Catalog of Lectures

Cemetery transcriptions are a valuable resource for all family historians, especially when you’re unable to visit a cemetery or when the stones have worn away and are no longer legible. In this presentation, we will discuss the importance of cemetery transcripts and point you toward online and published collections at AmericanAncestors.org, the Digital Library and Archives at AmericanAncestors.org, FamilySearch.org, local historical societies, and more.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of court cases and accusations of witchcraft across colonial America, yet the most famous series of prosecutions from this period are the Salem witch trials between 1692 and 1693. In that short period, more than two hundred were accused, thirty found guilty, and 20 executed. In this online lecture, we will discuss how to verify your lineage from someone accused of witchcraft in Salem during the Hysteria. We will point you to key records, resources, and references for proving your line of descent.

Every family historian wants to visit their ancestral homestead. Changing street names, landscapes, and boundaries can make this task difficult. This online lecture will discuss resources for identifying an ancestor’s address and provide practical skills for finding its current-day location using land deeds, maps, surveys, directories, and other records.

Historical bank records are an overlooked resource for family historians. When they survive, these records can provide information about an ancestor’s residence, occupation, family relationships, and even immigrant origins. And don’t assume that your ancestor was too poor to have had a bank account! Savings banks were established with those very individuals in mind. In this webinar, we will present a brief history of savings banks in the United States, how to locate these records, and what information is provided. We will focus on examples from the Emigrant Savings Bank, Freedman’s Savings and Trust, and Provident Institution for Savings.

As family historians, we focus on tracing our ancestry further and further into the past, going back one generation at a time. There are, however, cases when we need to do the opposite and trace lines forward. In this webinar, we will discuss how descendancy research, i.e. tracing all descendants of an individual to the present, can help you further your research. Whether you are building out your ancestors’ network of extended family, hoping to understand DNA connections, working on a study project, creating a family association, or just want to connect with distant family, this webinar will give you the necessary tools and strategies for finding living relations.

As with any type of family history research, civil and religious records are your first, go-to resource in German genealogy. For many locations in Germany, civil registration began as early as the late 18th century and some church records (Kirchenbücher) date back to the 16th century. Beyond baptisms, marriages, and burials, many churches also kept family registers (Familienregister or Familienbücher). This session will discuss what records exist, what information they contain, and how to access these important resources. 

Understanding where your ancestor is living at a given time can be a loaded question—and to answer it completely, you need to know the broader geo-political and historical context. And as records are most often arranged by place, the “where” becomes especially important for family historians. In this webinar, we will demonstrate how to research boundary changes and understand jurisdictional levels using maps, primary and secondary sources, and other records.

Using several examples and case studies, this final class will demonstrate some key strategies for breaking down genealogical brick walls in German research, including finding your ancestor’s origins and hometown, maiden names of female ancestors, parent’s names, and connecting generations. 

Whether Ohio was a final destination for your ancestor or a stop along their journey west, published genealogical resources for the state and the Western Reserve are important for many family historians. In this webinar, we will share go-to Ohio-based resources within five categories: histories, genealogies, land, tax, and military. Learn about essential published sources that discuss family groups and help us to trace Ohio ancestors through time and place.

This lecture introduces the participant to the challenges and joys of researching one’s Irish ancestors. Major sources of information as well as strategies for tracking elusive ancestors are presented. Throughout the lecture examples illustrate the principles of genealogical research including learning all you can about your immigrant ancestor.