Event Series Focus on North Carolina Part 1 – Weeknights

Focus on North Carolina: NO Longer a Rip Van Winkle State When it Comes to Internet Resources for Genealogists!!!

In the 19th century, NC was considered backward and slow to modernize – hence the reference to Rip Van Winkle. Well, in the last 20 years, NC has been at the forefront of making material FREELY available to researchers via numerous online platforms. Yes, you can do much NC research at home in your jammies. Whether planning an in-person visit or determining record availability and access, this talk has you covered. We explore the myriad web-based resources created by North Carolina institutions (state-level, county-level, regional, and university, as well as other repository types) and available to genealogists for FREE. The talk will share a vast array of online resources available to you at your fingertips to help you pursue North Carolinian ancestors!

$25.00 – $85.00

In Her Own Words – Lives of Women Through Diaries, Journals, Correspondence and So Much More (Women)

Women are traditionally challenging to document in historical public records due to a lack of independent assets and rights. Personally written diaries, journals, correspondence, and more can help fill in gaps about female ancestors. This talk goes well past journals and diaries as “women” had voices in myriad ways, including the clubs and organizations they participated in, the annotations they made on common household items like calendars and cookbooks, or even their submissions to the state fair. There are many ways that women “spoke” throughout history. In contrast to males, we must look at different kinds of records to find our female ancestors' “own words.” We’ll explore almost 20 records where women ARE documented in the 18th-20th centuries.

$25.00

How Do You Find Birth, Marriage, and Death Details Before Government Records? Challenging and Elusive, But Not Impossible to Find! (Records)

Important records for our research are acquiring birth, marriage, and death certificates as they include many juicy details of names, dates, places, and family relationships. What happens, though, when our ancestors are born before the government starts keeping these records (e.g., North Carolina didn’t begin birth & death registration until 1913 with a bump in compliance in 1936 due to Social Security starting but no full compliance till maybe as late as WWII)? Wow – that is a lot of ancestors for whom we won’t find official records of birth, marriage, or death for. This means we must seek alternative records to document these important vital records. We’ll explore some obvious and many less obvious places where we might find the details we seek.

$25.00

Get Lost in Ledgers – The Unique Looking Glass into Our Ancestor’s Lives (Records)

Small business/organization ledgers document everyday business transactions that involve our families. This webinar focuses on the many kinds of ledgers created by the types of businesses found in every small town or county where your ancestors lived in the 18th through early 20th century. The talk will highlight where we can locate these ledgers and what we can learn from them. Ledgers place individuals and families in space and time, sometimes give relationship information, document women & children, employees, enslaved, Free Persons of Color (FPOC), etc. You might learn about your ancestors' shoe size, what type of dresses, hats, and formal clothing they wore, what illnesses they were treated for, what newspapers they read, and more. We will explore ledgers from a diverse range of businesses. What are you waiting for? Do not assume that ledgers don’t survive for your ancestor’s community or that your ancestors will not be listed!

$25.00

In Her Own Words – Lives of Women Through Diaries, Journals, Correspondence and So Much More (Women)

Women are traditionally challenging to document in historical public records due to a lack of independent assets and rights. Personally written diaries, journals, correspondence, and more can help fill in gaps about female ancestors. This talk goes well past journals and diaries as “women” had voices in myriad ways, including the clubs and organizations they participated in, the annotations they made on common household items like calendars and cookbooks, or even their submissions to the state fair. There are many ways that women “spoke” throughout history. In contrast to males, we must look at different kinds of records to find our female ancestors' “own words.” We’ll explore almost 20 records where women ARE documented in the 18th-20th centuries.

$25.00

Death Records by a Different Name (General)

We’ll explore almost 30 different places where we might find documentation of death. We are not talking about obituaries, cemetery & probate records, death certificates, or the usual records. We are discussing discovering evidence of your ancestors’ death via ledgers (several kinds), and records created by burial societies, poor records, funeral homes, and much more.

$25.00

Crowdsource Projects Around the World Benefit Genealogists (Techniques)

Even before the pandemic, we started to see a plethora of “crowdsourced” projects focused on indexing records that benefit genealogists. Crowdsourcing is based on “many hands make light work.” Learn about the many places where you can discover what is being transcribed, access that material, and possibly help make these records available to genealogists. The talk includes a quick survey of some of the larger crowdsourced platforms (e.g., From the Page) and some currently active projects that genealogists can definitely leverage.

$25.00

More Than Just Mail: Post Office Records and the Insights They Provide Into Our Ancestors Reading Habits and Life (Records)

Post offices aren’t just about employees or even the mail. Most of us receive our newspapers and magazines mailed directly from the publisher or purchased in a store. That wasn’t how it used to be - there was no rural door-to-door delivery before the turn of the 20th century!!! Who handled subscriptions for reading material? They were handled by the postmaster at the post office! Wouldn’t you like to see great-great-grandpa’s subscription list? Some of these subscription lists DO survive and can provide insights about a person, including religious and/or political leanings, hobbies, news interests, and much more. We’ll also talk about other post office records that tell us who our ancestors purchased from, sent mail orders to, and more! Information often found nowhere else!

$25.00

Women in Ledgers (Women)

Frequently, women are not as well documented in government records, so surviving small business ledgers of stores, physicians, lawyers, blacksmiths, and more provide us invaluable details about our female ancestors, their purchases, and their FAN club – minutiae found nowhere else! This information helps us fill in the gaps in their lives and that of their household and often leads to other discoveries. Learn all about ledgers – why they exist, how to interpret them, and where to find them. Then, enjoy the many examples of ledger types, their entries, and how women are included!

$25.00

50 Overlooked & Underutilized Genealogy Gem Websites in 50 Minutes

Many valuable and overlooked databases don't make headline news. They are usually hiding in plain sight. Every day, new ones are being created. Many are not genealogically focused and are genealogically leverageable. All can be explored from the comfort of your home 24/7. Most are FREE. Let's explore 50 juicy gems from around the world covering a range of topics from African American to Archivist/Scholar to US (broad and narrowly focused) to the UK and so much more – you will make NEW discoveries. Many of these are my “go-to” websites, a part of my genealogy research toolkit, which I regularly use.

$25.00

Extra! Extra! Read All About Your Ancestors in Newspapers

Newspapers bring so much color to the lives of our ancestors. Daily-life details are revealed in newspapers and not often found elsewhere unless private correspondence or a diary survives. An explosion of newspaper platforms and digitized issues has occurred, and COVID-19 helped accelerate new and old newspaper digitization projects. We’ll cover oldies but goodies to brand new projects worldwide! The focus is online access and FREE!

$25.00