BCG

Research reports are not just for professionals, but are a great tool for anyone who wants to answer their research questions. Write a research report to yourself to organize your thoughts, analyze the evidence, document your findings, and solve your puzzles. Using an example from the Netherlands, this presentation demonstrates how you can organize a research report to spot more clues in records, discover and resolve discrepancies, and build reliable conclusions.

Is it logical that a woman born in 1752 gave birth to a son in 1848? Do I have enough evidence to conclude that Johan Kannon of Trondheim, Norway, was the same person as John Connell from Cut-and-Shoot, Texas? Why do I share 300 cM of DNA with three people I’ve never heard of? Genealogists make hundreds of decisions everyday based on thousands of pieces of information harvested from various sources. We automatically, and often unconsciously, use common sense, logic, and even intuition, to identify relevant evidence, problem-solve, and answer complex questions. Learning to harness the power of logic, syllogism, and our own “Spidey-senses,” can help scale brick-walls, solve DNA mysteries, and organize mountains of information. This talk focuses on how to incorporate logic, common sense, and critical thinking in a more deliberate way to create hypotheses, test theories, and support conclusions. Johnson will share exercises that can bulk up logic and critical thought muscles, as well as practical tips on how to apply common sense and sensibility to your family history research and writing.

Using several families that were enslaved on the same plantation as case studies, this presentation will demonstrate research that meets the Genealogical Proof Standard. Examples of reasonably exhaustive research, evidence analysis, correlation, and resolving conflicts will be presented. This class is presented live at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City as part of the Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series and is being broadcasted by Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

Genealogical research often presents conflicting information across records. This presentation will focus on four practical strategies for effectively resolving such conflicts. Using two case studies as examples, attendees will learn to identify conflicting information, search for additional records, assess the reliability of each source, and correlate information from various sources. The importance of documenting the rationale for conflict resolution will also be emphasized. This class is presented live at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City as part of the Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series and is being broadcasted by Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

The standards are not just for measuring our abilities, they are working tools to help us advance our research opportunities. This lecture will use case study examples to show how Standard 40, Evidence Mining, and Standards 12, 60, 64, 73, and 74 relating to context lead to more effective research methodology and success in our research goals. This class is presented live at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City as part of the Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series and is being broadcasted by Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

This case study demonstrates reasonably exhaustive and whole-family research linking three generations of the Burkhart family. Successive generations lived in Maryland, Ohio, and Missouri. Missing or unavailable church, vital, and census records veil relationships. This story begins in eighteenth century Maryland and ends in the late nineteenth century in Missouri. Through the years, probate, court, and land records connect people to their families of origin. This class is presented live at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City as part of the Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series and is being broadcasted by Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

We all accumulate family data and perhaps organize it into pedigree charts and family group sheets. By looking at the data differently and giving it a new “twist,” we can see patterns and holes emerge. Lineage applications may point out weaknesses in our proof of descent from a certain ancestor. By writing the family narrative, whether for a book or a short article for a newsletter, new questions requiring further research are made evident. Even formulating a query for an Internet list will cause us to take a new look at our data. By sifting through old data collected years ago with our more mature genealogical eyes we can see things and relationships we would not have recognized earlier. Placing our ancestors in history through timelines can point out reasons why the records are in the jurisdictions they are found and give suggestions on where to look further. Using land platting techniques will point out relationships previously hidden from the casual observer. Many ideas are presented to help the attendee think about how the data they have already accumulated may give the next clue to continued successful results. This class is presented live at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City as part of the Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series and is being broadcasted by Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

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.

Family tradition holds that John H. Hickey of Rockton, Winnebago County, Illinois, disappeared. This case study proves John “disappeared” and establishes the missing man’s fate. A patchwork of records allowed a glimpse into the life of a person thought dead.

Oral genealogies celebrate ancestral connections in indigenous cultures across Asia-Pacific. As one paramount chief in Samoa declared, “The most important thing for children to understand is their family connections. The knowledge of history is their treasure—not gold and silver, but genealogy.” Learn about the significance and richness of oral genealogies and current efforts to preserve them in Asia and the Pacific.

Genealogists write. Their written narratives include stories of ancestral families, biographies of individual ancestors, and explanations supporting genealogical proofs. For their writing to succeed, genealogists—like all effective writers—repeatedly self-edit everything they write. The process results in polished products that the genealogist’s readers will understand, enjoy, and cherish. Emphasizing genealogical narrative, these two webinars will address the self-editing process. Part 1 will focus on “big-picture” editing, including stages of self-editing; focus; keeping the writer out of the narrative; editing the writing’s overall structure, organization, and flow; and improving major and minor subdivisions of written genealogical narratives, including paragraphing. Part 2 will focus on “nitty-gritty” editing, including capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, spelling, word choice, and reducing word count.

Genealogists write. Their written narratives include stories of ancestral families, biographies of individual ancestors, and explanations supporting genealogical proofs. For their writing to succeed, genealogists—like all effective writers—repeatedly self-edit everything they write. The process results in polished products that the genealogist’s readers will understand, enjoy, and cherish. Emphasizing genealogical narrative, these two webinars will addresses the self-editing process. Part 1 will focus on “big-picture” editing, including stages of self-editing; focus; keeping the writer out of the narrative; editing the writing’s overall structure, organization, and flow; and improving major and minor subdivisions of written genealogical narratives, including paragraphing. Part 2 will focus on “nitty-gritty” editing, including capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, spelling, word choice, and reducing word count.