by Lisa Cooke | Aug 17, 2015
Podcaster Interview
August 2018
Oscar Hamilton
How They Do It: Lisa Louise Cooke
March 4, 2017
Organize Your Family History blog
Interview with the Queen of Genealogy Podcasts
March 4, 2017
Road to Family History blog
YouTube Offers Genealogy Education in Your Pocket
Sept. 2, 2016
NJ.com True New Jersey
Tips for using Google searches to help with family history
Feb. 14, 2016
The Desert News
Family Stories and Google Cousin Bait with Lisa Louise Cooke
November 18, 2015
Write of Your Life Podcast
Strategies for Using Technology in Family History Research
August 6, 2015
Deseret News/ LDS Church News
The Paperclipping Roundtable
May 26, 2015
Paperclipping Scrapbooking Podcast
(NERGC) Presenter Interview: Lisa Louise Cooke
March 9, 2015
Heritage Zen blog
Podcaster News: Women in Podcasting Interview with Lisa Louise Cooke
November 5, 2014
Podcaster News Podcast
The Genealogy Professional Podcast
June 16, 2014
Interview / Profile
48 in 24: Tips for discovering and sharing family history through video with Lisa Louise Cooke
April 1, 2014
Interview with Techsmith
Utilizing YouTube for family history work
February 8, 2014
Deseret News
Capturing your past with Technology: Lisa Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems
February 5, 2014
Techsmith (Blog)
Fast Class: How to reopen a genealogical cold case
January 15, 2014
Santa Rosa – Press Democrat
21st Century Genealogy: Snagit and Camtasia Help Family Historians Bring the Past to Life
May 10, 2013
Techsmith blog
Technology Making Genealogy Easier
February 7, 2013
By The Deseret News
Interview: Lisa Louise Cooke – Genealogy Gems
February 5, 2013
By The Passionate Genealogist
Tuesday’s Tip – Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems Website
July 10, 2012
By Genea-Musings
Genealogy and Personal History: Lisa Louise Cooke
March 12, 2012
By Association of Personal Historians
Interview with Lisa Louise Cooke Part II
Le Maison Duchamp blog
By Kim von Aspern-Parker
January 2012
Interview with Lisa Louise Cooke Part I
Le Maison Duchamp blog
By Kim von Aspern-Parker
January 2012
Flip-Pal Interviews Lisa Louise Cooke
September 20, 2011
Rootstech Interview: Lisa Louise Cooke
By Joan Miller, Luxegen Genealogy and Family History Blog
February 2011
Lisa Louise Cooke – Creator and Host of the Genealogy Gems Podcast – Episode 12
Marion Vermazen Podcast and Blog
August 30, 2010
Voices of the Past Video Netcast: Genealogy Gems’ Lisa Louise Cooke on establishing roots in the social web
By Jeff Guin
Nov. 11, 2009
MNM Interview: Lisa Louise Cooke Hobbyist Turned National Expert through Leveraging New Media
By Jason Van Orden
April 10, 2009
Lisa Louise Cooke on Pursuing Your Dreams
Change Nation with Ariane de Bonvoisin
March 5, 2009
Family Tree Magazine Launches Genealogy Podcast
Desert News
June 8, 2008
by Lisa Cooke | Jul 31, 2015 | 01 What's New, Australian, Census, FamilySearch, Findmypast, images, Irish, Military, Records & databases, United States
Every Friday, we blog about new genealogy records online. Do any collections below relate to your family history? Please share with genealogy buddies or societies that might be interested!
AUSTRALIAN CONVICTS. A variety of convict records for New South Wales and Queensland, Australia, are now searchable on Findmypast. The NSW records include certificates of freedom and death records beginning in the 1820s. Queensland data includes convict indexes from 1824-1936.
CALIFORNIA DEATHS. Over 2 million deaths in California from 1905-1939 are now searchable for free on FamilySearch. “The index is arranged alphabetically by the name of the deceased, initials of spouse, age, and date of death. Place of death or county of death is coded.”
IRISH COURT RECORDS. Nearly 22 million records appear in the new FamilySearch database, Ireland Petty Sessions Court Registers 1828-1912. According to FamilySearch, “Most records contains name, address, the date in court, and whether the person was a witness, complainant or defendant. It might also contain other information to the specific case. These records were originally filmed at the National Archives of Ireland and the index was created by FindMyPast.com.”
IRISH MILITARY. Ireland’s National Army Census of 1922 is now searchable at Findmypast. Taken in the midst of the Irish Civil War, it “includes details pertaining to where soldiers were stationed, their ages and their next of kin,” according to the collection description.
KENTUCKY VITAL RECORDS. Nearly 10 million names appear in the new FamilySearch index, Kentucky Vital Record Indexes 1911-1999. The database includes “indexes of births, marriages, and deaths from January 1911 to July 1999. These indexes were created by the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives from data files obtained from the Office of Vital Statistics.”

Here’s a tip: if you live far from your ancestors’ hometown, why not make a virtual visit? Google Earth is a powerful, free, interactive 3D map of the world. Use it to “fly” over a hometown or even drop down into a Street View that lets you see what’s there now. Maybe you’ll find an old home, neighborhood, school, courthouse, church, cemetery or other landmark relating to your family. Learn more in our free Google Earth for Genealogy video. Click here to watch it!
by Diahan Southard | May 11, 2016 | 01 What's New, House History
A “house history” can tell you more about the house you live in–or your ancestor’s home. Here’s how.

Are you curious about the history of the house you live in, or would you like to trace the history of a family property? The online article “How to Research Your Home’s Past” by Charity Vogel has some great ideas. It’s not written for family historians, but I like some of the ideas it suggests:
1. Pull a full history of home ownership off your deed. (Historical deeds may not have these. But each deed does represent a link in the chain of property ownership: you should be able to move forward and backward in time in deed records until you’ve listed all owners.)
2. Use census records to learn more about other folks who lived in your home. Remember you’ll be able to see how many people lived there, and, for some census years, whether they owned or rented.
3. Watch for unusual patterns of ownership. For example, a deed showed sisters co-owning a home in the 1930s. Additional research showed that the sisters were nurses and ran the house as a community hospital. How cool is that to know about a house?
4. If it was a grand or unusual home, see whether the newspapers covered its construction. The author of the article found an 1898 article that detailed the entire five-month building process of her house!
Last year I shared an applicable research strategy in my blog post A Shocking Family Secret, and 3 Powerful Newspaper Research Tips about researching our ancestors and where they lived. By searching on their home address, and not including their name, you can uncover “a kind of house history set of search results, revealing who lived there before, descriptions of the home and its contents and who moved in after your ancestors left. In my case, I located an article about the Cooke home (by the address) being up for sale several years before they owned it. That article included a fairly detailed description of the property. The final article found in the British newspapers was also found only by address (as the Cooke name wasn’t mentioned) and it detailed the contents of their household up for sale. The auction was held in preparation for their move to Canada.” (Click here to learn more about finding your family history in newspapers.)
While looking for more on this topic, I came across a great newspaper article about three researchers who specialize in house histories. They said that in addition to the personal satisfaction of knowing about a family home, “A bit of history and story makes it much easier to sell: it attracts a certain buyer.”
Here are a few more helpful resources, if you’d like to research your house history:
More House History Gems: Researching a Family Residence
Ancestral Landmark Discovery with Google Earth

How to Find a Family Address: 4 Steps to Using Google Earth for Genealogy
Was This My Ancestor’s Neighborhood?