Events

Family history is so much more than just names, dates, and places, or boxes, lines, and charts. For 21st century genealogists, it is easy to limit our research to the documents or other facts we find online, or to what others tell us to be true. Learn how to take your research a step further to understand your ancestors’ lives through “immersion genealogy”—the process of discovering where they lived, worked, and worshipped, and experiencing those customs and traditions they passed down through the generations. Key resources, methodology, and tips for reaching out to relatives and repositories, and how to make the most out of a trip to your ancestor’s hometown (whether in North America or across the pond) will be discussed.

 

An avid genealogist for 26 years, Lisa currently teaches online genealogy courses for Family Tree University and the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. She is the recipient of the 2002 Mary Zirin Prize given by the Association for Women in Slavic Studies to recognize the achievements of independent scholars, and is a frequently invited speaker for national conferences, genealogical and historical societies.

How do you stay productive when you have numerous genealogy projects? Learn a system to capture to-do items, prioritize projects, and erase overwhelm.

 

Diana is a professional genealogist, teacher, author, and speaker. She has eighteen years of research experience and holds a credential for genealogy research through the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen). Diana is Accredited in the United States Gulf South Region which includes Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Diana serves as a Commissioner for ICAPGen and works with a team teaching about the Accreditation process through webinars, classes, and a series of videos hosted on YouTube.

 

Diana graduated from Brigham Young University Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelors degree in Education. She is the author of the bestselling book Research Like A Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide and creator of the “Research Like a Pro” study group and e-Course. Diana co-hosts the Research Like a Pro genealogy Podcast with her daughter, Nicole Dyer, and writes regular articles on their website, FamilyLocket.com.

Ready to explore software tools to help you write your stories? This session will show a range of software, smartphone apps, and websites which help writers find context, come up with and develop ideas for family and ancestor stories, and hone writing skills. Participants should have some familiarity with web browsers, word processing, and smart phone apps.

Laura Hedgecock is an author, speaker, freelance writer and GeneaBlogger passionate about helping others tell stories which connect loved ones with their family and ancestry.

Her book, MEMORIES OF ME: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO TELLING AND SHARING THE STORIES OF YOUR LIFE, guides and empowers memory collectors with down-to-earth, practical advice and creative ideas. Her website, TreasureChestofMemories.com, provides pragmatic advice on preserving and sharing memories and family stories.

Laura serves as President of the 3400+ member GeneaBloggers organization and is a member of NGS, Genealogical Speakers Guild, Toastmasters, and Detroit Working Writers. She authored BLOGGING FOR FAMILY HISTORY, which provides a road map for launching a blog and making it successful.

She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and Chicago Tribune.

Cyndi Ingle, a genealogist for more than 42 years, is the creator and innovator behind the award-winning and globally recognized CyndisList.com. Cyndi is an expert in using technology for genealogy, research in the United States and bringing together traditional methodology with organization, computers, software, and the Internet.  She is an internationally-known guest lecturer, and she has authored numerous articles and three books.

America has been a nation on the move since the first landings in the colonies.  From buffalo traces and Native American trails to rivers and canals, Americans found a way to keep pushing “west”. This presentation concentrates on the most common means of travel in the New World.  Migrations trails and patterns will be discussed, as well as the many rivers and canals that interconnected us as a nation.  A case study will be demonstrated showing a “lost” ancestor”.

Peggy Clemens Lauritzen, AG, was involved in genealogy before she was even born.  The daughter of avid genealogists, she was spending time in courthouses and cemeteries while other children were playing on swings and going to the beach.  The love of her family’s history has never left her.  With her experience as a former Family History Director, she is a frequent speaker at genealogical societies, workshops, seminars, and webinars where she loves bringing genealogy to life.  Some of those would include The Ohio Genealogical Society, The Ohio State University, Brigham Young University, and many other state and local genealogy societies.  Peggy is an instructor at Ancestry Academy and Family Tree University, and served as an Ambassador for RootsTech2016-2017, and she was given the honor of 2018 Fellow of the Ohio Genealogical Society.

MyHeritage has become the #1 platform for uploading, enhancing, and sharing old family photos. In this lecture, Daniel will give you a detailed tour of all the photo features MyHeritage offers. Learn to animate your photos with Deep Nostalgia™, colorize and restore colors with MyHeritage In Color™, bring faces into sharp focus with the Photo Enhancer, record the stories behind your photos with the Photo Storyteller™, make your photos speak with DeepStory, and much more. Daniel will show you how to use MyHeritage to breathe new life into old photos and revive your family’s favorite memories.

