u/Famous_Ad5459

What’s up y'all. Long-time no speak!

For the past few years, I've been doing genealogy research across various regions of the US, including the Upper & Deep South. Anyone who's done this knows the wall. 1870 hits and the paper trail just... stops. No last names before that, and if your ancestors were enslaved, the only records that exist are usually the ones written by the people who enslaved them. Estate inventories, slave schedules, bills of sale. It's a weird, uncomfortable kind of research where the "proof" of your family's existence is buried in someone else's property records.

I got frustrated enough with how the big platforms handle this (or don't) that I ended up building my own thing over the past several months. It's called ANCHOR Genealogy. Nothing fancy, it's a self-hosted family tree portal, but built specifically around the problems I kept running into:
A way to actually distinguish how someone shows up in an enslaver's records (are they clearly the same person, or just a probable match?) instead of just slapping a vague "hint" on it
Treating "no record found" as something worth documenting, not just a dead end
Basic stuff too, sources, DNA match notes, life events, the usual tree-building tools
It's still rough in places. I'm one person building this, not a company, so there are bugs and things I haven't thought of yet.

I'd love it if a handful of people (maybe 8-10) could just click around, add some fake info, break stuff, and tell me honestly what's confusing or missing. No cost, no catch, I'll set you up with your own test tree seeded with a fictional starter family so there's something to actually explore.

If you're interested, drop a comment or shoot me a DM. Genuinely just trying to make something useful for people who've hit the same wall I have.

What’s up y’all,

So, I recently had an interview for a Field Service Engineer position. I’ve been applying to this company for a while, and after about 7 applications being lost in the portal, I finally got through. I had a phone screening with the recruiter about a week after submitting the application and then a dual-round interview a couple of days later. But let me add in the fact that I’m pretty sure the even moved that quick for me is because I got a referral link (shoutout to them 🙌🏽).

Currently, they’re in the process of interviewing other candidates, but I think I might get the job!

They caught me off guard with a couple of questions but overall I was hitting a lot of things they wanted to hear. The first round was an hour long with the hiring & the senior managers. The second round took place an hour later with the supervisor and a few senior/veteran engineers.

The convo mainly happened between me and supervisor with the senior engineers just in the background. All of them were really cool! I even connected with the supervisor about working at the movie theaters back in the day 😭🤣.

I hear when you can connect with the management/supervisory, that boosts the probability of getting hired or moving to the next round.

I wanted to share my recent experience with interviewing because the market has been horrible. Like, atrociously horrible. Between the time I finished undergrad (B.S. Biochem) back in Dec 2025 to now, I’ve only had two interviews. I’ve put in over 100+ applications, I’ve been going to more career fairs… I’ve been doing the things, you know?

I hope this short story inspires other people to keep going and try to look for a silver lining in this chaos of an economy. I would love to hear other referral success stories, interview stories, job offers and really just wishful thinking in regard to your experience job hunting!

What’s up y’all,

So, I recently had an interview for a Field Service Engineer position. I’ve been applying to this company for a while, and after about 7 applications being lost in the portal, I finally got through. I had a phone screening with the recruiter about a week after submitting the application and then a dual-round interview a couple of days later. But let me add in the fact that I’m pretty sure the even moved that quick for me is because I got a referral link (shoutout to them 🙌🏽).

Currently, they’re in the process of interviewing other candidates, but I think I might get the job!

They caught me off guard with a couple of questions but overall I was hitting a lot of things they wanted to hear. The first round was an hour long with the hiring & the senior managers. The second round took place an hour later with the supervisor and a few senior/veteran engineers.

The convo mainly happened between me and supervisor with the senior engineers just in the background. All of them were really cool! I even connected with the supervisor about working at the movie theaters back in the day 😭🤣.

I hear when you can connect with the management/supervisory, that boosts the probability of getting hired or moving to the next round.

I wanted to share my recent experience with interviewing because the market has been horrible. Like, atrociously horrible. Between the time I finished undergrad (B.S. Biochem) back in Dec 2025 to now, I’ve only had two interviews. I’ve put in over 100+ applications, I’ve been going to more career fairs… I’ve been doing the things, you know?

I hope this short story inspires other people to keep going and try to look for a silver lining in this chaos of an economy. I would love to hear other referral success stories, interview stories, job offers and really just wishful thinking in regard to your experience job hunting!