The Formidable Genealogist

The Formidable Genealogist 🌳Professional Genealogist🌳
I’m Jen & my rate is $200/hr. Only 2 hr minimum. I also write research guides to help you research like I do.

https://www.theformidablegenealogist.com/category/all-products Hi, I'm Jen and I like to keep it very simple and transparent. If you're here, you're interested in family history, which happens to be my full-time job and full-time passion. I love being a small business owner and am ecstatic to be doing my dream job every day.

See this roughly 1790s map of Eskragh Townland in County Tyrone? My 4th great grandfather, Francis McFarlane, was born t...
06/16/2026

See this roughly 1790s map of Eskragh Townland in County Tyrone? My 4th great grandfather, Francis McFarlane, was born there in 1762. His younger brother, Hugh McFarlane, is listed as the owner on this map. Francis had already resettled in Pennsylvania before this map was made.

There are 2 fascinating things about this:
1 - The surnames surrounding Hugh McFarlane's land are the same surnames surrounding Francis in Western Pennsylvania around 1800. People moved together.

2 - The adjacent farm belonged to a family named Hardy. A descendant of that family still occupies that neighboring farm nearly two and a half centuries later.

https://www.townlands.ie/tyrone/lower-dungannon/killeeshil/clonaneese/eskragh/

06/15/2026

15 Jun 2026 New from Find a Grave today

Almost done gushing about gedminer.com. I think this is a really cool feature to help me visualize relationships.On the ...
06/15/2026

Almost done gushing about gedminer.com. I think this is a really cool feature to help me visualize relationships.

On the Directory page there is a Kinship Explorer option to show you how you're related to people in your tree. I like to toggle on the Timeline option to show how the generations fall by year.

06/15/2026

15 Jun 2026 Here’s exactly how to get a GEDcom file to upload to GEDminer since I’ve been getting loads of questions on that tech aspect.

I've spent the morning using gedminer.com to try and clean up some of the atrocious tree copying mistakes I made back wh...
06/15/2026

I've spent the morning using gedminer.com to try and clean up some of the atrocious tree copying mistakes I made back when I first started researching my own family decades ago.

I didn't even realize that there were these ridiculous and fictious lines in my tree until I started using the tool. How embarrassing. One line had Robert the Bruce and William Wallace as siblings. And they were listed as princes. Oof. 😬

I'll do a video today on the full process of pulling a GEDCOM file and uploading.

Loving the Quick Wins area of gedminer.com, which is my new favorite tool. (And free)Had a few minutes so jumped in and ...
06/15/2026

Loving the Quick Wins area of gedminer.com, which is my new favorite tool. (And free)

Had a few minutes so jumped in and removed a bunch of garbage lines that I added to my tree back when I was a brand new user and believed online trees.

No, Jen. You are not a Plantaganet.

06/14/2026

14 Jun 2026 Don’t forget to check older Google Street view images when researching places in your Family Tree 

06/14/2026

In this episode of The Formidable Genealogist Studio, I’m joined by Marian Pierre-Louis, the Northeast House Historian, (https://northeasthousehistorian.com/) for a conversation about house history research — how to uncover the stories of a home, the people who lived there, and the records that can bring those stories to life.

Marian shares how she became interested in house histories, why researching a house is different from researching a family tree, and why even newer homes can have fascinating stories worth exploring. Unlike family history, house history stays rooted in one place, making it a different kind of research puzzle with a clearer beginning and end.

We talk about where to start when researching a house, including land records, deeds, census records, vital records, probate files, town and county histories, and local repositories. Marian explains why deeds are the foundation of house history research and why street names, house numbers, and property boundaries can change over time.

We also discuss:

• How to trace a house through land records and previous owners
• Why house history research can be more contained than family history
• How probate inventories can reveal what was inside a home
• What household goods, tools, books, and furnishings can tell you about past residents
• How town and county histories may include images or descriptions of historic homes
• Why the physical structure of a house matters
• What building materials, utilities, neighboring homes, and architecture can reveal
• How Full Text Search can uncover unexpected property records
• Strange and surprising finds inside old houses, including shoes hidden in walls and witch marks

Whether you live in a 20-year-old house or a 200-year-old home, there may be records waiting to tell its story. House history research can reveal past owners, family connections, neighborhood changes, and clues hidden in deeds, probate files, maps, and the building itself.

Here's a link to one of her talks online:
https://youtu.be/6jf2NIRgdJw?si=SXsmWfMVst-2VoCf

Have you ever researched the history of your home or an ancestral house? Share what you found in the comments!

Marian Pierre-Louis, House Historian & Genealogist

Address

Saint Paul, MN

Website

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