Dedicated to Genealogy since 1986, Daniel was the teacher and the study guide editor of the family history project “Searching for My Roots” in Venezuela for 15 years. He was a board member of The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) for 10 years, now is involved in several crowdsource digitization and transcription projects, and holds a board-level position at The Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA). Since 2006 Daniel has been working at MyHeritage liaising with genealogy societies, bloggers, and media, as well as lecturing, and attending conferences around the world.

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All our monthly lectures and workshops are free to our members and the public. Non-members should request a Zoom invitation here. Please note that we cannot respond to same-day requests.

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There is no DNA Special Interest Group meeting this month. Our members are encouraged to attend Conejo Valley Genealogical Society’s DNA SIG this month. Contact webmaster@venturacogensoc.org for more information.

Have you ever wondered how your ancestors ended up in a particular place? Whether they chose to settle there or other factors drove them to that location, we rely on document research to help us find answers—public records, letters, diaries, local histories, etc. In this hour we will investigate the added value of using maps and gazetteers to help us in that quest to understand how our ancestors navigated those spaces that were “home” and built a life there. We will look at resources for both urban and rural research, with a focus on what is available online, and consider how maps and gazetteers help us tell a story.

Marilyn Gesch, Ph.D., is a longtime member of the Ventura County Genealogical Society. She has served on the Executive Board and has been a frequent presenter in the educational programs. Her background in sociology has led her to lean heavily on using social history in understanding family stories as well as to focus on quality research practices. Recent publications inspired by family histories looked at German immigrants in American wars and appear in the Kansas History journal (2018; WW1) and the Missouri Historical Review  (2015; Civil War) She is currently working on a manuscript following her father-in-law’s WW2 experiences through his letters and scrapbooks.

Second presentation:

Get to know the Irish Civil Registration records! These Birth, Marriage, and Death records began country-wide in 1864 and contain a wealth of information about our ancestors. Learn how to access these records right from your own home through multiple websites.

Sara is a full-time professional genealogist with over twenty-five years of experience. Her research has taken her into nearly every State in the USA as well as Ireland, Italy, Austria, and Britain. She holds a Boston University Genealogical Research Certificate, a Bachelor’s Degree in Library Science, and is an alumnus of the ProGen Study Group. She especially enjoys breaking down brick walls for her clients, discovering the stories of black sheep ancestors, and helping individuals preserve their photographic legacy.

She is currently the Treasurer of the Southern California Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the Registrar for the Aurantia Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Secretary for the Amanda Stokes Tent, Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, and volunteers at the National Archives, Riverside office.

Learn about the various types of genealogy and local history periodicals, and how PERSI can help one find articles to further one’s research.

Curt Witcher is the Director of Special Collections at the Allen County Public Library, managing the widely acclaimed Genealogy Center as well as the Rolland Center for Lincoln Research and the institution’s Fine Books Collection. He is a former president of both the Federation of Genealogical Societies and the National Genealogical Society, and the founding president of the Indiana Genealogical Society.

Curt has penned many hundreds of articles on topics of interest to family historians, librarians
and archivists, and has presented lectures to historical and genealogical groups across the
country and beyond. He currently serves on the Indiana State Historical Records Advisory
Board, the board of the Friends of the Indiana State Archives, the Indiana Historical Society’s
publications committee, and the executive committee of the Friends of the Lincoln Collection of
Indiana’s Board of Directors. Curt also serves on the Northeast Indiana Jewish Genealogy
Society board of directors as well as an advisor for the African American Genealogical Society
of Fort Wayne.

Curt is distinguished as a fellow of both the Indiana Genealogical Society and the Utah
Genealogical Association. Over the decades he led collaborative national efforts to preserve
and make more accessible historical data. For those efforts he has received the Federation of
Genealogical Societies’ Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Humanitarian Award and the National
Genealogical Society’s P. William Filby Award for outstanding, life-time contributions to
genealogical librarianship. Curt’s passion for finding families’ stories and his belief in the power
of those stories to change lives has been recognized by numerous organizations, most recently
receiving the Indiana Historical Society’s 2019 Eli Lilly Lifetime Achievement Award for
extraordinary contributions to the field of history. Curt has completed four decades of service at
the Allen County Public Library.

A whole wide world of free resources awaits the genealogist who knows to look beyond Ancestry, FamilySearch, and other major sites. Discover online research portals with newspapers, maps, books and more for your family history research.

After a long professional career in academic archives and genealogy libraries, Nancy Loe, MA, MLS, launched her website, SassyJaneGenealogy.com. Her site features a blog, monthly newsletter, and genealogy e-books on U.S. and European research.

