Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) 2021 Courses

Just finishing up a week of being involved in teaching for Cari Taplin’s course Following Your Ancestors in Time and Place. The week after next is my course Digging Deeper: Records, Tools, and Skills in which I teach many of the session. The experience teaching and interacting via Zoom has been wonderful this week. I […]

Those funeral, baby, wedding, and other books: Who are those people? Connected genealogically?

Have you thoroughly checked through family baby books, wedding books, anniversary books, old address books, and funeral books. These are the books that list guests and sometimes in their own handwriting. I have several of these items. If you are fortunate to have some of these books, do you know who each person is who […]

It’s time to register for the 2020 Virtual Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference!

it was announced in a Press Release today that “Registration is now open for the Federation of Genealogical Societies’ Virtual Family History Conference! The virtual event will begin with FGS “Live!” on September 2, 2020, starting at 11:00 a.m. (EDT) and concluding at 7:00 p.m. (EDT). In addition to the Live! event, all conference registrations […]

Gratitude for Ancestry and ProQuest: Ancestry Library Edition home access extended!

In case you hadn’t heard yet, I wanted to share this update from several press releases. ProQuest, in cooperation with Ancestry, has extended home access to Ancestry Library Edition.  It’s been expanded to library cardholders working remotely aka from HOME!  NOW remote access will be available until the end of July and will be re-evaluated […]

Minnesota Historical Society has an amazing number of items!

The Minnesota Historical was founded in 1849. I have remembered that for many years. I wanted to share some statistics about all that it holds. I found some older statistics and then the most recent ones I could find were on Wikipedia: “MNHS holds a collection of nearly 550,000 books, 37,000 maps, 250,000 photographs, 225,000 […]

Minnesota Historical Society Library and Archives remain closed amid staff layoffs

A press release yesterday told (if you read between the lines) that the library, state archives, and microfilm areas of the Minnesota Historical Society remain closed. The presser further stated “MNHS is recalling 64 staff, while making the difficult decision to extend furloughs for 139 staff and to lay off 176 staff, primarily those who […]