Instead of a vacation, I’m working on upcoming genealogy presentations

Paula Stuart-Warren  Genealogy, Institutes, Minnesota Genealogical Society  , , , , ,  Leave a comment

I’ve been a bit busy since the virtual week of GRIP Genealogy Institute ended on June 27th. A couple days off after teaching all week in two courses, work on some client research and reports, a gift of a Minnesota Twins baseball game for my birthday, celebrated the U.S Independence day with family, and then getting ready for upcoming presentations. It hasn’t been all upbeat as an extended family member passed away and a longtime dear friend died. Both services are upcoming.  No vacation, but I get to do some of my favorite topics in these upcoming events.

July 17, 2025. Thursday evening hybrid webinar. 7:00 CDT. Lake County Genealogical Society and Cook Memorial Library (Illinois). My presentation and handout cover “The U.S. Federal Government: Underutilized Research Resources.” https://lakecountyilgenealogy.org/

August 8-9, 2025. Two-day in-person Institute as part of the Minnesota Genealogical Society’s education programs. The NEW Upper Midwest Genealogical Institute (UMGI)! Join us for this special institute and related activities held at the Minnesota Genealogy Center in the Saint Paul suburb of Mendota Heights. Amidst other presenters, I am presenting two sessions. Full details https://mngs.org/upper-midwest-genealogy-institute. As of July 9, only 3 seats left!

Finding and Using Manuscripts, Special Collections, and Repositories (All in the upper Midwest.)

Upper Midwest Military Records (Interesting records before, during, and after military service.)

What a week! BEYOND Digging Deeper hit the ground running at 2025 GRIP Genealogy Institute

Paula Stuart-Warren  GRIP Genealogy Institute, Institutes  , , ,  Leave a comment

Last week’s GRIP Genealogy Institute was a blast. I’m a bit caught up on sleep and lots of housework.I have been a course coordinator with GRIP since 2012. In 2024, I developed a companion course to the one that I had coordinated since 2012. It’s not a replacement course, but they complement each other. 2025 marks the third year that GRIP has been under the auspices of the National Genealogical Society

Designing a new genealogy institute is not for the faint of heart. The hours it takes from concept to the week of education would scare many people. Me? Yes, a bit, but the reward makes it worthwhile.

A course coordinator does not do the work alone. In the case of this year’s new GRIP Genealogy Institute course “BEYOND Digging Deeper: Sources, Methods, and Practices,” that work was far from being all mine. Eighteen months of discussion on topics, descriptions, syllabus content and compilation, and then pulling together the presentation slides. Seven instructors  put in that time to assure the best education possible. Contracts were discussed and the order in which each presentation should be done took time. Messages were sent by email, texting, Facebook messenger, and a few phone calls. We did it!! The new course BEYOND Digging Deeper dug deep and found many levels of satisfaction.

These instructors excelled, as I knew they would. Amy E. K. Arner, CG; Cyndi Ingle; Teresa S. McMillin, CG; Debbie Mieszala, CG; Kimberly T. Powell, AG; and Cari Taplin, CG, deserve much gratitude for their dedication to this new course. Thank you, a million times and more.

Kristi Sexton and Gena Philibert-Ortega, the Co-managers of GRIP Genealogy Institute need to be thanked and appreciated for all they do year-round. Paula Williams is the GRIP Virtual Event Coordinator and our head Tech person. She is assisted by a GRIP Guide for each course. All of us involved with the BEYOND Digging Deeper course appreciate the work of Laurie Desmarais as our GRIP Guide this past week. Then there are other NGS staff members and volunteers who helped to make sure 2025 GRIP Genealogy Institute virtual week did well. More gratitude. My thanks to Cari Taplin for allowing me to present three sessions in another course last week about Great Lakes region research.

This paragraph is bragging about our students this past week. Involved, present, thinking, participating, friendly, smiling, responsive, contributing, and I could say much more. I will end this bragging by saying thank you to all of them and being the inaugural students in this course.Thank you all.

