How would you like to have your own personal instruction for Italian Genealogical Research in the comfort of your home? FamilySearch has come out with a basic Italian Genealogical Research class that is available for viewing. The class is approximately 58 minutes long and has a great deal of information that will assist the individual in researching their Italian Ancestry. If you would like to view the presentation and obtain the class handout, click Basic Italian Research. Have fun!

A new Social Networking site, Genealogy Wise has emerged onto the internet scene within the last two days. It is the specifically geared towards connecting genealogists and family historians. It has many of the features of other social networking sites including application, and photos, but it also incorporates blog posts, groups, forums, a chat room, a store, and even a genealogical search engine which is connected to World Vital Records, to name a few. Participation in Genealogy Wise is free, but the genealogical search requires a fee to actually visualize the records.

This website looks to be promising and could be a great asset to the genealogical community. It has been fun connecting with some of my online friends through this forum. I am sure that I will make new friends through this venue and hopefully will be able to connect up with some of my distant cousins. If you have never ventured forth into the social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook, this site might be just your ticket if you are a genealogist or family historian. It is specifically geared to genealogy which is great and it is free to join. If you would like to check it out click Genealogy Wise. Have fun!!

I was reading Dan Lawyers blog this morning and saw this video that he had posted from TED. The technology described here (which is under development at the present time) has some intriguing possibilities for usage with genealogical work. Enjoy the video!

One valuable resource for genealogists and family historians in tracing and documenting their family history includes land patent records. Researching land patent records can be very difficult and tedious, but some of the basic records are now available to research online at the Bureau of Land Management and General Land Office Records. You may be wondering what is a Land Patent. Simply stated a Land Patent occurred when a particular piece of property was transferred from the hands of the government to the an individual or when there was a land ownership transfer. This was encouraged by the United Staes government by many methods including land in lieu of payment for military personel and allowing people to have 160 acres of land for the cost of the filing fee to name a few.
This encouragement occurred as a way of assisting with the expansion of the country from the east coast to the west.

If you have not used land records in your research, you may not know what information is available in these treasure trove records including the name, location, size of the homestead, marriage and/or immigration information. The marriage and/or immigration information was occasionally requested by the government when requesting a Land Patent. To learn more, please refer to the FAQ of the site. The information that is available on this site includes the following information: patentee, date of issue, the land office, mineral reservations, a legal land description and the amount of acres issued. Unfortunately you are unable to view the application which would possibly include information about immigration, marraige, etc. This information can be obtained by contacting the NARA (National Archives and Records Administration).

If you would like to research in the Land Patent Record Search click
here. Have fun!