Hello and welcome to The Genealogy Guide where you will find loads of guides, tips, and reviews that will HELP YOU research your family history.
If you are wondering who I am then you are in the right place!
Here you can read my story, see how I became interested in genealogy and why I created The Genealogy Guide site was created.
I’m Owain by the way, a fellow family historian who is passionate about helping others discover their ancestry.
Why Genealogy Anyway?!
My first experience of family history was when I was a young boy. My father would recite to me stories regarding my ancestors. He would tell me these stories over and over and over again.
And yet I was never tired of hearing them. I loved hearing these stories of my ancestors!
Do you have special stories that your father or mother passed down to you? Or maybe these stories came from your grandparents or other relatives.
Anyway, some of my own family stories would go back as far as the mid-1700s. There were all sorts of anecdotes and tales from various branches of my family tree.
Some were from his father’s side, but mostly his mother’s.
Years would go by and my father would continue telling me the same stories all over.
We had discussed writing the stories down in a book but nothing ever came of it.
Finally, our family history book was being written!
Eventually, this became a reality when pen was put to paper and the stories flowed. I wanted to write a book filled with this family history so that it would be preserved forever.
While transcribing my father’s notes I thought to myself that it would also be a good idea to include family charts. From these charts, people could see the relationship between my ancestors and my father and me.
I also included photos so that people could put a face to the name and stories. Photos of family heirlooms were added showing the many family treasures that had been handed down the generations.
And so my research project grew into something so much more than I had first envisioned. It had grown into something that would be cherished for generations to follow.
The Genealogy Guide Awards and Accomplishments!
Top 100 Genealogy Blogs
Since The Genealogy Guide was created back in June 2016 I have continually added informative guides and helpful tips to help YOU trace your family history.
I have also provided many thorough reviews that 
explore what genealogy products and services you can use.
I am therefore pleased to announce that my efforts have been recognized as I am now featured in the Top 100 Genealogy Blogs.
And I’m currently ranked #49!
That’s quite an achievement and I am proud of what I have achieved with the site.
Rest assured though that I am committed to providing more advice for you and likewise rise the ranks of the Top 100 Genealogy Blogs.
Extreme Genes
Episode 216 – Sunday, November 26, 2017
A brief mention of The Genealogy Guide appeared in this with regards to how children can get involved in family history. Why not check out the Genealogy For Kids post to see what all the fuss was about?!
Credit: Extreme Genes
Why Did I Create This Site?
After self-publishing my family history and holding in my hands a book containing a wealth of so much personal history I wanted to give back to the genealogy world.
So, what better way than helping others than creating a genealogy website!
Currently, this site has more than 220 helpful guides and reviews!
And I don’t plan on slowing down. There is just so much more to explore and write about.
While researching your family history you can check out old documents, interview relatives, visit where your ancestors lived, or even do a DNA test.
The possibilities of finding out about your family tree are endless!
This site is not only for the beginner to the genealogy world but also for the seasoned family historian as well.
So, whether you are starting on your journey or you have been doing this for a while you will find something of use here.
My First Genealogy eBooks
In January 2022 I released my first free genealogy ebook. I wanted to show people how easy it is to discover their ancestry.
And the best part of the book is that I discuss 7 ways you can do this by not spending any money.
How to trace your genealogy in 9 steps
Also in January 2022, I released my bumper 167-page book,’ Your Genealogy and Family History in 9 Simple Steps‘.
In the book, I show readers how to start their genealogy journey by uncovering what they already know about their ancestors. Then they can explore what they have within their home that they can use to kick-start their research.
After this initial process, they can explore the best strategy to organize their research.
I discuss how to interview relatives, preserve family heirlooms, utilize free resources, and engage with local societies.
I also show how to get the best from the Internet, DNA testing, and how you can write your family history.
Get Involved and Help Build The Genealogy Guide Site!
Is there something missing on this site? Is there a topic, tool, resource, date, or even an event not featured that you would like to see?
