GregDM

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Mission 24 on the hard truths in a family tree:

You don't have to publish everything you found. Knowing a thing and printing a thing are different decisions. Discretion is not dishonesty.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Mission 24, publishing routes in one breath:

KDP — free, fastest, Amazon.
IngramSpark — wide distribution to bookstores and libraries.
Lulu — best for small-run color and coffee-table formats.

The full why is in the Mission.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Mission 24 on the dialogue you cannot have:

You can't quote an ancestor you never met. But you can write "she never said why she left, and the family stopped asking." The silence is the scene. Honor it; don't fill it.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Structure tip from Mission 24:

Scene, then summary. Show one vivid day in full, then summarize the decade around it.

A reader will forgive a hundred dates if you first make them care about one afternoon.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Mission 24, in one sentence:

Your family history does not need to sound like a historian wrote it. It needs to sound like someone who loved these people enough to get them right.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Mission 24 is for everyone who has gathered the names and now has to write them down for the next generation.

Writing your family history. Voice. Structure. Sensitivity. Cross-discipline craft.

Two Fridays from now.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

New Mission, live now.

Mission 24: Writing Your Family History. For everyone who did the research and then froze at the blank page.

The names are not the story yet. This is how you make them one.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

The DNA does not lie about the connection.

The records lie. Sometimes. The family lies. Sometimes. The relationship can be different than the name on the line.

Mission 23 holds all of that.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Tools day on Mission 23.

Free: GEDmatch, DNA Painter (the Shared cM Project tool).
Built-in: AncestryDNA shared matches, FTDNA chromosome browser, MyHeritage AutoClusters.

The full recipe is in the Mission.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Step 3 of the Leeds Method:

You are not finding your fourth great-grandfather in the data. You are finding the cluster of his living descendants — and triangulating back from there.

Mission 23 walks the move.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Sunday prompt: open one DNA match in the 100–400 cM range, click into their shared-match list, and read the whole list. Surnames repeat. Birth states repeat. The first cluster is sitting right there.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Mission 23, in one sentence:

A shared-match cluster is a family unit that the DNA notices before any of your paper sources do.

The work is learning to read it.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

New Mission, live now.

Mission 23: Advanced DNA + Genetic Networks. For everyone who has hit the wall where the paper stops.

A match list is not a network until you start clustering. That is the move.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

If your ancestor lived to the mid-1930s, the federal government has a file with their full name at birth, parents' names, mother's maiden name, employer, address.

It is called the SS-5. Often in their own handwriting.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

City directories are an annual census nobody told you about.

Most American cities. Mid-1800s to 1970s. Head of household, occupation, address, often spouse — every year.

Ancestry: 1822–1995 digitized.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Granny says:

The wall is not going anywhere. It has been standing since 1870 or 1923 or whenever your ancestor decided to be difficult. It can wait one more week while you do the work around it.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

New Mission, live this morning.

Mission 21: The Paper Trail of Everyday Life — five records that fill the years between censuses.

Lives are made of ordinary Tuesdays, not milestones. Someone kept records of those, too.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Move Five: write what you know.

In paragraphs. Not a chart, not a pedigree.

Writing forces you to confront which claims have sources and which are assumptions. Assumptions are where brick walls hide.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Move Three: when one record type has failed, try the record type that was created for the most different reason.

Government quiet? Try church records.
Individual records dry? Try community records.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ

[GregDM @Greg_Maxfield5]

Stop searching for your ancestor by name.

Start searching for the people who stood next to them.

The FAN Club — Family, Associates, Neighbors — is the single most effective brick-wall technique in genealogy.

https://t.co/OgkK8YbirQ