Paula

aka Paula Stuart-Warren, CG, FUGA, FMGS

 

 

 

 

109th Anniversary for my paternal grandparents

Paula Stuart-Warren  Family, Minnesota, Wisconsin  , , , , , ,  1 Comment

20 June was yesterday and I neglected to tell about my paternal grandparents anniversary. Earl James Stuart and Olga Theodora (Toots) Carlsen were married 20 June 1916 at 751 E. Jessamine Avenue in Saint Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota. That was the home of Grandma Toots’ parents. The officiant was Squire T. Willis, pastor of the First Christian Church in Saint Paul. That will lead to more research as it wasn’t the church of either family. I don’t have any pictures of their wedding nor did I have for my maternal grandparents’ wedding. Grandma and Grandpa Stuart were together until Grandma died in 1966. Grandpa died in 1974.

Olga Theodora Carlsen was born 19 October 1890 in Saint Paul to Betsy Pehrsdatter/Peterson, a native of Oderup, Malmohus County, Sweden and Niels Christian Carlsen, a native of Berrit, Bjerre, Vejle, Denmark. Betsy was born 26 February 1859 and Chris was born 10 April 1858. Betsy and Chris were married 15 January 1882 in the Swedish Methodist church in Saint Paul.

Earl James (E.J.) Stuart was born 6 November 1885 in Fort Atkinson, Jefferson County, Wisconsin. His parents were Alexander Charles (A. C.) Stuart and Emma Louise Slaker.  A.C. was born 2 August 1847 in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland. Emma was born 10 April 1856 in Oconomowoc, Waukesha County, Wisconsin. A.C. and Emma were married 18 November 1875 in Berlin, Green Lake County, Wisconsin.

Happy 109th Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa!



Chronicling America free digitized newspapers update

Paula Stuart-Warren  Newspapers  , ,  Leave a comment

Chronicling America is a long-running part of the Library of Congress website. If you don’t know about this free access to thousands of newspaper and how it came about check here. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/about/. This morning my email had this update to the newspapers now digitized. Click on the Subscribe tab near the top of the About page to receive these updates.

Recent additions to Chronicling America include:

  • The Cumberland Echo (Cumberland, OH), 1893-1899. The editor published local, state, national, and international news, as well as serialized stories.
  • Gadsden County Times (Quincy, FL), 1907-1963. Supported agricultural and local news.
  • The Guernsey Gazette (Guernsey, WY), 1905-1927. Published local news and stories for the few hundred residents.
  • The Oakwood Press (Oakwood/Dayton, OH), 1939-1954. At the time of publication, this newspaper claimed it was Dayton’s most circulated newspaper.
  • The People’s Defender (West Union, OH), 1922-1943. Supported the Democratic political party candidates and goals as well as local news from Adams County. The paper is still published today.
  • South Omaha Stockman (South Omaha, NE), 1886. The Stockman was a short-lived newspaper that published information from the Union Stock Yards in Nebraska.
  • The Tri-county News (Grand Rapids, OH), 1915-1949. This newspaper published local news of interest to Grand Rapids, Wood, Henry, and Lucas Counties.
  • Toledo (Toledo, OH), 1931-1956. Known as “the only Hungarian newspaper in Toledo and vicinity,” the editor Geza Farkas expressed “fervent patriotism for his adopted country.”
  • Weekly Courier-Journal (1876-1896) and the Twice-a-week Courier Journal (1897, 1902) (Louisville, KY). The newspaper published local and state news, and the Twice-a-week issues published a News Edition on Wednesday and Family Edition on Saturday.
  • The Wisconsin Enterprise-Blade (Milwaukee, WI), 1925-1936. An African American newspaper that published local and church news from Milwaukee and neighboring cities.

Check out all the new newspaper titles.

