Artistic Ancestry Status

Our dear friends, We have recently discovered a problem with the webhosting for ArtisticAncestry.com. This will temporarily postpone the website going LIVE as we had planned. While we appreciate you support, we do want the website to be fully functional, so our friends and family will be happy with the product we are offering. Please continue to follow us on Facebook and Twitter or at artisticancestry.blogspot.com for further genealogy hints and news for the release date of ArtisticAncestry.com. With Deep Appreciation, Cristina and Gayla

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Sometimes it is difficult to know exactly how to trace ancestral records when you don't know what all of the terms mean. Scotland, Wales, and England are Kingdoms, which just means they are realms that are ruled by a king. In 1707, Great Britain was formed when the Kingdoms of England and Wales merged with the Kingdom of Scotland and Scotland adopted many approaches to the English government record systems. But the real confusion comes understanding the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom. In 1800, the United Kingdom came into effect when Ireland joined with Scotland, Wales, and England. However in 1921, Ireland split into two factions Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, with Northern Ireland staying with England, Wales, and Scotland. Today the proper title is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Dreams Coming True

It's been a dream and an adventure. ArtisticAncestry.com is about to go LIVE and available to the public. Artistic Ancestry is an online tool for your genealogy files. it's different than most genealogy websites though. It gives you the opportunity to expand on your GEDCOM file. You are able to upload pictures, document scans, audio files, and video files. We'll store you files for you. Then you can take those files and create e-books to share with family and friends. We are so proud it's almost time to share our dream and adventure with you. We hope that you enjoy being able to tell the stories behind the names on your family tree as much as we do.

What Is Soundex?

Soundex is an online tool that takes a surname that you input from your family tree (I usually use it if I am having trouble find a particular branch of the family). It then takes that name and gives you a list of possible names from which it could be derived. Especially popular names that got changed were last names that begin with an H. Either the H was dropped on the census and Illier became Hillier or the opposite and the H was added. It's like the game played in elementary schools when one child whispers a word or phrase to the child next to them. You might start out with, "white lights are really bright" and end up with "hot pots hold tots." You never really know what your family's surname might have begun as.