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Sometimes it gets tricky chasing moms and great-grandmas through the family tree, particularly if Great-Grandma is hiding squarely behind a married name.

Don’t give up. When you’re faced with the tough task of tracing an elusive female back through history, it pays to be persistent. You’ll find plenty of rewards by tracing female family lines. Instead, tackle the challenge of following a female with the following tips – you may find that your great-great-grandmother’s maiden name and hiding place aren’t so far out of reach after all.

Tip 1: Ask around. Does anyone else in the family know the maiden name or recall other family names that could be associated with Great-Grandma?

Tip 2: Check online family trees. You may discover that someone else has already jotted down a maiden name for Great-Grandma (although you’ll want to reconstruct the research to be certain it’s the right maiden name and the right Great-Grandma).

Tip 3: Look at home. Is there a family member with an attic full of memorabilia? Something hidden in there, including wedding announcements, funeral cards, details on the backs of photos, notes on postcards and letters, or even a high school yearbook, could point you to Great-Grandma’s name. Also check related collections at Ancestry.com, including public member photos.

Tip 4: Check the church. While a marriage license should point you to Great-Grandma’s maiden name, you may not luck into finding one (prior to the 20th century, many states were hit and miss with civil registration of births, marriages and deaths). Church records and registers, however, may hold clues, including who married whom.

Tip 5: Look nearby. Property records, marriage records, naturalization records and more, whether in Great-Grandma’s name or her husbands’, may have included witnesses from her side of the family. Also consider that Great-Grandpa may have done business with Great-Grandma’s family.

Tip 6: Check the children. While state-held birth records may also be hard to come by prior to the 20th century, children are great keepers of clues. Middle names may have come from Great-Grandma’s side of the family – one of them may even be her maiden name. Baptism records could include the name of a sponsor or godparent who was related to Great-Grandma.

Tip 7: Revisit the neighborhood. It may seem cliché, but Great-Grandma could have married the boy next door. Follow her husband back through the census. Is there a female nearby whose name and other details (birthplace, birth year, parents’ birthplaces) mirror the facts you know about Great-Grandma? Follow her forward to see if she married Great-Grandpa.

Tip 8: Dig around the family plot. Families often remained together even after death. Cemetery records may mention Great-Grandma’s side of the family, and cemetery plots may be very close to Great-Grandma’s family.

Tip 9: Move forward. Clues from Great-Grandma’s married census records may point you to her past. If another adult is living with the family, it could be an elderly parent who moved in or Great-Grandma’s younger sibling, who’s helping with the kids. Follow that person back through census records to see if he or she might be the clue you need to locate Great-Grandma’s maiden name.

Tip 10: Read the newspaper. Obituaries can hold valuable details, including the names of Great-Grandma’s male siblings or cousins whose surnames mirror her maiden name. Also look for wedding and engagement announcements for Great-Grandpa. Do the same (plus birth announcements) for Great-Grandma’s children – if their grandparents are listed, you’ll find Great-Grandma’s parents.

For more tips on finding Great-Grandma, check out the latest 5-Minute Find video-Wife Hunting.

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How good was Jackie Robinson?

So good that in high school, he even got written up in opponents’ yearbooks—after beating them:
 

 

At Pasadena Junior College, he wowed folks in track,

 

baseball,

 

basketball,

 

and football,

 

the sport that led to his being dubbed the greatest individual athlete on the greatest team in PJC history in 1938.

 

 

He even excelled at “outstanding service to the school” by those “whose scholastic and citizenship record is worthy of recognition” and was tapped for membership in the Mast and Dagger society during his second year, “the highest honor attainable at PJC.”

 

He was so good, that during his first year at UCLA, he appeared in captions for photos he wasn’t even in, like this one of a group of sophomore class officers downing their drink “with all the speed of a Jackie Robinson 60-yard dash.”

 

Jackie started making his name on the gridiron for the Bruins in 1939.

 

The Bruins had a tough season the next year, but Robinson was one of the bright spots, whether they were losing to Stanford:

 

Or during their one win against Washington State:

 

It was news (good and bad) when Jackie chose baseball over track.

 

 

He even made it into rival USC’s yearbook for his prowess on the hardwood.

 

And he made news again when he left UCLA early.

 

How good was Jackie Robinson? He seemed to fill any stage he took. Long before he ever stepped onto the diamond to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier, he had already proved that one campus, one floor, or one field would not be large enough to contain Jackie Robinson.

You can look for your big men, and women, on campus in our U.S. School Yearbooks collection.

