Thank you for registering for the online course, Tracing Women in Your Family Tree!
Women make up 50% of your ancestry, yet their lives, experiences, and even complete names are all too often forgotten by written history. This course will help you reclaim their stories by providing resources and strategies for finding maiden names, discussing women’s legal rights through history as they pertain to genealogical documents (such as land and probate records, voting lists, naturalization, etc.), uncovering material and written culture left behind, and using mitochondrial DNA to trace maternal lines.
This course includes five 90-minute lectures, Q&A with the instructors, and exclusive access to handouts. You will have access to all materials for the foreseeable future.
NEW! This course also includes two virtual office hours with instructors. These informal, sessions offer an opportuntity for participants to drop in to ask additional questions, see demos as they arise, and more. These sessions will not be recorded.
JOIN THE LIVE BROADCAST
Click here to join the live class broadcasts: https://zoom.us/j/96816363750 Tuesdays, September 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29, 6:00 - 7:30 PM ET
If you are unable to attend the live broadcast, you will be able to watch a recording on this course page.
Click here to join the virtual office hours: https://zoom.us/j/98702902361 Fridays, September 11 and October 2, 1:00 - 2:00 PM ET
These open office hours will not be recorded.
COURSE SCHEDULE
September 1 - Class 1: Finding Elusive Maiden Names
Presented by: Melanie McComb
Learning about your female ancestors and their families is dependent on knowing her maiden name. Unfortunately, all too often we find women listed by their married names only or that their maiden name is simply not recorded. Learn what records are most likely to provide this information and gain important strategies for finding that elusive maiden name.
September 8 - Class 2: Legal Rights of Women in America
Presented by: Rhonda R. McClure
Understanding women’s legal rights in America can help provide expectations for when women might appear in records, help define their roles in said records, and lend context for understanding your ancestors’ lives. In this class, Rhonda R. McClure outlines the rights and roles of women in documentary history and provides a number of examples, especially as it applies to land, probate, voting, and naturalization.
September 15 - Class 3: Researching Women in the Archives
Presented by: Judy Lucey
Although women were often overlooked in official records, throughout time they have been the keepers of family and personal history. When they survive, diaries, letters, account books, family bibles, samplers, organization records, and more can reveal more about a woman’s daily life than any government document. Judy Lucey discusses how these unique records and manuscripts can be used to piece together a family story and how digging in the archives can hit genealogical gold.
September 22 – Class 4: Women and Naturalization
Presented by: Rhonda R. McClure
For much of American history, women’s paths to citizenship were shaped by laws that often tied their status to fathers, husbands, and broader ideas of nationality. At one time, an American-born woman could even lose her citizenship if married to a non-naturalized man. Discover how changing laws affected women’s citizenship and what naturalization records can (and cannot) reveal about female ancestors.
September 29 - Class 4: Using mtDNA to Trace Female Ancestors
Presented by: Melanie McComb
Advances in DNA research over the last decades have had huge implications for the field of genealogy. Testing mtDNA in particular can lead to discoveries along your maternal line—both in the recent and distant past. Using a number of case studies, Melanie McComb demonstrates how mtDNA results can help you verify hypotheses, make connections, and trace female ancestors.
COURSE HANDOUTS
To come.
RECORDED PRESENTATIONS
To come.
INSTRUCTOR BIOS
Judy Lucey, Special Collections Manager oversees the management and preservation of the R. Stanton Avery Special Collections. She received a B.S. in Education from Northeastern University and an M.S. in Library Science from Simmons College. She is co-author of the Genealogist's Handbook for Irish Research and frequently contributes to American Ancestors magazine. Her areas of expertise include, Irish genealogy, the Atlantic Canadian Provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and New England.
Rhonda R. McClure, Senior Genealogist is a nationally recognized professional genealogist and lecturer. Before joining American Ancestors in 2006, she ran her own genealogical business for 18 years. She was a contributing editor for Heritage Quest Magazine, Biography magazine, and was a contributor to The History Channel Magazine and American History Magazine. In addition to numerous articles, she is the author of twelve books including the award-winning The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Online Genealogy, Finding your Famous and Infamous Ancestors and Digitizing Your Family History. She is the editor of the newly released 6th edition of the Genealogist’s Handbook for New England Research. Her areas of expertise include, immigration and naturalization, late 19th- and early 20th-century urban research, missionaries, State Department Federal records, New England, Mid-West, Southern, German, Italian, Scottish, Irish, French Canadian, and New Brunswick research as well as Internet research, genealogical software and online trees.
Melanie McComb, Senior Genealogist holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York at Oswego. She is an international lecturer who teaches on various topics including colonial through twentieth-century American military research, genetic genealogy, Atlantic Canadian, African American, Jewish, and Irish genealogy. She is also an Honorary Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society. She has had articles published in American Ancestors magazine and Fifty Plus Advocate. She is a blogger, known as The Shamrock Genealogist.
OTHER RESOURCES
2019 Fall Issue of American Ancestors magazine:
cover story, "The Essential Guide to Researching Female Ancestors."