Chicago & North Western Railroad Historical Society New Archives Virtual Tour

Paula Stuart-Warren  Railroads  1 Comment

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/

 

 





Updated my genealogy presentations calendar today

Paula Stuart-Warren  Webinars  ,  Leave a comment

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.

Genealogists! IGHR has a new Executive Director! You may know this name.

Paula Stuart-Warren  Conferences/Institutes, Genealogical Societies    Leave a comment

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 [email protected]. 

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).

For more about IGHR https://ighr.gagensociety.org/

 

 

 

Labor Day Sept 2-5 Free Censuses on MyHeritage

Paula Stuart-Warren  census, Uncategorized  ,  Leave a comment

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.



Upcoming courses on Mastering Genealogical Documentation

Paula Stuart-Warren  Education  ,  Leave a comment

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:

1.      Wednesday daytime at Noon Pacific/3 pm Eastern Register: https://checkout.square.site/buy/7I5D4RFMT3OGVANACQ2MEMVA) – with Cyndi Ingle (of Cyndi’s List)

2.      Wednesday afternoon/evening at 4 pm Pacific/7 pm Eastern Register: https://checkout.square.site/buy/RXZAB7MK4KBKGWDH42LHFAJQ – with Cari Taplin

3.      Saturday daytime at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern Register: https://checkout.square.site/buy/W4QNJ4SR7YJL4KABQG5LY72F ) – with Cyndi Ingle (of Cyndi’s List)

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.

More study group details here:https://genealogypants.com/research-and-consultation-services/classes-and-study-groups/mastering-genealogical-documentation-beginning-principles-class/“


5 Fridays in September means 25 free webinars for WEBTEMBER!

Paula Stuart-Warren  Webinars  ,  Leave a comment

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.

To learn more about this webinar and to register for this one via my affiliate link: http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=8641

View the list of all the liveWebtember classes. http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=8037



July 1, 2024. Original birth certificates accessible for most Minnesota adoptees.

Paula Stuart-Warren  Adoption, Minnesota, Vital records  ,  2 Comments

The media has been reporting about the change in Minnesota about adoptees being able to obtain their original birth certificate (OBC) starting in July of 2024. I wanted a few more details and some official words from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) before I started writing about it. The MDH website page about the change was updated on August 2, but I didn’t have the opportunity to investigate further until this past weekend.

A small portion of that page is below. Be sure to read the entire page for more details to understand more aspects regarding the access to OBCs and some possible restrictions. It’s agoing to be a time of mixed emotions for many people. https://www.health.state.mn.us/people/vitalrecords/adoption.html

Minnesota Public Radio has some background info and a few interviews about the change and the impact of it. https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2023/08/07/adoptee-reflects-on-minnesotas-new-adoption-policy-opening-decades-of-family-secrets

I am no longer involved in adoption searches. The emotional stress was too much for me and even more so for the parties involved. There are competent researchers involved in this work. For example, check the Board for Certification of Genealogists https://bcgcertification.org/ and the Association of Professional Genealogists https://www.apgen.org/cpages/home professional directories for assistance.

My feelings on this? It’s about time. Apparently, Minnesota is only the 15th state to provide such access.

Revolutionary War manuscripts being digitized at the University of Michigan Clements Library

Paula Stuart-Warren  Manuscripts, Military  ,  2 Comments

It’s not just genealogical and historical organizations that have newsletters, enews, and blogs to tell us about new records, digitized records, and events. I subscribe to several college and university special collections emailed news. This one arrived this morning and now I need to find more open time for reading in these. The photos accompanying the details are impactful. The first 11 volumes have been digitized. Some of the 18th-century handwriting is amazingly easy to read. https://clements.umich.edu/u-m-clements-library-announces-online-access-to-popular-revolutionary-war-manuscript-collection/

A direct link to these digitizations https://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/gage/