 

June 13th is the last day to register for the 2025 GRIP Genealogy Institute Virtual Week

Paula Stuart-Warren  GRIP, GRIP Genealogy Institute  , , ,  Leave a comment

GRIP Genealogy Institute virtual week is getting close! June 22-27. From your own residence, own computer or tablet, own syllabus, own beverages, and Monday-Friday all those days of learning. WARNING: registration closes on Friday, June 13th. Register today or even on Friday. We have lots to share in this NEW course. It’s BEYOND Digging Deeper. It’s a companion to previous course years of Digging Deeper. New titles, new content, new syllabus, some new instructors, returning instructors, and more in-depth learning and interaction. https://grip.ngsgenealogy.org/courses/beyond-digging-deeper-sources-methods-and-practices/

 

 

100th Anniversary for my maternal grandparents

Paula Stuart-Warren  Genealogy, Minnesota  , , ,  Leave a comment

I was about to sit down and write a post about my beloved maternal Grandparents whose wedding anniversary is today. I checked the date tin my RootsMagic genealogy software to be sure it was on June 7. Definitely June 7th and 100 years ago today in Saint Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota. Gertrude Margaret Cook (1901-1999) and Maurice Michael “Mike” Hanley (1893-1968) are hopefully celebrating in heaven. The met at a dance held at the Saint Paul hotel in downtown Saint Paul. That grand hotel is still going strong. Unfortunately, I do not have a photo from their wedding.

Grandma Gert was born here in Saint Paul to John Thomas Cook, a native of Faribault, Rice County, Minnesota and Marie Delia Malvina “Violet” Daoust, a native of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Grandpa Mike was born in Winona, Winona County, Minnesota, to Michael Hanley, a native of [County Tipperary?], Ireland, and Johanna Walsh, a native of the Dingle Pensinsula, County, Kerry, Ireland. All four of my grandparents and seven of my eight great grandparents died in Saint Paul. Buried in the same cemetery? No, it took four different cemeteries for them.

Happy 100th Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa!

 

I made the May list of top webinars for Legacy Family Tree Webinars

Paula Stuart-Warren  Education, Webinars  , , ,  1 Comment

Geoff Rasmussen of Legacy Family Tree Webinars says “It’s one of my favorite days each month! The Top 10 List for May 2025 has been revealed – and YOU are on it!” My last live webinar was way back on April 11th and it still made the top views for April and May.

My topic was “Neglected Gold in Older Historical and Genealogical Periodicals.” It was accompanied by a multi-page syllabus that is still available to Legacy Family Tree Webinars subscribers. Visit https://familytreewebinars.com/speaker/paula-stuart-warren/ to learn from all the webinars I have done for Geoff and company and to see all those from other speakers.

If you don’t have a subscription to view the library of more than 2400 webinars from hundreds of excellent presenters, please consider joining via my affiliate link http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=1739

Here’s the full May list (Top 10 and beyond): https://familytreewebinars.com/top-10-genealogy-webinars-plus-the-1-rated-may-2025/

 

 

Update coming to the free newspapers on Chronicling America

Paula Stuart-Warren  Newspapers  , ,  4 Comments

Love the free newspapers on Chronicling America? News this week from the Library of Congress:

 

We’re Upgrading on August 4!

On August 4, 2025, users will automatically be sent from the legacy version of Chronicling America to a new version of Chronicling America with added features and tools. If at any point we are not successful, we will undo the URL redirects. After August 4, the URL chroniclingamerica.loc.gov will continue to be the home of the Chronicling America collection and will permanently redirect people to the new site.

We encourage you to begin using the new site. Please use the following resources to assist you with using the new site:

Please email Ask-A-Librarian if you encounter any issues.

Read more about this initiative on our migration page.

 

June 5-8 free access to Danish and Swedish records on MyHeritage

Paula Stuart-Warren  MyHeritage  , , , ,  Leave a comment

Do you read the blogs, newsletters, and social media posts of a variety of genealogical websites? If not, you are missing a lot of updates, new services, new databases, DNA sales, and more. The MyHeritage Blog is one that has has several new posts this week.

From June 5-8, 225 million Swedish records and 124.9 Danish records are free to access. “The Danish records include 31 collections with church books, censuses, newspapers, and more, covering vital events and everyday life since 1787; and the Swedish collections span from the 1600s onward, featuring household examination rolls, birth and death records, military lists, and more. Just last month, we added a collection of Swedish passenger lists documenting the names, birthplaces, residences, and destinations of Swedes who left the country between 1869 and 1951.” Read this and other blog posts at https://blog.myheritage.com/