A Genealogy Trifecta

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Education Everywhere

May be an image of twilight, palm trees, body of water, nature and sky


I am an education junkie. What better addiction for a genealogist? I read books, mostly non-fiction, attend lectures and multi-session classes, listen to podcasts, and watch webinars. I watch lots of webinars. During a recent week I had the privilege of watching three hour-long video programs on genealogy topics.

Descendancy Research

The first was a presentation on Descendancy Research delivered to our own South King County Genealogical Society by a professional genealogist located in Utah. Descendancy research is a new topic for me. I remember attending a presentation on the topic when I was just beginning genealogy, but it did not mean much to me then. Now I can see that it may hold the answer to some problems in my family tree. I began watching in a vacation spot on Maui, but was soon interrupted by a fire alarm emergency in the building. No problem: I was able to watch the full recording of the presentation later that day. The program was free to Members and Guests, but I do support the Society with my nominal $20 per year Membership Dues.

Newspaper Resources

The second program was on using the newspaper resources at FultonHistory.com for genealogical research. The site has newspapers from 42 states and the District of Columbia.  There were recently 51,685,714 pages! That is more than the approximately 20 million digitized newspaper pages on ChroniclingAmerica. I’m currently working on projects in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and I can hardly wait to research in the newspapers of those states. I found this free program presented by the Irondequoit Public Library in Rochester, NY, on ConferenceKeeper.org. I had contacted the presenter, Jeanette Sheliga, last year about presenting this program to the South King County Genealogical Society, but we were not able to find a mutually available date. I may try again.

Success = Understanding

The third webinar of the exciting week was the first of a year-long series, The Best of Elizabeth Shown Mills presented by FamilyTreeWebinars.com. This series is “Members Only” but, based upon the first presentation: Trousers, Black Domestic, Tacks & Housekeeping Bills: Problem Solving With “Trivial Details”, this series alone will be worth the annual membership fee. (FamilyTreeWebinars.com frequently offers discounts for new subscribers. Watch for them!) Additionally, their webinar library currently contains 1,913 recorded webinars on every imaginable genealogy topic. In her introduction, Ms. Mills stated that “success comes from understanding what we find and not just finding another record.” This session focused on “strategies and analysis of details”. Her presentation was masterful and I eagerly anticipate the second one on February 24, Smiths &  Joneses: Success with Families of Common Name.

Application

All this education is of no value unless it is applied, so I am firmly telling myself STOP! No more webinars until I have used something from each of these hours.

Wish me luck!

Barbara Mattoon
Director of Education


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