Listend to this again today. James Tanner is still the man.

Fantastic information with a no nonsense approach ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Great video thanks. Very informative. Particularly like your idea of just surname search, had not heard that tip before but could be very interesting to identify the range, volume and locations of records we are dealing with for a surname.

just listening to your first two points, makes me thankful that I only arrived in the New World in 1950, from Europe, and have a definite knowledge of the times and places my ancestors lived back to 1500. An American with entry before 1800, must tear a lot of hair out trying to push back any further, if their ancestors came before that date. To which I say, you have all my sympathy and condolences.

Great video! I have always been suspicious about the different towns a family could be born in and how few families could afford to uproot and move so often. Thank you for confirming my suspicions!

Thank you

Thank you for the video. Try having Smith and McIntosh as your main to lines.

I realize this is a recorded session. I am probably not here live. Please forgive me. My biggest problem is that my ancestor was a person who has a totally common name- William Thomas Rogers. There are many Rogers people; many named William, and named Thomas, repeatedly. It seems nearly impossible to tell if our Rogers relatives were descended from Ben "The Immigrant" Rogers, or from Thomas Rogers, of the Mayflower, or from John Rogers, The Martyr. There isn't much dna linked to those three men, specifically. I'm stuck at my paternal great grandfather. Even though I think I am fairly certain of his name, I am not 100% sure that I have found him. His parents are just as elusive. Thank you for your tips and insights.

Thank you for the video

In the Ann Pross scenario one thing that I would point out is that most likely when she died she would have been buried under her married name NOT her maiden. In that case who you should potentially be looking for his Ann Parkinson.

I appreciate the time and effort that goes into creating presentations such as this and am grateful James Tanner is so knowledgeable. However, I worry that his narrative examples of research mistakes could come across as condescending to young and beginning genealogists. While some of the tips and strategies he offers may be no-brainers to him, they are not always as obvious to those who are just starting out.

Interesting and informative video. My searching is in the US, however, not the UK. My issues involve such things as states that will not release certain records and/or records destroyed by fire. Searching for my 3xgreat grandparents in one specific line but have no clue as to their names. No clue as to church affiliation at the time. No clue of specific locations of birth. Early 1800s in New Jersey, Ohio, maybe Pennsylvania, or other surrounding states to the east of Ohio. I've been searching for over 20 years without success. I've tried even using traditional naming practices since it appears that these patterns were at least partially followed with the descendants from then to me. But even that isn't helping. Took the Ancestry DNA test hoping to find more possibilities, but I am totally lost as to how to figure out anything as most of the matches I have that I can't identify as belonging to other lines just do not have any trees to work with. All my other lines are pretty easy to identify through the DNA test. So I am "speculating" that many of these unknowns could be connected to the two families I am seeking. In over 20 years of putting out queries all over the internet genealogy sources, and now doing the DNA, it is like there is nobody out there either looking for my people, or they don't know my people are connected to them. In the over 20 years of searching, I've only had one or two that connected and then only to people closer to the present instead of the time periods I am researching now. I can say that I have almost everything, if not everything, from 1850 to the present. But prior to 1840 and 1850 I have nothing and have not been able to find anything, just on these two lines in the same part of central to nw Ohio. I hoped this video would discuss such issues as getting past states like NJ who won't share records plus had records burned in fires.

I believe that Carl Friedric Schmidt changed his name to Theodor Persinske when he departed for the United States.

I have been trying to research church or public records pertaining to Carl Friedric Schmidt in the town of Miltitzwalde Mecklenburg-Vorpommen, Germany but cannot establish a link to this town?

What if the person who you are trying to find information about was an orphan in New York in the 1920’s but we don’t know where to go from there?

What about orphans brought over to the United States in the 1920’s on ships? I looked through ship manifesto’s and couldn’t find her. There were so many people who came here during that time .

That “looking under the street lamp” story is not original to Bazooka Joe; it is 30+ years older than Bazooka Joe.

So where is the link????