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Randy has us looking at a male ancestor this week: 1) Who Is Ancestor #50 in your Ahnentafel list? What were his birth date and place, his parents, death date and place, spouse's name, marriage date and place, and how many children they had, and which of his children do you descend from? 2) Share your information about #50 (or other) ancestor…

Randy has asked us this week about the sessions we're really looking forward to during this week's RootsTech event: 1) Are you registered for RootsTech 2026 yet? It's less than six weeks away - March 5-7, 2026. 2) What are you looking forward to either attending in-person or online? What keynote talks, classes, or other events are you planning to attend?

While in general I don't use generative AI (for a variety of reasons), I decided to accept Randy's challenge for this week. Here's the assignment he set us: 1) Select an ancestor, and a genealogical sketch (or research notes, or a timeline, or Ancestry Member Tree profile, etc.) for that ancestor and create a PDF of the sketch/notes/timeline/AMT Facts page/etc.

Randy's challenge this week forces us to narrow down our list of reference books for beginners to only 5! Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:   1)  What five reference books (and only 5) would you recommend to a beginning genealogy  researcher to have on their bookshelf? It's definitely tough to limit my list to only 5 books, but I persevered - here's my list: