With so many records and resources available online, what could possibly be offline at research centers and repositories? The answer: A lot! we will discuss the importance of taking your family history research offline, provide examples of what you might find when you do, and how to prepare for doing research at an archives, library, historical society, or other repository.
The website of the National Archives and Records Administration (Archives.gov) is your at-home portal to a myriad of records. This lecture will demonstrate how to navigate the online catalog, access or request records from home, and, because not everything is online, discuss tips for planning a research trip. We will also discuss the difference between the National Archives in Washington, DC and the regional branches found across the country.
The 20th century was the age of the passenger list. Unlike the previous centuries, ship manifests from this time focused on the individual passengers and provide a goldmine of information for family historians. To fully understand and analyze passenger lists, we need to understand how they were created, what information is included, and what inferences can be made. This presentation will also discuss strategies for narrowing your search when a passenger list can’t be found and piecing together an entire family’s movements to the United States.
Learn about the various colonial wars that 17th and 18th New Englanders participated in. We will discuss published and manuscript resources, and how to "Adopt the Regiment" to learn more about your ancestor through associated records.
Do you have ancestors from the Deep South? In this webinar, we will address key challenges in researching families from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana and offer tips and solutions for getting ahead. Topics include migration and settlement patterns, what to do when vital records are not available, how to leverage land, probate, and tax records, and finding confederate records. The session concludes with tips for conducting African American research in the region.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, American cities seemingly sprang up overnight as new industries, new immigrant populations, and new opportunities blossomed. Finding your ancestor in a growing metropolis can be tricky. Luckily there are several resources, records, and research strategies available to assist you in your search. We will discuss some of these key sources and techniques for researching your urban ancestry.
This lecture will provide you with key strategies to leverage the information you find in Christian church records: how to use church records in conjunction with civil records, how to use them as vital record substitutes, how to identify witnesses, and generally how they can be used to break down brick walls in your family history research.
Unclear as to what date “21 1mo 1708/9” refers to? What about “4 Mary”? While dates are foundational to your family history research, they’re not always straightforward in the record or follow a modern calendar system. This online lecture will go over common calendar systems that you may encounter in your research, discuss how to interpret and record them, and suggest several online conversion tools to understand these dates in familiar terms.
Ireland has a unique and rather confusing system of land divisions, all of which need to be known and understood to effectively and accurately look for your ancestors.
When we think of Christian records, we may immediately think of baptism and marriage records. While these are crucial records, there are many more! This lecture will look at what records exist, what information is provided, and how they differ among denominations.
