Free Webinars on Weekends in June!

To complement MyHeritage offering free access to databases every day in June, Legacy Family Tree (which is owned by MyHeritage) announced that each of the upcoming weekends in June it will offer a themed track of Webinars, many of them brand-new presentations.  From the Legacy Family Tree Webinars site:

June 12–14, Technology

• Metadata for Digital Images, Thomas MacEntee (NEW!)
• Tracking Your Digital Breadcrumbs:  Bookmarks, Toolbars, Notes, and Other Applications, Cyndi Ingle (members-only webinar to be unlocked)
• Google Drive:  An Office in the Cloud, DearMYRTLE and Russ Worthington (older Webinar which will be unlocked)
• Top Tech Tips for the Technologist and the Genealogist, Geoff Rasmussen (older Webinar which will be unlocked)
• Tech Savvy Scrapbooking & Journaling for Family History, Annie Bowser Tennant (older Webinar which will be unlocked)
• Microsoft Word Series #3:  Formatting Tips and Tricks, Thomas MacEntee (older Webinar which will be unlocked)

June 19–21, Great Britain Research

• Finding Your 18th Century Ancestors in England, Paul Milner (NEW!)
• Finding Your 19th Century Ancestors in England, Paul Milner (NEW!)
• Why Did the Welsh leave Wales?, Penny Walters (NEW!)
• Black British Family History:  Research and Identity, Penny Walters (NEW!)
• Foundations of Scottish Genealogy 1 of 12:  The Top 3 Resources, Bruce Durie (older Webinar which will be unlocked)
• Foundations of Scottish Genealogy 2 of 12:  Who Are the Scots?, Bruce Durie (older Webinar which will be unlocked)

June 26–28, Black American Research (almost all new!!)

• African American Genealogy Challenges: What You Need to Know!, Shelley Murphy (NEW!)
• Grandma Said:  Verifying Oral History, Aaron Dorsey (NEW)
• The Second Middle Passage:  Following the DNA Trails, Melvin Collier (NEW!)
• Finding Calvin:  Following My Enslaved Ancestor through Multiple Owners, a Case Study, Renate Sanders (NEW!)
• DNA Corroborates Oral Tradition about the Parents of a Freedman, LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson (NEW!)
• African American Genealogy Resources at the Library of Congress, Ahmed Johnson (older Webinar which will be unlocked)

Register for the live introductory Webinar at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com/June, which will give instructions for viewing the presentations.

I'm surprised that the Black American research weekend wasn't scheduled the weekend before, which would have made it fall on Juneteenth.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Are Your Genealogy Goals for 2017?

It's the beginning of a new year, so for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Randy Seaver has us thinking about what we want to accomplish during the year:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible music):

1) What goals do you have for your genealogy research, education, and writing during 2017?  

2) Tell us about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment on Facebook or Google+ in response to this post.

These are my goals:

Personal Research

• Find the son my aunt gave up for adoption in 1945, find his descendants, or at least find out what happened to him.  My aunt is 91 years old, and we're running out of time to let her know.

• Determine who the biological father of my grandfather was.  I think I'm close, but I need to find some living descendants and see if they're willing to take DNA tests to confirm my hypothesis.

• Catch up on entering all the information I found in 2016 into my family tree database, including citations.

• Make sure I have uploaded the DNA results of all the family members who have tested to all possible databases.  Spend more time with the DNA databases looking for matches and contacting close matches to share information.  Work more with chromosome mapping; try the Lazarus tool on FTDNA.

• Share all the photos I've been scanning with family members from the appropriate lines and ask for help with identification of as-yet unlabeled photos.

• Look for a group that is planning to pool money for research in the Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine archive and join up, with the aim of finding documents on my Gorodetsky, Kardish, and Schneiderman relatives from Kamianets Podilskyi.

• Stay in better touch with cousins with whom I have already made contact.

• Figure out how to do some sort of research in Punjab remotely, so I can make progress on my stepsons' grandfather's family lines.

• Get back to working on Irish research, so I can make progress on my stepsons' grandmother's family, my half-sister's mother's family, and my friend's O'Gara family from County Roscommon and County Sligo.

• Any time I take a trip, check to see what research I might be able to do in the area while I'm there.

