Des Piles aux Dossiers : Organisez votre Généalogie

Years of research can generate many documents. To keep track of all your valuable information, a workable organization plan is a must. Can you find the documents you have? When you receive a new document, do you know exactly where you’re going to put it so that you will find it easily? The lecture will discuss organization methods for paper and digital files.

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.

Finding your immigrant ancestor’s town of origin is an essential piece of information. With it, the family line can be extended across the ocean. Trips to visit the homeland may be planned. Have you spent years searching for this elusive piece of information? This lecture uses mini case studies to demonstrate strategies for finding a village of origin.

Henry Steren was a German immigrant who lived in Quincy, Illinois. The United States records that were created about him indicate only that he was from the Province of Hanover in Germany. This lecture will detail how his town of origin and parents were identified, in spite of the lack of records naming him. Carefully researching each of his associates and correlating all available evidence reveals the origins of Henry. Use of the Genealogical Proof Standard is demonstrated. Complicating factors in this case are 1) very few records available for the person in question, 2) multiple people with the same given and last names, Steren is often confused with the common surname Stern.

Germans began immigrating to the United States in 1683, according to documented history. This talk will highlight significant aspects of the first four major waves of migration, through 1910. The areas from which they came and motivations that typified each wave will be detailed. Available immigration and emigration records help tell the immigrant’s story. Laws changed over time and impacted various aspects of the immigration experience.

Military records for Germany are an underutilized resource. Because there was no unified Germany prior to 1871, one must search for records under prior jurisdictions. Many records have not survived. This talk will walk through the steps of finding the records that do exist. It will highlight military records available for the former Kingdom of Hanover, which claims a rich collection.

German archives hold many records valuable for expanding our genealogical research. Church records not available digitally may be waiting in archives. State and local archives may contain emigration, court, tax, and other records to fill in our ancestor’s story. This webinar will explain how to find relevant archives and discover…

Germany does not have large subscription-based websites for accessing newspapers for genealogical research. In spite of that fact, there are thousands of digitized German newspapers available online. Many of them are free. Learn where they are and how to access them.

Meyer’s Gazetteer is great for determining jurisdictions as of 1912. Germany was not a country until 1871. In the centuries leading up to that, land areas were constantly changing hands. One must understand who controlled a given area in order to find all possible records. Topics included in this...