Catalog of Lectures

Throughout history, there are individuals who find it difficult to live within the rules of a society, often turning to criminal, illegal activities. While some criminals can skirt the law, more often they are caught, leaving a paper trail documenting their activities, whereabouts, and other valuable information that can be used in tracing family history. We will provide an overview of key resources that can be used to research the criminals in your own family tree, including newspapers, jail registers, prison records, court records, and more.

Whether your ancestors lived in New England in the 17th century or the 21st century, this presentation will give you the basic information to begin—and advance—your research into New England records. In preparation for the release of the Sixth Edition of Genealogist’s Handbook for New England Research, this presentation will give you the basic historical context, general organization of records, go-to resources, and unique strategies that will give you a good foundation to succeed in tracing your New England ancestors. NOTE: New England includes the present-day states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Today there are an estimated 7.6 million Jewish Americans living in the country, the majority of whom descend from diaspora Jewish populations from Central and Eastern Europe. Learning how to trace your Jewish ancestry is not without its challenges: changing surnames, locating your ancestor's home village or shtetl, and access to overseas records are just the tip of the iceberg. This webinar will discuss the historical context of your ancestor's arrival in the United States, review American records that can be helpful in your research, and provide basic strategies for uncovering your ancestor's exact origins in the old country.

City and rural directories can be incredibly useful resources for genealogists. They can help you pinpoint a time and place for ancestors on the move, offer occupational information, and even help give clues to death and marriage dates. You will learn how these resources were created, what information is generally provided, where to locate these sources online or in print, and how to use these records effectively in your family history research.

Was your ancestor a Freemason, an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Columbus, or a member of another fraternal organization? In this webinar, we will teach you how to identify different fraternal organizations, provide valuable tools for locating a lodge and its records, and discuss how these records can enrich your family history research.

 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.  

For many living in New England during the 17th through 19th centuries, their livelihood and even survival was inextricably linked to the sea. In this webinar we will provide a brief history of mariners in New England, discuss major ports and sources of industry, highlight key records, and demonstrate how to reconstruct your ancestor’s life on the sea and along the shore.

As a group, 17th-century New Englanders are one of the most studied groups on the planet. There is a multitude of reliable published resources available for family historians including finding aids, genealogical dictionaries, authoritative study projects, scholarly journals, and more. Learn about the resources that made our Top 10 list and why you may not need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to early New England research.

Town records from New England can contain a wealth of genealogical information. These records can contain records of births, marriages, burials, mortgages, name changes, and more that can help you fill in the details of your ancestor's life. This webinar delves into this important resource for New England and demonstrates how you may get the most out of these records for your own family history. 

This class will include the different types of record sets that enslavers may name enslaved persons (including probate records, land deeds, court records, and more). A brief case study will be discussed.