Education

• Go to the Ventura County Genealogical Society's family history event for Black History Month.  I am the featured speaker, teaching two classes in the afternoon, plus I have volunteered to help with general genealogy questions in the morning.

• Attend the Forensic Genealogy Institute in San Antonio, Texas in March.  I'm registered for three days of classes with Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist!  (Be still, my heart!)

• Attend the annual Sacramento African American Family History Seminar in March, where I will be teaching about Freedmen's Bureau records and also taking the opportunity to attend other classes.

• Attend Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank in June.  I'm teaching one class, but that gives me three days to go to a lot of other classes and learn more cool genealogy stuff.

• Attend (probably) the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Orlando, Florida in July.  (No, you are not the only one wondering why anyone would schedule a conference in Florida in July.)  I plan to attend, but it depends on whether I have a talk accepted and therefore can justify the expense of flying cross-country.  It appears I no longer have any relatives living close by Orlando, so I might have to (shudder!) pay for a hotel room.

• Attend the Northwest Genealogy Conference in August in Arlington, Washington, if I have a talk accepted.

• Attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference over Labor Day weekend, this year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  I won a free registration, or I wouldn't be able to go.

• Watch Webinars from Florida State Genealogical Society, Illinois State Genealogical Society, Legacy Family Tree, Minnesota Genealogical Society, North Carolina Genealogical Society, Southern California Genealogical Society, and Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, and whatever other ones I hear about.  I average about two per week.

• Attend local genealogy presentations, primarily at the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California, California Genealogical Society, East Bay Genealogical Society, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and Oakland FamilySearch Library.

• Make presentations at local genealogical societies and FamilySearch Centers and Libraries.  So far I'm scheduled for 16 talks, but I usually average about two dozen each year.

Writing

• Stick to my average of about three to four posts per week on my blog.  (I'm not anywhere near as prolific as Randy.  I don't know how he does it.)  I regularly post for Wordless Wednesday, Treasure Chest Thursday, and Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, plus additions to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page and opportunities to help with genealogy-oriented projects.  Beyond that, I write about family stories, research discoveries, the journals I edit, and things I find interesting in the world of genealogy.

• I want to update and expand my article on the research I did on my Cuban cousins.

• I have a translation project and two transcription projects I'm working on that I need to devote more time to.

• Write some book reviews that I'm behind on.

• Finish creating a name index for a book about Niceville and Valparaiso, Florida.

All of this should keep me off the streets and out of trouble!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: My Genealogy Life

Uh-oh, this could get scary.  This week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver asked how much of your time is spent on genealogy:

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to:

1)  Tell us about your "genealogy life."  How much genealogy and family history work do you do, on average, each week?  What tasks do you routinely perform every day, every month, every year?

2)  Share your genealogy life in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or on Facebook or Google+.

Ok, here's mine:

On a weekly basis, I probably spend between 60+ hours on genealogy in some form.  An average week with no other obligations:

• Doing research averages between four to six hours every day.  This encompasses research for clients, volunteer work, and my own family and extended family when I can fit it in.  This time includes data entry, report writing, and information sharing.

• Reading the blogs I follow on a regular basis takes about one to two hours every day.

• Social media suck up a lot of my time, even when I try to restrain myself.  I check genealogy-related content on Facebook daily and two to three times a week on Google+ and LinkedIn.  This runs to about 10 hours a week.

• I wish I wrote faster.  As it is, writing for my blog takes me at least 5–8 hours a week.  When I'm working on Who Do You Think You Are? posts, it can go as high as 15+ hours, because I spend so much time looking for the sources used on the programs so that everyone can see them.

• I usually watch three to four Webinars each week, for another 3–6 hours.

• Volunteer work is my other big time sink.  I'm on the boards of three organizations and the editor of three publications, I have a regular volunteer shift at the Family History Center, and the last time someone asked me to write down everything I do the list had more than 20 commitments.  Volunteer work easily takes at least 10–15 hours every week.

Monthly and yearly stuff:

• Attending meetings of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society and African American Genealogical Society of Northern California averages about 7 hours each month.

• I attend meetings of other genealogical societies as often as topics and time allow.  This is probably another 6–9 hours each month.