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More discoveries can happen with our mobile app with the new Pedigree View and Photo Hints. Our Ancestry App is great wherever you go or wherever you are in today’s busy world.  Whether at the train station, your couch, or at Aunt Edna’s house, take those moments to quickly view or add something to your tree or make a completely new discovery with the Ancestry Mobile App.

Recently, we added some functionality to the app including a Pedigree View and Photo Hints.

Pedigree View

There are two ways to view your tree on the iOS app.  The Pedigree view shows direct ancestors.  The Family view shows all relationships including siblings, spouses, and children. Toggle between these views with the buttons at the top of your screen.

Photo Hints

For the past year or so, the iOS app has provided you with hints to records about your ancestors.  With the new Photo Hints you can now find pictures of your ancestors, too. Plus you can easily share your discoveries with friends and family on Facebook, Twitter, or email.

Download or Update Your Ancestry App Today

Haven’t tried the Ancestry app out yet? iPhone or iPad users can download it here:  iTunes. Android users will find the app at Google Play or Amazon Appstore. (The Android app doesn’t have photo hints yet, but stay tuned.)  If you have already downloaded the Ancestry app, check your updates to be sure you have the latest version.  

 

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• Supermodel
  Cindy Crawford was spotted in the Connecticut State Library Wednesday morning,
  where onlookers said she was filming an episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” NBC
  canceled the celebrity genealogy reality series after last season, but  TLC has
  picked it up. Singer
  Kelly Clarkson also is reported to have filmed for the resurrected series.

• FamilySearch has added more than 9.4 million index records and images this week from
  the United States, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Honduras,
  Italy, Peru, Sweden and Venezuela. They include data from BillionGraves (search results
  link you to BillionGraves.com to see an image of the tombstone), Michigan death certificates
  (1921-1952), New York, Southern District US District Court naturalizations (1824-1946),
  and more.

You can search or browse (in the case of unindexed record images) these
records for free on FamilySearch.org. Link
through to each collection from here. 

• Get a new take on your Irish Famine-era ancestors with findmypast.ie‘s
  new online Famine
  Memorial. Launched to coincide with the National Famine Commemoration 2013 in
  Kilrush, County Clare, Ireland, the memorial gathers record collections—emigration,
  census, newspaper, criminal and land records, as well as directories—that highlight
  aspects of Irish life that were affected during the Great Irish Famine (1845-1852).

  You’ll need to be a subscriber or use credits to view records, but the memorial also
  provides interesting background information about the famine that anyone can view.

• Family Tree DNA announced it has lowered
  the price of its mid-level maternal line mtDNA test, called mtDNAPlus, to $49. This
  two-thirds price reduction was made possible by a new squencing technique. The company
  also has lowered the price of its 12-marker Y-DNA test to $49. Order
  either test here.

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Another genealogy TV series is coming to PBS. And this one might
satisfy those of you looking for prime time stories about the
ancestors of ordinary Americans (as opposed to the public figures
whose family trees have been fodder for “Who Do You Think You Are?”
and “Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr.”).

Genealogy Roadshow, premeiring nationally this fall, according to an announcement
from PBS and Nashville Public Television, will ”

combine history and science to uncover fascinating stories of diverse Americans.”

“After participants are chosen, genealogy, history and DNA experts will use family
heirlooms, letters, pictures, historical documents and other clues to hunt down more
information. These experts will enlist the help of local historians to add color and
context to the investigations, ensuring every artifact and every name becomes a clue
in solving the mystery.”

The first season will feature participants from four cities:

Nashville, Tenn.; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; and Detroit.

If you’re in Nashville, you can go here to apply
to have your genealogy featured on the show.

Genealogy Roadshow is being produced by Krasnow Productions, and is based on a same-name
show in Ireland produced by Big Mountain Productions.

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The National Genealogical
Society’s annual conference is going on now in Las Vegas. Want a taste of the
family history action? Here’s where to find one:

• Visit the National Genealogical Society
  (NGS) on Facebook for photos, and check out the official
  NGS 2013 Conference Blog.

• Genea-Musings blogger Randy Seaver is posting
  photos and writing about sessions he’s attended

• Genea Philibert-Ortega, who’s presenting several sessions, is blogging about her presentations
  and opportunities for the folks at home on Gena’s
  Genealogy.

• Family Curator blogger Denise Levenick is giving
  daily conference reports.

• Find posts about sessions and the exhibit hall on
  the Ancestry Insider blog.

