It’s Family History Month in the U.S. I have updated my speaking calendar to show the 8 topics I am presenting virtually this month. Other than one, anyone can join virtually from anywhere in the world. Some have a fee and others are free. If you attend any virtual presentations, please consider joining that society or donate in appreciation of its educational offerings.
I will be in Minnesota, Virginia, and Arkansas and then in November, it’s Florida and Oklahoma. It’s a joy to be able to present genealogical education virtually and reach a wide audience. While preparing for all these, I have also been working on my syllabus sections for the January 2024 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy’s virtual course “Researching Along the Northern Plains.” I am one of several instructors in this course. My topic will be presented over two sessions: “Native Americans of the Northern Plains: Repositories, Records, and Connections.” It’s not just about Native Americans in the variety of material.
More details on each presentation plus links for registration information are on this website https://genealogybypaula.com/ under the Speaking tab.
The Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research will take place virtually in 2024 from Sunday July 21st through Friday July 26th. With thirteen courses to choose from we are certain to have educational opportunities for everyone in genealogy.
Mark your calendars: registration will begin on March 9, 2024.
We are busy working on preparations for IGHR 2024, so expect to see more information on social media about the courses, including detailed schedules, as the year progresses.
We are proud of the terrific feedback from IGHR 2023 and expect to maintain the same high standard for IGHR 2024.
“This was one of the best courses I have taken! It was well-organized; instructors were enthusiastic and insightful; and the presentations were inspiring and chock-full of information, methodologies, and techniques. Thank you so much for your hard work!”
“I could take a month of this instruction! A tremendous amount of quality information, organized and presented in an outstanding fashion.”
If you have participated in one of my presentations on Railroad History and Railroad Records, you might remember me talking about the C&NW and the Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Omaha Railway aka the Omaha. The Omaha was the employer for many of my maternal and paternal relatives, including my Grandpa Stuart. The CNWHS is a long-time group started by railroad enthusiasts and now has its own archives building. From its Facebook page “effort up till now was focused on saving things and managing their storage. The society has never really had a place to work on cataloging. Now we do have space to work, so cataloging is becoming the focus of archives as we settle in. Good estimate we have 10 million pieces of paper, give or take a million or two. Even if many are grouped together in a folder, cataloging and digitizing will probably be a non-ending task.” If you love railroads and history, you will enjoy this brief tour of the new building. I admit to almost hyperventilating. Over the years, I have received some records from volunteers at the CNWHS and now some other records are digitized on Ancestry.com. I am so excited to benefit from the cataloging efforts. To view this cool video, click on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAVNwfJScHI or on the picture below. Please consider a donation for the archives https://cnwhs.org/wp1/product/donation-archives-research/
This morning was spent signing some speaking contracts and then updating the calendar into parts of 2024 on my website. Next up is working on handouts for October presentations. Upcoming this month of September:
September 15: Free Online Webinar “So, You Think You Know All About City Directories?” Part of Friday’s Legacy Family Tree Webinars Webtember. Members have access to the 6-page handout.
September 21: Online Webinar “The WPA Era: Free Records Boon from the Government” for the Dakota County Minnesota Historical Society. A 6-page handout is included with registration fee.
September 29: Free Online Webinar “Finding Maiden Names: Let Me Count the Ways” for the Bay Area Genealogical Society of Houston, Texas. A 5-page handout is included.
For more details and registration links click above on the Speaking tab.
Today’s Press Release is of great interest! Cyndi Ingle has been a long-time friend, both personally and genealogically. IGHR is a long-standing and well-known institute. I attended the excellent virtual course on New York research this past July. The details from the Georgia Genealogical Society:
I am delighted to share with you that Cyndi Ingle has been appointed as the Executive Director of the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR). As an internationally known genealogy educator and innovator, she is well positioned to lead the Georgia Genealogical Society’s IGHR into the future of genealogy education. She will have the full support of GGS leadership as she does so.
Cyndi Ingle really needs no introduction, but for those of you not familiar with her work over her 40-year genealogy career, please see below.