• I give on average two presentations each month.  Creating and updating the files and handouts and giving the talks comes to about 10–20 hours each month.

• I would like to attend more institutes and conferences, but I have neither the money nor the time to do so.  I usually manage to travel to two or three conferences out of state each year, and three or four local events.  This year I went to SLIG and I'll be attending Jamboree, the IAJGS Jewish genealogy conference, and the International Black Genealogy Summit.  Locally, I was at San Francisco History Days, the Sacramento annual African American Family History Seminar, and the CSGA spring seminar in Fresno, and I will be going to the local Ancestry Day in June, the CSGA fall seminar in Oakland, and the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society's October seminar featuring John Philip Colletta.  And as Randy said, these are in addition to my regular commitments.

Yes, genealogy is my life.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your 2016 Genealogy Education Plans

What a coincidence!  Tonight, right after I returned from a week of genealogical education at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), Randy Seaver asked about genealogy education for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

1) What are your genealogy education plans for 2016?  Local society meetings or seminars?  Regional or national conferences?  Weeklong institutes?  Genealogy cruises?  Podcasts?  YouTube videos?  Webinars or Hangouts on air?  Magazines?  Web sites?  Blogs?

2) How much time do you invest in genealogy education?  Why do you do it?

3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.

1.  My genealogical education plans for 2016:

* I started out by attending SLIG this past week.

* I will almost definitely attend a local Ancestry Day that is being planned.

* I will be at San Francisco History Days (the revitalized version of the former San Francisco History Expo).  Though it is not specifically focused on genealogy, learning about history is very important for genealogy research.

* I will be giving a talk at Jamboree and plan to attend several sessions there.

* I will be giving talks at both the spring (hosted by Fresno County Genealogical Society) and fall (hosted by California Genealogical Society) meetings/seminars of the California State Genealogical Alliance, but each will also have other speakers, and I'll have the opportunity to learn from their presentations.

* I plan to attend as many of the presentations offered by the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society and the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California as I can.  I am a board member of both societies and attend as many meetings as is possible and practical, but sometimes I have schedule conflicts.

* I often go to talks presented by other local genealogical societies and our local Family History Center.  (In fact, I'll be learning about mortuary records at the next meeting of the East Bay Genealogical Society.)

* I listen to as many Webinars as I can fit in my schedule.  It's very convenient to have learning opportunities you can do at home.  I regularly watch Webinars from Illinois State Genealogical Society, Legacy Family Tree, North Carolina Genealogical Society, Southern California Genealogical Society, Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, USCIS, and a few other organizations.

* I usually take one or two online courses each year.

* I have subscriptions to Avotaynu and the Association of Professional Genealogists' APG Quarterly.

* I read about two dozen genealogy blogs on a regular basis and several dozen others less often.

* I hope to attend this year's IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy and International Black Genealogy Summit, but whether I will be able to depends heavily on at least one of my submitted talks being accepted by each.  I would like to attend another institute, but I don't know if it will be possible, due to costs.  (I need to earn another scholarship!)

* I give about two dozen genealogy talks during an average year, and they are an opportunity for me to learn from other genealogists as much as they are for me to share what I know.

2.  I probably spend an average of one to two hours each day on some form of genealogical education.  I do it because there is always something new to learn, and it is an investment in both my professional work and my personal life.  I try to apply what I learn to my work, my volunteer activities, and my own research.

Skeletons in the Closet: Illegitimate Births

This is one in my occasional series of posts about those "touchy" subjects which may arise during your family history research, or which some relatives may try to have you ignore.  A page listing all of the posts in the series can be found here.

It isn't actually that uncommon to find an illegitimate birth, or more broadly a birth outside of a marriage, in a family.  Modern society doesn't have a lock on the situation; it's been going on for hundreds of years.  There are court cases in the 1600's for financial support for children fathered out of wedlock.  But depending on the family's social status and the specific circumstances, there may have been embarrassment at the time and more now when learning about it.

In some times and places, there wasn't even a stigma attached to having a child out of wedlock as long as the couple stayed together and raised and supported the child.

I recently confirmed that my paternal grandfather was born seven months before his mother married.  I don't know if his father was the man his mother married, as no name appears on the original birth registration.  The fact that my great-grandmother added that husband's name to the amended birth record 37 years later, 22 years after the man in question had died, doesn't exactly make me feel too confident about it.  I'm currently exploring other ways to investigate that and try to learn more definitively who my great-grandfather was.

