A client recently asked me to look up an ancestor born in Belgrade, Serbia. First, I looked up a little about the history. Like many countries in Europe, and most countries in Eastern Europe, Serbia was part of other countries, kingdoms or empires for most of its existence. In addition, the language we know as…

To make specific connections between people, you need to fix them in a specific place. Each individual needs a name, a date, a relationship and a place. When professional genealogists start a research project, we start out by asking a question structured like the following: If you ask me for help, the first thing I…

Too many people with the same name, from the same town. Too many public trees with guesswork instead of research work. As a professional, I begin work on a client’s tree by verifying existing relationships and dates and places. If you tell me another professional has verified a certain branch, I can accept that and…