Sharing case studies, methodologies, and resource materials. I’m working to add generations to my tree using full documentary evidence confirmed by DNA analysis.

Welcome!

I started this blog because I was frustrated with having to “reinvent the wheel” —- mothers and fathers are attached to trees in ancestry.com with no sources. The familysearch.org One-World Tree is riddled with folks attaching whole generations of people with no sources. Even my family lines within Wiki-Tree are filled with errors and sources that say, “Personal knowledge of Joe-Shmoe”.

And most of the time, once I put in the work and pay for the records, the random mothers and fathers listed end up being correct. So, listen, I’m not pretending that I’m up-ending long-held beliefs about family lines or anything. However, I am providing direct evidence of family relationships or strong circumstantial cases along with DNA correlation to confirm family lines. And yeah, sometimes I break down a brick wall and discover a new grandfather or grandmother and those are fun too. And I provide the documentary evidence for all to read and review.

Please browse around a bit. My posts tend to be quite Florida- and Georgia-heavy because, well, all the branches of my family have been in Florida since the early 1900s and most of them came from Georgia before that. But there are a few things sprinkled in there from Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina as well.

If I run across a really fun resource, I like to share that here as well. My case studies are presented informally and every detail presented is sourced by documentary evidence that I provide directly to you, the reader.

Please follow along to read stories of discovery and heartbreak, to learn tips and tricks, organization and research strategies, and (if you are a cousin) to learn more about the details of our shared family lines.

Recent Posts

Join me in my adventure in family discovery!

Using Excel as a Research Log
Organization Sunni Mohammadbhoy Organization Sunni Mohammadbhoy

Using Excel as a Research Log

There is no right way, wrong way, or best way to keep a research log. There is simply a way that works for you. I have managed my research in many sloppy ways over the years, but I finally hit upon one that works well for me. I use Excel to organize my research and log my findings.

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County Tax Rolls
Tax Records Sunni Mohammadbhoy Tax Records Sunni Mohammadbhoy

County Tax Rolls

One of my favorite record sets for 19th-century research is county tax records. There is no doubt that this process can be a bit tedious, but very few items can give us such a clear picture of a person's movements and life events year-over-year than tax records.

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