Sometimes when we begin researching family history, our first thought is to fly off to our ancestor's country of origin. A better step is to go through documents and photos found right there in your home. I was reminded about this in GenealogyBank's January 2017 newsletter. They list the following home sources:

• Letters/correspondence
• Photographs
• Scrapbooks
• Journals
• Insurance papers
• School records
• Community cookbooks
• Jewelry (especially pieces from a school, fraternal or membership organization

A few months ago, while going through an old shoebox of photographs, I found a group of tiny greeting cards congratulating my husband's parents on the birth of his (older) sister. She was born in October, 1944! I don't believe she'd ever seen all the correspondence which had been lovingly saved for her. Among the cards was a letter addressed to her and postmarked October 19, 1944, from Polson, Montana. I now know the senders were great-aunts of my husband and his sister, but this piece of correspondence would have saved me lots of time if I'd found it years ago! Who knows what valuable information lurks in your "home sources"? Read GenealogyBank's newsletter here.