death and marriage.  But you can other fields if you like.  Fields that I have added to my...

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How to Export a Tree in Family Tree Maker

One of the nice things about genealogy software is they usually allow you to import and export your family tree information.  Not only is this helpful when sharing information with others, but it's also makes it easier to work with online genealogy sites like Ancestry.com. Below are the steps to export a family tree using Family Tree Maker (FTM) software: Open Family Tree Maker Open the tree you want to export (if you have more than one) On the menu, select FILE and then EXPORT Make sure "Entire Tree" is selected (as wells as everything else).   Select the "file type" you'd like your exported file to be (see notes below). Click OK Select the location you'd like to save the file to (I usually select DESKTOP, so I can find it easily). Different genealogy software programs sometimes...

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Family Tree Maker Tips - Entering Divorces

In today's culture, very few people stayed married forever any more.  So it's not uncommon to have to enter divorces into your Family Tree Maker software.  Sadly, entering divorces is not very intuitive, so I thought I would share the steps here. These instructions are for Family Tree Maker 2010.   If you're using an earlier version of Family Tree Maker, the steps may vary a bit. Open Family Tree Maker and access the person in your tree that you desire to enter a divorce for.  This assumes that you've already entered the appropriate data for the marriage.  When you double click the person's name, you'll be shown...

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Finding Missouri Death Certificates Online

Have you been trying to find a death certificate for a family member that died in Missouri?  If you haven't already, you might want to try the Missouri Digital Heritage website.  This is an awesome website! The folks managing the site have been gracious enough to post scanned images of death certificates online for 1910-1959. You can save the digital images of death certificates to your computer and/or order certified copies of them.  Just click the link above to get to the website.  The scroll down to the bottom of the page and enter the surname of the person you're searching for and then click the "search button". You...

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Fallen Heroes - A Resource for Families of Veterans

I stumbled across a new web site today that is devoted to remembering fallen soldiers. Most of the soldiers appear to have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan within the last 5 years - but there may be others. None the less, i thought it was an excellent resource for those looking for information on soldiers. To check out the Fallen Heroes website, click here...

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