Those Pesky Passwords are the Key to Your Digital Legacy

You’ve just encountered a new website, created a username and a unique password, and are ready to spend a few hours researching, looking for a special gift, or just watching a recording or two. We do this mindlessly now, since we have to do it so often. For most websites, it hardly matters, since we may only use them for a little while and then move on. But think about those websites that you use all the time, perhaps where you do your banking or access your stock market updates, places where you’ve stored credit card numbers, and, for most of us, sites where we have stored family trees, photos, documents, and DNA results. Have you thought of what happens to that information when you can no longer maintain it? It's scary to face our own mortality, but let’s look at some options.

Secrets of the Census, Part 6: 1900

Our last post in this series was in January when we reminded our readers of what happened to the 1890 census and why we don't have digital copies of it for most of our ancestors. (Did you miss that post? You can read it here.) We now come to the start of a new century and a world that was in the throes of major changes. It was the year The Wizard of Oz was published, work began on the subway system in New York City, and those new-fangled automobiles scaring horses and humans were labeled "devil wagons." Hawaii became a U.S. territory, McKinley was president, and a new baseball club, the American League, was formed in Chicago. The census takers for the 1900 federal census began their jobs on 1 June and were given just thirty days to complete their tasks, no small feat for a U.S. population that exceeded 76,000.000! This first twentieth-century census gives us new and important information on our ancestors.

The Perfect Genealogy Vacation: A Week in Salt Lake City!

Each year in the fall, St. Louis Genealogical Society sponsors a week-long immersive research trip to the world's largest genealogy repository—the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. This year's adventure, our thirty-third trip, runs from Sunday, 11 October through Sunday, 18 October 2026, and registration is now open. For one full week, you can enjoy non-stop research time in this huge genealogy playground! Read on for all the details.