Tag: #research
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Update: September 2026
It’s hard to believe four months have passed since our last check-in in June 2026, but the site has seen a flurry of activity in that time. We’ve published four new deep-dive blog posts, exploring everything from leveraging FamilySearch’s game-changing full-text search and MyHeritage DNA mapping to discovering what famous visitors like Mary Shelley revealed…
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How FamilySearch full-text search is helping me break down brick walls in Bagni di Lucca – Part 1
If you’ve used FamilySearch’s Full-Text Search feature, you know it feels like magic. For decades, finding ancestor details in unindexed records meant clicking through digital image rolls page by page; essentially flipping through thousands of dusty microfilm frames on your computer screen. Before then, you had to physically visit the archive where the microfilms were…
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How DNA can lead you to Lucca
How can a DNA test look at a sample and point to something as specific as a province, valley, or local community? I did the digging, and here’s what I figured out. Family historians know the satisfaction of watching evidence slowly arrange itself into a coherent picture: a baptism here, a marriage there, a familiar…
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Mapping a Surname: A How-To Guide, using the Domenici families of Bagni di Lucca as an example
Every genealogy project starts with a question. Mine began with a woman who carried the surname Domenici, and lived in San Cassiano di Controne in Bagni di Lucca, in the early 1800s. Yet, she was not born in San Cassiano – she had married into the village from surrounding villages, and little information was known about…