Researching Your Illinois Ancestors

Learn tips and tricks for getting the most out of your visit, whether long-distance or on site. Come see some of the gems already gleaned from the vast resources of this amazing Illinois asset.

Many Midwestern and Plains states have superb state census records. Learn about the indexes, the many personal details these censuses include, locating the censuses, and alternate sources. The lecture includes many specific examples from these enumerations, provides an overview of state censuses for Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri�

From Wisconsin to Missouri, many free online resources are available if you know where to look. This class will explore where to find and how to use these resources. Creative techniques for finding future sites will also be discussed.

Discover the best ways to access US records from Australia including online, ordering records from the US and even accessing records from Australian repositories.

Participants will learn the basics of researching their New Jersey ancestors starting with the early history as part of the New Netherlands colony to the present-day. Does the search for your New Jersey ancestors often take you to a dead end? What are the best strategies for Garden State research…

Participants will learn the basics of researching their Wisconsin ancestors starting with the early history as part of the Northwest Territory up through the present-day. While many of our ancestors may have settled in or passed through Wisconsin, finding them and the records left behind is another story. Wisconsin research…

While many of our ancestors may have come from New York, finding them and the records left behind is another story. New York research offers certain challenges and it helps to know the strategies needed to tackle those Empire State records. You'll not only get a quick lesson in New…

Researching early families in Kentucky and Virginia can be particularly challenging. Every location has multiple people of the same name making even surviving records difficult to sort. There are few available birth and death records and other records may be difficult to locate or non-existent. Learn effective strategies for researching that difficult early Kentucky or Virginia family.

As genealogical interest continues to grow, new sources become available, new tools are published and new approaches are developed. Successful research demands keeping up to date, especially for a state as complex as New York. From colonial to 20th century, both online and print only, these new tools can supercharge your stagnant New York research problems!