• You’ll find a list of all
  the NGS 2013 Family History Conference Official Bloggers here.

• The conference hashtag on Twitter is #NGS2013.

• On Friday at 7 p.m. Pacific you can join a genealogy Twitter Chat called GenChat live
  from the NGS conference. Learn
  more about GenChat here.

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I don’t need to write a lot about what you’ll learn from our Map
Your Family History with Google Earth One-Week Workshop, coming up May 17-24,
thanks to this awesome video that Google Earth expert Lisa
Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems put together:

The workshop offers

video sessions and step-by-step written lessons from Lisa and other Family Tree University
experts on locating ancestral towns, using maps in your research, and using the tools
of Google Earth to explore and display your ancestors’ places in a fascinating way.

And Lisa will be be on hand to answer participants’ Google Earth questions in our
exclusive workshop message board.

Find
out more about the Map Your Family History With Google Earth One-Week Workshop on
FamilyTreeUniversity.com.

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The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)
has released a new genealogy resource for Northern Ireland.

PRONI, along with FamilySearch, has digitized
the Valuation Revision Books, 1864-1933. These books contain a list of landholders
and their property valuations in counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry
and Tyrone.

The records are handy for filling in gaps between Griffiths Valuation (which ends
in 1864) and the 1901 census (the earliest surviving Irish census).

Here’s what the Valuation Revision Book pages look like:

You’ll need to know where your ancestor lived in Northern Ireland to best use the
collection.

Access the
Valuation Revision Books on PRONI’s website (click the Search Valuation revision
Books button on the right). There, you can enter a placename

(city, county, parish, or townland; or a street or ward name in Belfast and Londonderry)
and digitally “flip” through books pertaining to that place. You also can browse by
county and parish.

Note that 44 of the roughly 3,900 books are still be digitized.

Searching for Irish roots? Get in-depth guidance in Family Tree Magazine‘s Ultimate
Irish Genealogy Collection, available only in May. 

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Did you know that May is National Photography
Month?

Of course, photography plays a huge role in family history research. Nothing connects
you with an ancestor and inspires you to discover more about his or her life, than
a photograph.

This one is one of my favorite family pictures. It shows my great-great-grandfather
about 1910 in front of the cigar
store he opened in Cincinnati. He’s standing third from left. His son, my great-grandfather,
is in the doorway on the left.

This National Photo Month, we want to help you celebrate and preserve your favorite
family photos by giving
away one of our new Photo Preservation Kits (now
available in ShopFamilyTree.com).

The kit contains specially selected archival photo storage and preservation products
from archival supplier Gaylord Bros., plus easy-to-follow instructions from Family
Tree Magazine‘s Family Archivist, Sunny Jane Morton. 

You
can enter our National Photo Month Sweepstakes here. And you’ll get two extra
chances to win for every friend who registers using your referral link (which you’ll
get after you submit your entry).

Our National
Photo Month Sweepstakes entry deadline is May 20.

You’ll also find these National Photo Month specials at ShopFamilyTree.com:

• Photo
  Detective Collection: Contains the Family Photo Detective ebook by Maureen
  A. Taylor, Digital Photography Essentials Family Tree University Independent Study
  course, and more
• Amateur
  Photo Restoration video class
• Genealogist’s
  Essential Scanning Kit: Contains our Top 10 Scanning Tips for Genealogy download,
  Digitize Your Genealogy Documents video class, and more

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Genealogy website Mocavo is reviving the spirit of
the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) volunteer record lookup website in
its Genealogy Karma website.

RAOGK, started by Bridgett and Doc Schneider and one
of Family Tree Magazine‘s 101 best free genealogy websites in 2010, went
offline in 2011.

Genealogy Karma offers a similar, free option
for getting records from a faraway repository or cemetery. You can post a lookup request
and tag it with a keyword (such as “birth record” or “tombstone”) so volunteers can
find it. 

Researchers who register as volunteers with the site can answer your request, do the
lookup and send you the results.

When submitting a lookup request, follow these tips for a faster response:

• Be details. Use indexes to find the volume and page number of the record you need,
  and provide those details in your request. If you want a tombstone photo, call the
  cemetery or search online to find the cemetery location, plot and grave number. 
• Double-check all the names, dates and other information in your request.
• You also might offer to compensate the volunteer for expenses such as mileage and
  postage.

Of course, registering with Genealogy Karma as
a volunteer is the ultimate way to say thank you for a request someone has answered.

Click here
to learn more about how to use the Genealogy Karma site.