Nancy also provides expert guidance on information management to help genealogists search smart and find more primary sources. She has presented at genealogy gatherings in the US, Canada, and Australia, including NGS, Rootstech, and Legacy Family Tree.

Ask her about the strangest thing she ever discovered in an archives.

Second presentation:

Learn about the benefits of genetic genealogy is solving adoption cases.

Chris Pederson has been a teacher and public speaker for over 50 years and a genealogy researcher for almost 20 years. He was introduced to genealogy by an uncle who had done some work on his family history. Later, he was asked by a boss who knew Chris’ interest in genealogy to answer a few questions about searching for his birth parents. Chris found information for this person relatively quickly and that sparked his interest in turning genealogy into a business. Chris turned to DNA to solve other adoptees’ brick wall problem. That started his journey in using genetic genealogy to solve brick wall problems.

Hal used various resources to uncover the story of a relative who he was surprised to find to be an inmate in the Massachusetts State Prison in the 1910 census. The newspaper coverage of Louis Tennis’ murder trial, subsequent divorce, and eventual pardon was extensive and revealing. Additionally, he was able to obtain the actual court records from 1907 to 1909. The supporting documents for his successful pardon included a 14-page, typewritten plea from the prison chaplain… fascinating reading! Old newspapers and old court records, along with census, birth, marriage, and death, records allowed him to piece together lost (or hidden) family history.

Hal Bookbinder is a retired information systems professional who continues to instruct business courses at the university level. He has been actively researching his genealogy for more than three decades, identifying over 4,000 relatives and tracing two lines to the mid-1700s in modern Ukraine. Hal has written and spoken on border changes, migration, citizenship, safe computing unique research techniques. He has served as president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles and of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. He also publishes a series of monthly articles on safe computing which are freely available at https://www.tinyurl.com/SafeComputingArticles. He and his wife, Marci, were raised in the Catskills of New York State and now live in the LA area.

Second presentation:

Learn how to stay safe from hackers while using your computer and smartphones in today’s challenging technical environment. The impact of the rise of AI on privacy will also be discussed.

In this program, Cari Taplin discusses family legends and takes the audience through a brief outline of the life of Roy Rogers (Leonard Slye). Then, through census research, illustrates her family’s legend of being related to Roy Rogers. She also shows a short documentary “Searching for Roy” created by her cousin, Betsy Greer, that further demonstrates the importance of family legends.

Cari A. Taplin is related to Roy Rogers. Or at least that’s what her family told her. As a result, finding her true heritage has been her focus since the year 2000. She is a native of Wood County, Ohio but now lives in Longmont, Colorado. Cari holds the Certified Genealogist® credential and has served in a wide variety of volunteer and leadership positions for state, local, and national societies. As the owner of GenealogyPANTS, she provides speaking services. she also lends help and shares her expertise as an administrator on the highly popular Facebook Group “The Genealogy Squad.” Cari currently works for Ancestry ProGenealogists. Cari’s personal research focuses on midwestern and Great Lakes states. When she’s not working on her genealogy, she is a wife, and a mother of two young adults.

England Census Records are one of the three main record groups you are likely to use for researching your ancestors in England. This presentation provides an overview of census records in England and Wales from 1841 up to the recently released 1921 Census. It includes discussion of details included in the census returns and the evolution of the census forms and content for those years. A brief overview of pre-1841 population lists that can be used for pre-census research is also covered. A printed handout with selected bibliography for additional reading is provided.

David Flint has been doing English genealogy research for over 15 years. He was born in England, where he lived until the age of ten, when his family moved to Canada, and then to the United States. He currently lives in Irvine with his wife, Nancy.

David devotes time to genealogy research, attending lectures and seminars, teaching genealogy classes, and occasional speaking engagements. He previously served as President, Vice-President and Treasurer of the South Orange County California Genealogical Society (SOCCGS) where he continues serving on the society’s executive board.

David retired after working for the County of Los Angeles for 40 years, ending his career as Assistant Director of the Los Angeles County Public Library. He began his interest in genealogy at a library conference in Phoenix, Arizona in 2002, where he met two British Isles research specialists from FamilySearch. He likes to say that genealogy found him because he wasn’t looking for it at the time. He enjoys cooking, good wine, travel, and likes to read history and historical fiction. In addition to working on his family history, David is developing a specialized collection of British Isles reference books in his home library. He and his wife Nancy have made trips to England to keep in touch with family and visit the country where he spent his childhood.

At his home society in Mission Viejo he leads a monthly England special interest group, and a monthly Legacy Users Group for SOCCGS members using the Legacy Family Tree genealogy program. He also teaches a beginners class for Legacy and leads an annual week-long research trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City for SOCCGS members.