Mark your calendars for August 2, 2024. Course titles for GRIP Genealogy Institute 2025 . . .

Paula Stuart-Warren  Uncategorized  , ,  Leave a comment

Friday, August 2, 2024 is just under a month away. That is the date for the release of the course titles for the 2025 edition of the GRIP Genealogy Institute. The announcement will be live on Facebook.

I’ll share more details about 2025 once I receive them later in July. The virtual Zoom week of GRIP 2024 is finished and it was a great week. The in-person courses week starts in Pittsburgh in one week.

Not familiar with GRIP? Check out the details here https://grip.ngsgenealogy.org/



There are good experiences and then THERE IS AWESOME! Virtual GRIP Genealogy Institute was awesome last week!

Paula Stuart-Warren  Institutes, Uncategorized  ,  Leave a comment

Last week, as some of you already know, I taught in three courses of the virtual week of GRIP Genealogy Institute. On Friday night, the adrenaline was still present. Slept very well that night and the next two nights. I guess the exhaustion had set in. A good kind of exhaustion. The students were amazing, inquisitive, sharing, friendly, and kept me on my toes. Other instructors in these courses have expressed pretty much the same feeling.

  • Digging Deeper: Records, Tools, and Skills (Coordinator and instructor)
  • Not Just Farmers: Records, Relationships, and the Reality of Their Lives (Instructor)
  • Midwest Family History Research: Migrations and Sources (Instructor)

I am a person who loves the virtual aspect via the Zoom platform. While the presentation is live, the students and other instructors can immediately add information and questions to the Chat. After those are addressed in the Q&A for sessions, they can raise their virtual hands to ask more. It’s easy to tell in which order the hand was raised. I found that in some sessions, students were immediately checking some of the websites that were discussed. They loved being able to sleep in their own beds and more came online early in the morning for discussion.

I have seen lots of great comments and appreciation on various Facebook pages and that makes me smile. The public GRIP Facebook page is noted below. Registered students also participate in a private Facebook group. Both are valuable in many ways.

So many people to thank but my fellow coordinators, Jay Fonkert and Cari Taplin, for sure. Then the fellow presenters in each course. I must mention the four who participated in Digging Deeper, and they are Amy Arner, Cyndi Ingle, Debbie Mieszala, and Cari Taplin. Wow, the work they put into their presentations and the syllabus sections. Debbie helped with two of the extra afternoon sessions for solving student research problems. Amy was present most of the week and I appreciate her discussions with the students when I was busy in other courses and a sudden meeting I had to attend. Cari and Cyndi had more presentations to give in the Not Just Farmers Course. What a week. The GRIP Guides in each course kept us going and on schedule.

Kristi Sexton and Gena Philibert-Ortega, the co-managers of this 2024 GRIP and I hope for a long-time to come, herded us well, and they certainly had a lot on their plates. They did a great job. Paula Williams, the overall Tech guru was fabulous, too. It was the first year of GRIP under the auspices of the National Genealogical Society.

A special thanks to Tami Osmer Mize who not only was a student in the Digging Deeper Course, but this past Sunday, her Genealogy Conference Keeper email newsletter included this surprise. Thanks, Tami!

“This past week I participated in my very first week-long genealogy institute, choosing the Genealogical Research Institute (GRIP)’s “Digging Deeper” course, coordinated by Paula Stuart-Warren, to help refresh my research skills which, for anything other than finding genealogy events, have gotten a bit rusty. What a great choice, too — Not only did I learn a lot, but I came away with new ideas, resources, and strategies, as well as renewed determination to solve my brick wall ancestor puzzle (I’m talkin to you, Milo Allen!) I attend webinars a lot, but devoting a full week to genealogy education, with lots of interaction between instructors and other students, is the best!”


Conference Keeper Genealogy Calendar of Events https://conferencekeeper.org/

GRIP Genealogy Institute https://grip.ngsgenealogy.org/

GRIP on Facebook (join the other 6,000 participants) https://www.facebook.com/GRIPGenealogyInstitute


What about a 2025 Virtual GRIP? That news isn’t fully ready yet, so be patient while the in-person GRIP takes place in a couple weeks. I think some people will need some rest before sharing the 2025 news later this summer.

