Features
California Gold Rush records: which counties name miners
California Gold Rush records live in county archives, Sacramento mining files, land entry case files and NARA holdings that name miners and their origins.
Desk
Analysis Desk
The measurements behind famous heritage origins, with the method stated alongside the result.
Features
Cross-border genealogy for Canadian-born figures in US records
Cross-border genealogy for Canadian-born figures like James Naismith and Mary Pickford: which NARA, Canadian and FamilySearch records to chain, and how.
Features
Southern plantation records in Charleston and Richmond
Southern plantation records in Charleston and Richmond: the archives, property and federal records they hold, and what those records can and cannot prove.
Features
Reading fame rankings with a sceptical eye
Fame rankings order a proxy, never fame: what each signal literally counts, the distortions common to all of them, and why most of a list is noise.
Maintenance
How to walk a historical figures citation chain back to its source
Historical figures: walk the citation chain back to a document, expect names and dates to move, and read the archive's own losses before trusting a gap.
Features
How People by US City Rankings Are Built and Why the Order Changes
A worked example with eight cities shows the relation, corpus and date rules behind people by US city rankings, and why a different rule prints a different order.
Features
Reading Famous People by US City and State Queries, With Named Examples
How famous people by US city and state queries separate browsing from records research, with named examples such as Elvis Presley in Tupelo and Frank Sinatra in Hoboken.
Features
Famous people by US city: which records actually name a street
A street-by-street guide to US city records, from directories and ward maps to tax rolls and permits, showing which sources name a famous resident at an address.
Features
Famous People by US City: Why the Same Name Lands in Two Places
Why a famous person lands in two places, from Abraham Lincoln's Hardin and LaRue counties to Fred Rogers's Latrobe and Pittsburgh, and how to reconcile the names with vital records.
Guides
5 points on reading people by heritage data
People by heritage data read as a chain of documented links, with negative evidence kept and no percentage, worked through on Abraham Lincoln's parents.
Reviews
People by heritage facts: how to weigh evidence, with Tesla and Einstein
People by heritage facts: 21 points on what registers, migration records, testimony, genetic estimates, and other evidence can establish, with Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein as worked examples.
Industry
9 things that shift an annual people by US state count in 2027
People by US state by year counts reflect record access, registration histories, boundary changes, and cataloging choices—not simply where people were born.
Rules
Five different senses of being from a place shape people by US state facts
People by US state facts: five senses of being from a state, what vital and census records actually establish, and why a living person's is left blank.
Reviews
People by country: six different questions hiding behind one label
People by country: six different questions share that label, borders moved under the people in the records, and no single field can hold the answer.
Features
People by US city: how place claims are recorded
People by US city claims can refer to a municipality, mailing area, or record location. Learn how boundaries, dates, and source records shape each attribution.
Guides
People by US state: what to keep and what to drop
People by US state: which record establishes each connection to a state, who holds it, and how Lincoln and Stonewall Jackson show what to keep and drop.