No problem, just comment below or contact me.
I am always interested to hear your ideas or suggestions as I want to build a genealogy site that will help YOU. Or if there is an article that you find useful then please like and share it with your family and friends.
If you have your own genealogy blog then please feel free to link to The Genealogy Guide.
Write For Me!
I also welcome guest bloggers to contribute articles to the site. It doesn’t matter what the article is about as long as you think it will help others to trace their family history.
What better way to give back to the genealogy world, (like I am doing), than by helping your fellow family historians. So, get involved today!
The Genealogy Guide is your guide to help you on your family history journey!
Visitor Testimonials
My goal with this site as I have said is to help people trace their family history. I have been fortunate to have received many compliments, either through comments on posts or by private messages.
Here are some of these compliments that I have received:
Craig:
As a regular visitor to The Genealogy Guide I can safely say this is the best way to trace your ancestors, thanks to the wealth of information that Owain provides. I love how this website covers all angles and highlights the optimum methods in building your family tree. Owain continually adds regular updates and I would recommend this website to anyone interested in genealogy.
Craig, Founder of UK TV Services Abroad
Gina:
There is such an abundance of valuable information packed into The Genealogy Guide. Owain really knows how to research your ancestry and discover your family history.
If you ever thought about building your family tree, this is definitely the place to start and finish. Owain has all the details right here at your fingertips.
There is also a whole lot of cool history, helpful tips, resources, and tools. Thanks Owain, I just love this site!
Gina, Owner of Acrylic Painting Ideas
Pete:
I’ve been checking out your site and really am impressed with so much information. You obviously are very well versed on all aspects of genealogy. Personally I don’t know beyond my mom and dad, very much about my family history at all.
I’m going to keep checking this out and probably start my own search effort here and find out after about 60 years where my roots are.
Thank you for building this site and informing us about searching out our roots and helping so many connect with the unknown past and really helping us understand ourselves through our ancestors.
Furkan:
I have been visiting Owain’s site for a long time and it is safe to say that the information here is just amazing for tracing ancestry. And I also love Special Day posts like Saint Valentine. That was a great story by the way.
And if anyone is interested in tracing their ancestry or just want to know more about them, then this site should be your guide.
Furkan, Owner of Find Best Boxing Gloves
Kevin:
Owain has worked hard to present helpful information in a clear, concise and actionable manner and he’s doing a terrific job. He fully considers all aspects of products, activities and questions related to genealogy and crafts thoughtful, thorough and extremely helpful reviews, guides and suggestions.
The quality of his work has captured my interest and caused me to consider my own family history and many other things besides, such as what to do with old family photos and what products may be the best fit for me to learn more about my ancestry. It’s really quite fascinating.
If you’re interested at all in genealogy, I think you’ve come to the right place. And even if you aren’t, take a look around, and you may find – as I did – that it is an intriguing subject that will have you deeply appreciating Owain’s work.
Kevin Bulmer, Speaker & Host of The No Schedule Man Podcast
www.KevinBulmer.com
Please Give Me Your Feedback!
I would love to hear from you. Please tell me what your reasons are for researching your family history.
If you have any queries or suggestions for this site then please feel free to comment below. If you don’t feel like commenting below then you can instead Contact Me privately.
Thank you,
Owain
Founder of The Genealogy Guide
Hafa Adai (Hello) from the beautiful island of Guam!
My name is Tina Buendicho. I am teacher at Marcial A. Sablan Elem. School, GATE Program. I am interested in learning more about Geneology so that my students will be able to write and illustrate their book/s.
Thank you for your time!
Hi Tina,
Thanks for dropping by my genealogy site. The Guides & Tips section of this site will help you with your students.
The Introduction subsection will help with the fundamentals of family history research. And the Write & Publish subsection contains many tips on helping people to write their ancestors story.
Hope this helps and please let me know how your students get on.
