Social History Websites That Bring Your Ancestor's Story to Life

Oscar Philibert’s World War II draft card included a surprise, the description of a tattoo. That knowledge posed a challenge. What could Gena learn about this tattoo that would enhance his life story? This case study includes genealogical and social history resources that provide ideas for how genealogists can incorporate social history into the facts they find on a genealogically relevant record.

In this presentation we explore websites that provide the historical detail about our ancestor’s lives. These websites will help your research go from "just the facts" to a multi-dimensional reconstruction of your ancestor's life.

While you won’t be able to find genealogy-related records using artificial intelligence, you will be able to use AI to learn more about an ancestor’s “social history.” Social history details how an ancestor lived including where they lived, their occupation, the cost of goods and services, and why they may have migrated to or from a location. Social history “fills in the dash” between an ancestor’s birth date and death date.

Genealogists are expected to conduct research not just reasonably exhaustively but also broadly. Understanding the social milieu of the specific time and place within which an individual lived is an essential element of broad research. A case study focusing on an early twentieth-century blue-collar worker in western Minnesota and his several wives illustrates how social history provides insights illuminating their lives. This class is presented live at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City as part of the Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series and is being broadcasted by Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

County histories bring rich possibilities to our research through biographical and historical sketches. They provide an abundance of FAN Club members and research clues. We will examine county histories through the use of a case study. Beginning with a research questions, we will examine the methodology of the FAN Club…

This webinar serves to ‘set the scene’, detailing the effects of industrialisation on people and cities in England.

This talk will help genealogists place the role of health and medicine in their colonial ancestor’s life into perspective.

The 1918 flu pandemic killed up to 100 million people worldwide in less than a year, disproportionately taking healthy young adults.

The Western Front was the main theatre of war during World War One. A truly industrialised war with shrapnel, gas and bombs. Disease was also an issue with specific diseases due to the trench conditions.