Generated with Bing ImageCreator (AI), March 13, 2024 Where is YOUR Needle, Your Missing Record? Genealogical Proof Standard When we use the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) as our guide, we all know that "exhaustive research" can be both tedious and exhausting. Is life long enough to search page by page through all the counties where all the members of a family might have lived, paid taxes, bought, leased or sold property, made a will or died intestate? It is possible that the new Full Text Search at FamilySearch will  eventually  allow us to do just that. It has been estimated that 75% or more of the records at FamilySearch were browsable but not searchable; the only indexes those found in the records themselves. Those records are certainly attainable by using those indexes and browsing to the record of interest, but the process is tedious, often frustrating, and slow. And once found, the record must be read and transcribed to be useful. This new Full Text Search tackles a...

DNA Dot Reform Last night I removed all my AncestryDNA ®  dots.  And then, started over. This was years of work removed, but after watching Diahan Southard's " The 5 Steps to Organizing Your DNA in 2023 ," I had to do it.  After studying Research Like A Pro , I've reformed my research practices, and heading into Research Like a Pro With DNA , I want to do that with DNA too, because it is a  really valuable record source. I realized I had been using the dots only as labels, not as filters which Southard's simple how-to enables. I'm using Ancestry as an example; the techniques will work elsewhere of course. Dot Groups as Filters Once the dots were gone, I created four groups, one for each of my great grandparent couples. Here is the view of the near end of my pedigree. I've blurred all but my great-greats, and boxed each couple to show what Southard proposes: Valorie's great-grandparent couples So my first four groups are: Cowan-McPherson, Schell-Anders...