In the summer of 2023 American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society announced the collaborative 10 Million Names project, an undertaking to recover the names of people of African descent who were enslaved in the area of the United States. This monumental task of centralizing datasets about African Americans is likely to take years to accomplish; in the interim, this webinar provides a useful survey of the many existing databases that serve a similar purpose though limited in scope.

If you’re researching your roots in Norway, these resources are a fantastic place to start: National Archives of Norway, National Library of Norway, MyHeritage and Genealogy Society of Norway. In this session, Vidar Øverlie will help you explore these essential resources.

Learn how DNA reconnected a family living on two continents (North America and Australia), and how the Underground Railroad, the Freedmen’s Bureau, a legal battle within the slaveholding family, and Broadway musicals became central threads to their dynamic story.

Many 19th- and early 20th-century German language newspapers were printed in a Fraktur font. And not only that, they were written in a foreign language! This combination of an archaic font and a foreign language creates two significant hurdles for the 21st century genealogist, perhaps with limited foreign language skills, to overcome. But don’t despair. Modern technology has provided solutions. Learn how to “crack the code” and discover where your favorite newspaper sites have hidden the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) text. Translation tools will quickly make those foreign words readable for even the most die-hard English-only speaker.

Our ancestors were people, just like us. They were born, they lived, they died, they laughed, they cried, and they fell in love – or should that be luff…? Join people-finding wizard and genealogist Kirsty Gray on a journey through her one place study about the small Devon parishes of Luffincott and Tetcott; learn about the history of these villages, their inhabitants and their challenges, as Kirsty talks you through the trials and triumphs of conducting a one place study. This exploration of the past of a remote and rural part of Devon is sure to providing a fascinating window into the past and be a great example of the benefits conducting a one place study can bring.

Birmingham was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution and the world’s first manufacturing town. This talk will equip you to start your research on your Birmingham ancestors. Learn about the challenges of researching in Birmingham and discover the key archives and sources for genealogical records. Find out how key themes in the city’s history, such as migration, strong Roman Catholic and non-conformist traditions, and the rise of manufacturing, are reflected in genealogical records. Sources covered include legal and ecclesiastical archives, local government, business, institutions, societies and schools. Investigate where else you can get help for researching here such as the Family History Society. Note that the talk assumes you have already watched ‘Introduction to County Research in England’.

This lecture will discuss how to get started in African American research. The objective of this presentation will be to research African Americans before the Civil War – either as an enslaved or free person. It will introduce Antebellum Era records such as: newspapers, slave schedules, church records, tax records, free people of color registers, plantation records, and probate records. It will also cover methodology for enslaved research.

Looking for your ancestors Down Under? Aussie genealogist Shauna Hicks will show you how to use MyHeritage to access a vast array of resources and make new discoveries about your ancestors from Australia.

You loved her last webinar on this topic and requested six more! In this webinar, Janice will introduce you to her next favourite online sources for Ontario family history.