1 July 2024 means a hopfully easier birth family connection for adoptees born in Minnesota

Paula Stuart-Warren  Adoption, Uncategorized    2 Comments

I was fortunate to have been raised by the parents who gave birth to me. I knew all four grandparents and two great grandparents. I have not had to wonder where my Irish, German, Danish, French, other ethnicity, or where my short stature came from. I have friends who have provided a really wonderful family to a child given up for adoption. I have friends and extended family members who themselves are adopted or who gave a child a chance at a life they were not able to provide at the time of their baby’s birth. There are questions that arise at times due to my occupation as a professional genealogist. Many years ago, a 16-year-old friend of my then teenage daughter asked me to help find his birth mother and told him to come back to me when he was 18. That was difficult to do. Not every adoptee will be inclined to search, but at least this step is available should the inclination start today or five years from now.

Today, 1 July 2024, marks a big step in information sought by adoptees in Minnesota. Born in Minnesota and 18 or older means they can request their original birth certificate (OBC) from the Minnesota Department of Health. The request form also provides who else can request the OBC. This is not the court adoption file nor is it the information kept by an orphanage or other entity. There is no guarantee that the OBC exists or is completely filled in. The MDH website states the following:

“We will provide requesters with the following, if they are available on the date of the request:  

  • A noncertified copy of the adopted person’s original birth record 
  • Any evidence of the adoption filed with the State Registrar 
  • A copy of a contact preference form if birth parent(s) on the original record submitted one (Contact preference forms can be submitted at any time; only forms submitted prior to your request will be included.)
  • Report of any Affidavit of Disclosure or Non-Disclosure filed by a birth parent on the original record, on or before June 30, 2024. We’ll provide information included on disclosure documents, if allowable.

This request can only be fulfilled by MDH; it’s not available through county vital records offices. We will notify you if we cannot find the requested birth record.” 

The MDH website also discusses how the OBC was created and then replaced by a “new” birth certificate once the adoption was finalized. The MDH website has other important details. https://www.health.state.mn.us/people/vitalrecords/adoption.html

The form to request the OBC is here Request for Original Birth Record Information under Minnesota Statute 144.2252 (PDF). It is a two-page form and the fee is $40 to submit your request. 

What genealogy events are coming up? Which are virtual? Which aren’t?

Paula Stuart-Warren  Conferences/Institutes, Webinars  , ,  1 Comment

Sure you can click on the tab above the says SPEAKING to learn about the upcoming presentations I am doing. I appreciate all of you that attend both the free and fee-based events and gratefully applaud the organizations that invited me. Looking for another topic or speaker? Check out Conference Keeper. The free website has a wide variety of events and more that are submitted by organizations. A genealogical or historical event can be submitted at NO charge. https://conferencekeeper.org/. It might be a one-hour webinar, a full day seminar, or an institute. It even has a link to see only virtual events as you can see below under the Calendar tab. Click on the Submissions tab to submit you events. Tami Osmer Mize does a great job with Conference Keeper!



Minnesota Historical Society Digital Newspaper Hub adds more old newspapers

Paula Stuart-Warren  Minnesota, Newspapers, Uncategorized  ,  1 Comment

The updates to digitized newspapers for Minnesota keeps adding to my research task list! I already found one new item about my late father-in-law.

MN Digital Newspaper Hub – May 2024 content update
A content update to the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub today added 10,025 new issues and 158,877 new newspaper pages. New publicly available titles & date spans:



1 week left to register for GRIP Genealogy Institute June virtual courses

Paula Stuart-Warren  Uncategorized  , , ,  Leave a comment

We all debate about things in life. Then we might miss a deadline. A BIG DEADLINE is approaching. ONLY 1 week till registration ends for the June 23-28 week of virtual classes with GRIP Genealogy Institute. The last day to register for that week is 14 June. I’d love to share the great education, instructors, and students already in the “Digging Deeper: Records, Tools, and Skills” course with you.

Questions about it? Email me PaulaStuartWarren at gmail.com or read details at https://grip.ngsgenealogy.org/courses/digging-deeper-records-tools-and-skills/


Wyoming’s Oldest, And Still Active, Railroad Union Predates Statehood By 21 Years

Paula Stuart-Warren  Railroads  , ,  Leave a comment

You may have heard one of my genealogy presentations on the value of railroad records, what may exist for your family, and how to find the collections that still exist today. Railroads are one of my favorite topics and some of the details in recoreds are amazing. That’s why this recent article in the Cowboy Sate Daily caught my eye.

