Visualizing Information for Genealogists

Why did your Italian ancestor have five cousins all named Joe? Why did married women travel under their maiden names? Was Sally really Serafina? This presentation explores the factors that pushed and pulled Italians to emigrate, what they found when they arrived, Italian naming patterns and name changes, and how to start your search. Knowing what their life was like in Italy helps us to understand their choices and behavior when they emigrated: why they were slow to naturalize, why the family was the most important institution, and why food was a source of celebration.

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.

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.

As researchers, family historians, compilers, bloggers, or writers of other ilk, genealogists face legal and ethical perils they often do not anticipate. This crash course offers practical guidance to enhance your skills and keep you safe as you explore history, reconstruct lives, and “write up” your findings. While the issues are serious—from the legal issue of copyright to the ethical issue of plagiarism—the lessons are taught with a light heart and humor.

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.

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.