Several years ago I learned that my grandparents were never married.  My grandfather was still married to his first wife but was a real charmer, and my grandmother apparently was ok with the situation.  My father was surprised to find out, but luckily he has a good sense of humor.

As young soldiers were going off to fight in World War II, many of them convinced their girlfriends to "give" just a little more, which led to several "surprises" about nine months later.  We have one of those in my family also.

The confusing part about researching an illegitimate child is figuring out what surname the birth is registered under.  When searching for my grandfather's record, my first two attempts were for Sellers.  When I learned that his parents had married after his likely birth date, I tried with his mother's maiden name, which I eventually learned was the name on the birth record.  Of course, I was looking for a boy, and I had no way of knowing then that his original record said that he was a female child; that doesn't happen very often, though.  (Though I do have a second example of it in my family:  My half-sister's maternal grandfather, whose name was Francis Maria [a good Irish Catholic name!], was recorded as a girl with the name Frances Maria.)  You just need to leave your mind open to multiple possibilities.

If this research involves relatives who have all passed away, it often doesn't cause too many problems among living family members.  If it's for people who are still alive, your access to records may be affected by privacy restrictions.  Then you'll probably have to ask those living family members for help, and they may not want to talk.  As usual, be diplomatic and nonjudgmental, but don't be surprised if you are rebuffed anyway.  You may simply need to put that particular research on the back burner for a while.

And speaking of skeletons in the closet, the Illinois State Genealogical Society is offering a free Webinar this Tuesday, November 10, on that very subject.  It will run from 8:00-9:00 p.m. Central time.  You can register for it here.

Free Webinar on Conducting Oral Histories

Talking to relatives about their lives is one of the best ways to learn more information, especially great stories, about your family.  The Jewish Women's Archive is offering a free Webinar on how to lead an oral history project.  It will be primarily geared to working with students, but the description also mentions working with your community, so I'm sure the techniques discussed will be useful for almost any genealogist.

The Webinar will take place twice on Thursday, November 6, to accommodate more people's schedules.  You can attend from 10:00–11:00 a.m. or 5:00–6:00 p.m., U.S. Pacific time.  The registration forms have a handy little pull-down list that shows what times those are in pretty much any time zone.

Free Webinar on Preserving Family Archives

To help celebrate Preservation Week, this year taking place from April 27 to May 3, the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services is presenting a free Webinar, "Low-cost Ways to Preserve Family Archives."  The Webinar is intended for "[a]nyone interested in practical ways of preserving archival collections, including family collectors, and curators and custodians of small to medium libraries, museums, archives, historical societies, and town offices."  It is heartening to see family collectors listed with professionals as being among those interested in preserving the past.

The Webinar will discuss risks that archives face from the environment and from being handled, and some practical, low-cost ways to protect items and maintain them for future generations.

The Webinar will be broadcast on Tuesday, April 29, 2014, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific/12:00 noon Mountain/1:00 p.m. Central/2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.  Register here.

The sponsor of the Webinar is Archival Products, so I am sure their products will be featured in at least some of the preservation methods.

Thanks to Dear Myrtle and GeneaWebinars for posting about this Webinar!

I've added pages to my blog!

So before this past Friday, I didn't even know what pages were on a blog.  But I attended Dear Myrtle's "More Blogging for Beginners" Webinar (viewable online for free until September 14; you can also buy your very own copy of it) and learned how to create them.  (Hey, I've only had a blog for a couple of years; as far as I'm concerned, I'm still very much a beginner.)  If you look up at the top of the page, just under the paragraph talking about how genealogy is a big jigsaw puzzle, you'll see tabs for "Genealogy Presentations" and "Who Do You Think You Are?"  "Genealogy Presentations" shows my scheduled talks and also has a list of all the presentations I have available.  "Who Do You Think You Are?" has links to all of my posts about the program.  I hope this little bit of "added functionality" makes it easier to find some things on my site.