Kind regards,
Owain
Hi Owain,
I’ve been trying to decipher my DNA report, and I have a question: the report says contact the mentioned family members. Do I need to have a monthly subscription to make a contact? Thank you for all your information in the Genealogy Guide.
Regards,
Bill
Hi William,
According to AncestryDNA and Members you will need a subscription in order to contact members.
My 10 Tips for Contacting Your Ancestry DNA Matches post will help you.
I love this site it has told me more about what and how to do than any other site. I have been working on the family history for more years than I can remember but it at first was only putting together the tree and it is only in the last few years that I have been able to get enough confidence to gather family stories. Now that I have decided to put a book together I began looking for photos and have made contact with living cousins, gathering stories and photos of the older generation. It is amazing how many cousins are willing to help but not do the book. Great Site.
Hi Rosemary,
Thank you for the kind words. I am glad that you love this site. I have put in a lot of work with this sitem so I am glad that it is appreciated.
My book came about because of the stories, and I am so glad that I started this journey. I have discovered so much about my family history these last 8 years or so.
Adding photos is great because you can put a face to the person that you are researching.
And it’s great when cousins do help you. I have saved so much time and money by getting information this way. It’s also a good idea to return the favor and share what you have learned as well.
Thank you for sharing so much information about how to …. build and research a family tree.
We are looking to the future after having spent years building a family tree using Reunion, first Mac then PC and now faced with the fact that only Mac is supported by Reunion Liester.
We have collected a huge amount of family tree, pictures, stories, facts and information in various forms. chronicles and family history, down to personal accounts in the form of recordings.
The challenge is, all family members have something to contribute, or at least should be given a chance to contribute or enjoy. This would mean, cross platform, various formats, various editing rights, various admin control and security to guard agains inadvertent loss. Surly a web based system could deal with this problem.
Do you have a suggestion or a solution, we are at least 100 people who could be actively interested in contributing and servicing a solution that fills this requirement. I am convinced there are many out there who are looking for a solution which is future conform.
Thank you
Tom
Hi Tom,
Thanks for dropping by, and thanks for enjoying my site.
You have certainly piqued my interest with your query. So do on this site I have reviewed family tree building sites that solely concentrate on the individual, rather than working together with other people on a single tree.
When reading your message my mind immediately turned to Geni.com.
I have yet to review Geni here on The Genealogy Guide but on inspecting this site I can see that it does tick a lot of boxes that you are interested in.
My only concern is recordings as I’m not sure if that that is possible with this site.
The good news though is that the service is FREE.
I am now planning to review this site and check out other sites that fits your bill.
In the meantime please check out Geni for yourself and see if it’s for you and your family.
You may also like to check out 20 Best Online Family Tree Builders.
I’m not sure whether those in that list are what you are after as I am yet to review them but by all means feel free to check them out as well.
I plan to review these in time.
I hope that I have been of assistance. Please let me know how you go and all the best to you and your family with your tree building 🙂
Owain thanks for asking me to visit your site. I love it so much.
Giving insight into your family creation and ancestors is a good way to tell how much you love who you are. People these days don’t even want to associate with their families because of one reason or the other.
But here you are proudly displaying as well as helping others to create their family linkage is something to note.
Well done and I think I will start to bring to remembrance all my late mummy had told me in the past as to research into properly.
Thank you for checking out the site. You will learn a lot here, I cover a range of different subjects that will help out to trace your family history.
All the best and enjoy the website.
Wow, Owain, what a beautiful website. I enjoyed you sharing your fathers stories and family history. I remember my great grandfather telling us stories about his life as a Native American, and the land of old, including cultures and belief I still cherish today. Your website is full of informative information. It encourages me to look further into my family history. Thank you so much for sharing and creating this website.
I am happy to share Vee and I am glad that I have inspired to find out about your ancestry. Thank you also for saying that my site is beautiful. That means a lot to me.
