He Had a Brother Who Disappeared: Finding John H. Hickey, Formerly of Rockton, Winnebago County, Illinois

Yvette Hoitink, MLitt, CG, QG

Dear Me: Writing Research Reports to Yourself

1.5K views

Dear Me: Writing Research Reports to Yourself

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.

Yvette Hoitink, MLitt, CG, QG

Dear Me: Writing Research Reports to Yourself

1.5K views

Tue, November 19 2024: 19:00 UTC

1:13:06

Sense and Sensibility: The Power of Logic, Intuition, and Critical Thinking

Robbie Johnson, CG

1.0K views

Sense and Sensibility: The Power of Logic, Intuition, and Critical Thinking

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.

LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG...

Sense and Sensibility: The Power of Logic, Intuition, and Critical Thinking

Robbie Johnson, CG

1.0K views

Wed, October 16 2024: 0:00 UTC

1:11:40

Places and EthnicitiesBCGMethodology and Skills

A Myriad of Slave Databases

924 views

A Myriad of Slave Databases

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.

Places and EthnicitiesBCGMethodology and Skills

A Myriad of Slave Databases

LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG, CGL, FASG

924 views

Wed, September 18 2024: 0:00 UTC

1:06:01

David S. Ouimette, CG, CGL

Oral Genealogy in Asia-Pacific: The Essence of Personal Identity and Tribal Connections

145 views

Oral Genealogy in Asia-Pacific: The Essence of Personal Identity and Tribal Connections

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.

David S. Ouimette, CG, CGL

Oral Genealogy in Asia-Pacific: The Essence of Personal Identity and Tribal Connections

145 views

Wed, July 17 2024: 0:00 UTC

1:24:18

Editing Your Own Work – Part 2

1.3K views

Editing Your Own Work – Part 2

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.

Editing Your Own Work – Part 2

1.3K views

Wed, June 19 2024: 0:00 UTC

1:27:11

Editing Your Own Work – Part 1

2.0K views

Editing Your Own Work – Part 1

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.

Editing Your Own Work – Part 1

2.0K views

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.

Wed, May 22 2024: 0:00 UTC

1:13:08

French Emigrants: They Were Not All Huguenots, or Nobles, or from Alsace-Lorraine

Anne Morddel, CG

626 views

French Emigrants: They Were Not All Huguenots, or Nobles, or from Alsace-Lorraine

One of the great difficulties for people researching their French immigrant ancestors’ roots is that so little is known outside of France about when and why the French left their country. This dearth of knowledge has led many family historians of the 19th century to presume Huguenot, noble émigré or Alsace-Lorraine ancestry for any ancestor with a French name. The supposition became a family legend that then became a research frustration as more recent family historians attempt to prove what was never more than a misguided supposition. This webinar looks at the many waves of French migration, as well as the three mentioned in the title, from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The historical reasons for when, why and to where they emigrated will provide the key points to bear in mind when conducting research. The bibliography, in English and French, contains not only books and articles concerning French emigration but a list of websites to aid the researcher.

French Emigrants: They Were Not All Huguenots, or Nobles, or from Alsace-Lorraine

Anne Morddel, CG

626 views

Tue, April 16 2024: 16:00 UTC

1:11:43

Maternal Threads Unwoven: Identifying Margareta’s Mother in 18th Century Sweden

Jill Morelli, CG, CGL

768 views

Maternal Threads Unwoven: Identifying Margareta’s Mother in 18th Century Sweden

In spite of birth entries for Margareta's five siblings in Hishult, there was no record of her birth in the parish. Tax records quickly identified the father, and revealed multiple moves within a narrow span of time; however, identification of the mother remained elusive. No witnesses to births of the children provided clues; no household examinations existed. Coupling the understanding of broad context (naming patterns, inheritance laws, the calendar shift, etc.) with mtDNA and documentary evidence, the mother was identified and the lack of a records was explained.