The records of railroad employee unions and brotherhoods are great resources. The story covers Wyoming’s Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Division 103, which is the oldest and still active union in the state! I have seen trains along my driving route from Minnesota to the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City.

“The local Cheyenne union chapter is part of the oldest union in the United States. Its roots go back to Detroit, Michigan, in 1863 and the Cheyenne chapter formed 21 years before Wyoming was a state. Originally, Division 103 represented just engineers who worked for the Union Pacific as the frontier was in the process of being tamed.” Read the online article for more details and a great train picture.

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/06/01/wyomings-oldest-and-still-active-railroad-union-predates-statehood-by-21-years

In my 18th year of genealogy blogging

Paula Stuart-Warren  Blogs  , ,  10 Comments

June 2, 2007. The day I began my own blog. Before that, I had been blogging about publicity for some Federation of Genealogical Societies conferences. Today starts the 18th year of my own blogging.

My own blog has had its productive times and then some down times when I am extra busy with my research clients and working on upcoming presentations. Work is good and pays the rent and groceries. At this time, I am extra busy working on my PowerPoint slides for the 14 sessions I am teaching in 3 weeks for the 2024 Virtual GRIP Genealogy Institute. Ihttps://grip.ngsgenealogy.org/#1#schedule. I Coordinate the Digging Deeper course and teach in that, and the Farming and Midwest courses. I love the preparation, but it does take time and sometimes the blog suffers.

On this blog, I try to share information on websites, sales, upcoming events, new indexes, databases, and some cool things I find online and in repositories. Occasionally I’ll cover a bit of my own family history.

That’s where I am today. Adding some photos and records from my own family to those presentations. I don’t have too much of my family in those presentations, but I found an old picture of me at 10 years old using the old water pump on a family member’s farm. I have some family records interwoven in other sessions I will be doing. We never stop learning and sharing.

4 weeks till the start of virtual genealogy course “Digging Deeper: Records, Tools, and Skills.

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

As I do each year, I have heard from prospective students for the GRIP Genealogy Institute course “Digging Deeper: Records, Tools, and Skills. No, it’s not a basic level course. Yes, even novice genealogists can learn a lot, but if you have a bit more experience, you will become a better researcher and have a boatload of knowledge, skills, and records to investigate. We have so much to share!

While the other instructors and I work on new and updated syllabus materials and the presentation slides, we share with each other about what we see in and for the course.

Debbie said, “they will learn more than they already know.” I agree and I already learned about a couple new to me newspaper sites just from her syllabus section on that. Not only in that session, but throughout the week I always hear the “I didn’t know that” during discussions with the students.

We are a unique team of instructors and don’t provide the usual approaches to our varied sessions that really do flow together.

Debbie’s session on “Legal Savvy for the Genealogist” provides some hands-on activities that reinforce the process. That makes it stick in student’s brains along with the syllabus section reminders. She only teaches this topic for Digging Deeper.

Amy is happy that Cari is presenting about PERSI and shares that it’s an under-utilized resource where genealogists can find incredible information. Amy told me she recently did some research at a state archive. “I found some cool documents that I will share as never-seen-before examples of what genealogists can find in state archives and state historical societies.” Oh, I am looking forward to learning what she found for us and how she found them.

Cari will also explore probate records with the class, which are more than just wills and estates. “We will look at guardianships, apprenticeships, and other probate records.”

Every time I am investigating a website, I do some deep searching but maybe not deep enough? Cyndi’s session on “The Hidden Web: Digging Deeper” is tempting me with one part of the description “We will also talk about the importance of indexes that deep-link into websites online.” I’m ready! We do continue to learn.

For me, I love my Monday sessions about analyzing records and more, drafting a research plan, and what I call “Collaborative Genealogy.” The outcome of these two sessions and related work during the week highlight some additional help that might be close than you realize.

We do have some student spaces not yet reserved. Check the GRIP Genealogy Institute page for the course to learn more about the sessions and to find out who Amy, Cari, Cyndi, and Debbie really are under the Faculty tab.