Hi Owain – Thanks for sharing the process that brought you here now. I especially enjoyed the part about your father and his telling and re-telling of family stories. My father didn’t share much about his ancestry, but later rather than earlier I became interested in my heritage. I started as a genealogist and many of my clients would ask if I could “authenticate” their very rich and amazing family stories. Many times I couldn’t, so I would interview the oldest ancestor in a family lineage, transcribe their stories or life history and prepare their them in their own words alongside their genealogy – I love giving people a flashdrive of their family stories. Lots of good info on your Genealogy Guide ! Laurene
That’s a lovely idea of putting their stories onto a flash drive. Have you thought about printing out their stories as a document as well?
Thank you for enjoying my website. I am adding more and more content all the time. So please keep checking back from time to time.
I just learned a new word from you! 🙂
The truth is, I don’t know the word genealogy, but when you said it’s all about family history, I think that this study is really awesome.
Just mentioning the word makes me look back into my family and its history, but only limited to two generations older than me, up to my grandparents. I believe it would be interesting to learn more about my roots so that I get to know more about who I am. Thanks for sharing the new word!
I am glad that you have learned something new from me. It’s always fun when we learn a new word or a fact.
Some people say genealogy while others say family history. It depends on who you are speaking to. In fact many people who do this research call themselves genealogists rather than family historians
I can really relate to your story as I planned to write my family history for future generations but as they say ‘Man plans, God laughs’ and the book never got written The people who could have given me the details I need are now gone and my family history died with them. I realize I can trace my family through your site or other genealogy sites but without the stories is not the same. Is there any way to find out their stories now? What you are doing is really great and I am sue you are helping a lot of people with your site.
I literally laughed out loud with your ‘Man plans, God laughs’ saying. How true?!
Genealogy sites can help you build your family tree, but you are right it’s not the same without the stories. Sometimes though you will find some stories on these sites that people have submitted. I have found a few interesting stories this way.
I have been fortunate to meet cousins online and they have been able to help me piece together my family history. Particularly my mother’s grandparents and the reasons for their relocation.
Thank you for enjoying my site. I am also enjoying building it up
Your site is very inspiring to me, it’s all about your whole family generation. I can learn a thing or two from you about how to check up on my family. This will be very interesting to me. You and me need to talk little more about this one day ok.
Sure we can talk. When you are ready you can contact me here. You can also check out How Do I Start My Family History In 10 Steps which covers what you need to do your genealogy research. All the best
I believe that the more you find out about your roots, the more you can learn about history and yourself. My parents have always told me about their ancestors and where they came from, but I never paid that much attention. But now I can see that it is important to know more from where you came from. I will definitely start learning more about my ancestors.
You are so right when you say you learn about history. I have learned about old occupations and also historical events. When we grow up we don’t always appreciate the people behind the stories. We only do later on, and sometimes when it is too late to ask your parents, grandparents for more information. Luckily I started on my own family history before it was too late as my father has so many wonderful family history stories.
Genealogy research is an interesting field that connects our family. I believe that when we are doing this research, we will learn more about our family tree, culture and why certain habits, beliefs and practices are passed on to our family members and relatives. Probably, we will understand about our parents more. That should be the reasons I conduct my family research. I had done a mini genealogy research when I was 13 years old in a scrap book, I included a family tree with the photo charts which I treasure it until now.
That is some great beliefs you have there. I love how you you treasure a photo book of your family tree that you did when you were younger. Doing this sort of research does bring the family together and you can learn new things about your family that you did not learn before. I certainly have
Thank you for the kind words, Owain! Yes, it truly is. Great topic! This will help more people to appreciate own family and where they came from.
I hope that people read this and see that family history research is such a wonderful hobby.
What a great method to pay homage to your family, and help other people with the same passion.
I wish you much success,
Leon
Thank you Leon for your kind words. I had so much fun tracing my family history that I wanted to show people how they can also enjoy this interesting hobby. It can be overwhelming just to get started and even making sense of all the resources that are out there for us genealogists.
I wish you all the best with tracing your ancestry.
Owain