Locating and using former slave owners’ bible records can reveal slave families as well as their birth, ages and deaths. These records are valuable and can predate statewide vital statistic records. In addition, these records can show enslaved persons were listed with their enslaved families.

Montana has 56 counties, and there’s a plethora of sources available across this 4th largest state. You’ll get a quick tour of Montana genealogy treasures online. Also, a tour of Montana sites and their specific genealogy databases available from archives and local history societies, along with a site-specific guide telling of the latest archives, museums, libraries and historical/genealogical societies open to aid in your search for ancestors, and ghost towns and mining camps, too! We’ll experience historical Montana maps available online, learn how to plan a specific trip to maximize the archives and local historical sites where other records (taxes, poll taxes, road taxes, poor taxes, boulevard districts, real estate additions, types of directories available per area, etc.), and note the specific genealogy and history societies/museums available to provide local helps. You’ll have access to a 30+ page (online) of the resources and references noted in the presentation.

Learn about the different types of census records and substitutes that can place your ancestors in New Spain or Mexico. This class will discuss why the records were created, where to find them, and what type of information they contain.

Government Policy in Australia, particularly from Federation until the 1980s, meant that many Australians with indigenous roots have lost connection with family and community. Between adoption, state foster care, missions, hiding ethnicity, and relocation, it is often difficult to know where to start and haw to analyse records. This webinar will present how to start your research, looking at repositories, institutions, and community records that will assist, both indigenous specific and general, in compiling a genealogy or family history.

After the end of the Civil War in 1865, African Americans began leaving the areas where they had been enslaved. Many went to North to larger towns where work was more plentiful. But less discussed is that a number went West to farm, using the Homestead Act of 1862 to claim land of their own. Other settled in and helped develop some all-Black towns in Kansas and Oklahoma. Still others headed to the Pacific Coast for work. What can we find out about these settlers’ lives? Where can we find records?

Alberta is unique among the 10 Canadian provinces. It was the last of the three Prairie provinces to be opened to homesteading, which meant land in that province was available just as quality homesteading land dried up in the United States. That brought a rush from south of the border, and the American influence is still felt today. There has been another mass influx of people eager to work in the energy industry. Many of the key sources used in researching your ancestors or cousins in Alberta are also unique, so local knowledge is essential. This session identifies those sources for you, and will help you get results in your searches.

The 46th state has a much longer history and more available records than most people realize. You may have discovered a possible link to Oklahoma, a Choctaw word meaning “red people.” Or perhaps you want to search for an elusive ancestor who may have hidden in Indian Territory or Oklahoma Territory, the “Twin Territories” that combined to become Oklahoma. This introduction to Oklahoma genealogical research will highlight the unique records that were created due to our unusual and exciting history.

Sharon Batiste Gillins a descendant of enslaved ancestors and Cheri Hudson Passey a descendant of enslavers share how to overcome emotions and other obstacles to work together to connect families.

Changes in Britain post the 1776 War of Independence, along with Capt James Cook’s mapping of New Zealand (1769) and New South Wales (1770), led to convicts and marines being sent to Botany Bay in 1787. So began British migration to the Southern Seas. Factors driving various waves of migration (economic, political, family ties, adventure) will be discussed, along with the effects the British Diasporas had on the Aboriginal and Māori Communities and their environment. Tips on tracing those missing down-under branches of your tree will also be covered.