Free Online Webinars on Using Victorian (Australia) Resources

"One Good Turn Deserves Another"

Museum Victoria and the State Library of Victoria are offering four free Webinars over the upcoming four months on how to use their and other online resources.  The series of Webinars, titled "Digging Deeper:  Making the Most of Victorian Collections", will each run from 4:00–5:00 p.m. Victorian time, which I think will be either 11:00 p.m. (during Daylight Saving Time) or 10:00 p.m. (Standard Time) in California.  The topics cover using multimedia, using digitized items, online historic and current newspapers (hooray for newspapers!), and researching historical and current science.  You need to register for each Webinar separately.  Information about the Webinars and registration links are available here.

Thanks to ResearchBuzz for posting about this!

Free Informational Webinars from ProQuest

ProQuest, the company that presents HeritageQuest and many historical newspaper databases online, also offers informational Webinars on how to utilize HeritageQuest (HQ) and Ancestry Library Edition.  The Webinars are free (yay!) and are stored online for later viewing, also for free.

The current list of upcoming Webinars is available here.  The list includes HQ Freedman's Bank and Serial Set records (coming this Monday, January 7, so register soon!), HQ Books and Revolutionary War records, Ancestry U.S. records, and Ancestry Canadian records.  Some of the previously broadcast Webinars available are Ancestry U.K. and Ireland records; HQ Census, PERSI, and Serial Set records; and Ancestry 1940 census.  You even have the option to download the recorded Webinars to your computer and view them at your leisure.  They require a specific viewer, but even that is available for free.

Sounds like an all-around good deal to me!  I'll be watching the Freedman's Bank/Serial Set Webinar on Monday for sure, and I've signed up for a couple more after that.

Bringing More History into Jewish Family History Research

Ahuzat Bayit letter
c. 1909

The educational philosophy of the Jewish Women's Archive (JWA) includes the idea that historical documents such as photographs, letters, posters, and sermons can provide an entry point into any aspect of Jewish life.  It is easy to see how how this can apply to genealogy.  Primary sources can provide fresh perspectives and help show the historical context of our ancestors' lives.  Some historical sources are in English, which can make them more accessible.

JWA's Webinars are geared primarily toward teachers, and if you teach Jewish genealogy, you are a teacher!  But the information is often useful to researchers also, and the Webinars are open to everyone.  I find these Webinars to be interesting educational opportunities at a very reasonable price (free!).

The second Webinar in JWA's 2012-2013 series is "Historical Sources in Jewish Education."  Registration is free.  The Webinar is being offered at two times:  Tuesday, January 8, at 1:00 p.m. EST, and Wednesday, January 9, at 8:00 p.m. EST.  Register here.

The first Webinar in the 2012-2013 series was "Butchers, Babushkas, and Consumer Activism."  It was about the 1902 kosher meat boycott in New York City, which I had not heard of previously.  I was very surprised to learn that a bunch of immigrant Jewish housewives, many of whom did not speak English, organized a boycott.  A recording of the November 13 Webinar is available on the JWA Web site.

Learn How to Use the Bilingual Search Engine for IGRA's Database

The Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) has an All Israel Database (AID) section of its site with information from the Ottoman, British, and Israeli administrations.  Most databases are in Hebrew, some are in English, and a few are in other languages.  Records are presented in their original languages.

In July, at the IAJGS International Conference in Paris, IGRA was awarded a Stern Grant to develop a bilingual search engine for its Web site to improve access to the databases.  The new search engine was announced on December 15.  The search engine can understand both English and Hebrew and will show matches in both languages even if you enter the name in only one language.  All material has been transliterated so that the search engine can identify results.  There is even a virtual keyboard if you do not have a Hebrew keyboard.

The search has several filter options, including record type, database, source, repository, and administration era.  The default language for the page is Hebrew, but you can click on the "English" button at the top right and it is immediately translated.  Different databases have different permission levels.  Some are available to everyone, while some are only for paid IGRA members.  More records are still being digitized and added to the databases.

Obviously, there's a lot to learn here.  Luckily, IGRA is offering a free Webinar, "Navigating the All Israel Database Search Engine", in English (which is good for me, because I don't understand Hebrew!).  The Webinar will be broadcast January 13, 2013 at 10:00 a.m. PST/1:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. Israel.  Register at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/180663814.

My thanks to Garri Regev, IGRA president, for posting this information.