I love Casefile Clues.

It is by far the most cost-effective, thought-provoking, research-organizing, genealogical tool for newbies like me. Michael John Neil does a fantastic job of laying out his research methodology in simple steps that anyone can understand.

You get a new casefile in your inbox every Monday and it's easy to read and understand. Then you can spend the rest of your week trying to emulate some of the methodologies in your own research.

The three things that stand out to me are:

1. Putting things in chronological order. I use RootsMagic for my genealogy database so whenever I view a person's entries I already see them in chronologcial order. But Michael usually creates a chronology for an entire family or several generations to see what else he should be looking for. That's been a real eye-opener for me.

2. Real Estate. There is a wealth of information in land records and other deeds that I never thought about before. If your ancestors were farmers then how did they get their land? What happened to the land when they moved or died? If they lived in the city, did they rent or own? These simple questions open up a lot of research avenues.

3. Have a system. At the end of every casefile there is a "what next?" section that highlights how to continue the research. There are always more places you can look for records and other clues. Did you check probate? Did you look at city directories? What about mailing lists and forums? There's always another place to look.

I am going to take some of the casefiles and apply them to my own research and write about it here. I hope you enjoy that.

But in the meantime, go sign up for Casefile Clues right now. You can also buy all the back issues. It's really a small investment for a truly fantastic resource.

As of the writing of this post Michael has a special for a set back issues (1-25) and a year's subscription for only $27.50 - That's only 35 cent per issue!