Building a Research Toolbox

Are you sitting on a pile of old family photographs and wondering what is the best way to preserve them? What about boxes of family vacation slides, photo negatives or home movies? As more and more Baby Boomers take on the task of organizing family history materials, we’re uncertain about…

While AI (artificial intelligence) might be the current “hot” buzz word, the fact is that many genealogy vendors and even genealogists have already been using this technology for years. The AI industry is at a cross-roads and within the next five years, it will permeate almost every aspect of business and society. Learn how AI is currently being used to improve the genealogy experience, and whether or not you should seek out other uses of artificial intelligence for your own genealogy research.

More and more genealogy apps and websites, like MyHeritage, 23andMe, and Ancestry, are moving to Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) to prevent account hacking and secure user privacy. Some sites like 23andMe and MyHeritage utilize the Google Authenticator App in order to manage your 2FA account and generate the 6-digit code to gain access to your account. You’ll learn how the Two Factor Authentication concept works and see how you can enable it on your accounts to protect your privacy and data.

Imagine you are trapped in an archive and the only way out is to solve a series of genealogy research puzzles. Are you up to the challenge? Are you ready for Genealogy Escape Room™? Based on the popular escape room concept, Genealogy Escape Room™ turns the typical webinar format upside down! Each registrant will receive a Case Review File used to solve a series of online research tasks BEFORE the live webinar takes place. The webinar is the “reveal” where a step-by-step review of each puzzle, task, and clue all the way to the final “key” to open the door. Genealogy methodology concepts will be summarized before announcing who escaped first! The Case of Frank Woodhull: The Only Name Change at Ellis Island. You may have heard in a family story that a family’s surname or even a person’s given name was changed upon arrival in the United States at Ellis Island. This “urban legend” has been discussed and debunked for decades in the genealogy community. Since an immigrant’s name MUST match the ship’s manifesto, most name changes took place AFTER the person was successfully admitted. The change could have been done simply by adopting a new name or by selecting a new name during the citizenship process. But … there is ONE case of a name change of an immigrant at Ellis Island and that person is Frank Woodhull who arrived at New York City on October 4th, 1908. Follow an amazing research journey with twists and turns and you’ll find out how Woodhull lived under an assumed name in the United States for almost 15 years before his fateful return to the US from a holiday in England.

By now you’ve all heard about 3-2-1 computer backup. Having three copies of your data makes sense, but this relies on knowing where your data is in the first place. Is everything on your computer? What about the external drive in the closet? Or the SD cards in the drawer? Is some of your data in a cloud application, and what happens to that data if you forget to pay the subscription? I call this problem “Data Scatter” and it is the enemy of the 3-2-1 backup model. It’s hard to back up all your data if the primary copies are scattered everywhere. Let’s walk through the problem and we’ll propose a few things you can do to reign in your data and give the 3-2-1 backup model a fighting chance.

It isn’t always easy to determine new content that has been added to Google, especially if you are on the hunt for information posted by others about your ancestors. Learn how to harness the power of Google Alerts and get notified via e-mail or RSS feed when anything new pops up on Google that can help your genealogy research. This was part of the webinar, Celebrating 2,000 webinars! Plus 10 tips you can use today.

Trivia contests seem to be all the rage now. But if you were ever a fan of the television show Jeopardy or the game Trivial Pursuit, here’s a way to test your genealogy knowledge. With genealogy expert Thomas MacEntee as presenter, you can participate in a fun, fast paced, and educational genealogy trivia game. Every participant will receive a handout at the END of the adventure complete with genealogy trivia questions and answers!

Having trouble getting SOLID and TRUSTWORTHY advice about genealogy technology? Need to purchase a new scanner, printer, or external hard-drive? Do you need more information before you move to “The Cloud” or even a VPN? Join genealogy author and educator Thomas MacEntee as he answers YOUR QUESTIONS in this LIVE…

Can a mysterious family photo with a cryptic message on the back lead you to an amazing story of love and loss? Starting with a family photo, learn how you can plan your genealogy research to find out more information about the photo’s subject including vital record information, newspaper articles, and even circumstances that you might not expect! You’ll also learn how to track your research and use solid research methodology to evaluate records.