Mapping DNA can have a couple of different meanings, one is the ability to trace out DNA and “Map” the heritage contained in the DNA. The other is making a map of the DNA. Ancestry.com now does both.

You can put your DNA info and those of family in your family tree.

For those who might not know their heritage, DNA search could really help. Of course privacy is a concern and measures are taken to protect the information, but you have to admit that science is giving us some pretty neat things in DNA Discovery.

There are a lot of Audio Tools available to help you with your family history.

Make a list of important events in your life (or the life of others if your interviewing), and take a minute or two and record with audio why the events are important.  Nothing speaks like the past like…well, speaking from the past.

Generations to come will enjoy listening to their ancestors talk about their lives.

Family history and genealogy doesn’t always have to be serious and focus on names and dates.  Finding out if your family heritage held superstitions is a fun family history exercise especially this time of year.

You can write down family “superstitions” that have been handed down through your family that you are aware of, but you can also research superstitions from around the world to record superstitions and traditions that your ancestors that came from different countries may have held.

Give it a try, and you might be surprised what you come up with.

We found a resource to help genealogy enthusiasts created a time line of events for themselves or for other family members.  The resource is offered by OurStory (more can be read about it and a video demonstration of the family history time lines here).

We created a free account and found that you can create a time line with pictures and stories for free.  To create multiple time lines under one account, you have to pay for a subscription, but the free account should work for most visitors.

You can embed an interactive time line in your website or blog.  It’s pretty cool.

Need help writing that personal history?

Lots of people, and maybe yourself, have thought that tiny little thought that you should put down some of your life’s experience on paper. Maybe you blog all your thoughts to the world, but perhaps you don’t. Either way, a lot of us at one time or another have thought about recording some of our most important life events.

Big problem however, writing a personal history:

1. Takes a lot of work
2. Takes a lot of time
3. Usually gets started but never finished
4. Don’t go into too much detail because there’s too much to cover

Well, not anymore. Family History Quick Start has a guide for writing your personal history that can help you take some bite-sized chunks of that personal history, get it done, and end up with a better overall history. Click here to check it out.