IGHR 2023 was a great success, and I thank the volunteers who made it so, particularly the Advisory Council, the Course Coordinators, the faculty and staff, the Steering Committee volunteers, and the members of the IGHR 2023 Executive Committee, Lisa Delgado, Cynthia Harrison, and Karen Molohon, for their dedicated and selfless service.
We look forward to welcoming you (and your friends) to IGHR 2024, which will be held virtually the week of 21-26 July, 2024. The course list will be announced later in the fall, and registration will begin in the spring. If you have feedback or suggestions for GGS or IGHR, please email me at president@gagensociety.org.
Let us all give Cyndi a warm welcome!
Madelyn Nix GGS President
Cyndi Ingle created the award-winning and globally recognized CyndisList.com, a free categorized list of more than 320,000 online resources for genealogical research. She is an internationally-known guest lecturer for genealogical society meetings, conferences, seminars, institutes, webinars, and study groups.
Cyndi is a past member of the board of directors for the National Genealogical Society and has also served in several capacities for local, national, and professional genealogical organizations.
Her particular interest is combining traditional methodology with organization, computers, software, and the Internet. She is one of the co-creators and admins for the popular Facebook genealogy group, The Genealogy Squad. Cyndi, currently a columnist for the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly (APGQ), has authored numerous articles for genealogical publications and three books. She coordinated courses for the Genealogical Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG). She has attended dozens of conferences and institutes including the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR), the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), the Genealogical Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP), and the National Institute on Genealogical Research (now Gen-Fed).
Press release from MyHeritage for the Labor Day weekend. What better time to collect more census details on your family? I’m doing in my airconditioned apartment and looking at the outdoor temperature of 97 here in Saint Paul, Minnesota
“MyHeritage offers the full set of currently available U.S. census records from 1790 to 1950, and important national censuses from Canada starting in 1825. Both collections include high-resolution scans, allowing researchers to dig deeper into these essential records.” Read more on the MyHeritage Blog.
I am behind in scanning old photos. This past week I added a few and then tried MyHeritiage’s new PhotoDater™. I am not experienced in dating old photos so this helped narrow down some dates and that gave me some new parameters to search. Try it! Read more on the MyHeritage Blog.
Be sure to check all the genealogy DNA test companies for possible sales through the Labor Day weekend. Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, 23andMe for example. Here is the offer from Ancestry.com
Educational news from Cari Taplin and Cyndi Ingle is below. I have heard great things about these study courses.
“Registration is now open for the MGD Study Group – Mastering Genealogical Documentation, an Eight-Week Beginning Principles Course, lead by Cari Taplin and Cyndi Ingle of Cyndi’s List. The course runs from September 27, 2023 through the week of Nov 15-18, 2023 – 7 weeks, plus an optional 8th week to review optional homework. The fee is US$75.00. You must own a copy of Mastering Genealogical DOCUMENTATION, available through NGS, https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/mastering-genealogical-documentation/
There will be three different sessions to choose from:
Each class will be about an hour, but sometimes may go over that if the discussion requires it. This is for those who have never studied this book before. We will be studying this from a beginner or slightly intermediate level. It is recommended that you have studied the book Mastering Genealogical Proof, but not a requirement for taking this class. If you’ve done one of these groups before and want a refresher, that’s ok too! I will take 25 students in each class.
Take your genealogy skills to the next level with this FREE online genealogy conference, held each Friday in September: 25 live webinars in all. Join live for all five Fridays or just one, and if you can’t, Legacy Family Tree Webinars has you covered! Enjoy the recordings at your convenience — they’ll be free to view through the end of the month.
I am doing a new presentation, “So You Think You Know all About City Directories?” on Friday, September 15th at 10:30 a.m. CDT (That’s 11:30 EDT, 9:30 MDT, and 8:30 PDT.) My emphasis is on U.S. city directories and I hope you will learn things to take away some ideas you think about city directories and some overly generalized information you may have learned over the years. These directories have been vital in my family research.
