Are you not able to attend RootsTech this year and wishing you could?  Now you can!  RootsTech organizers have announced they will be broadcasting LIVE presentations for you to view from home … FREE! Here’s the schedule: Thursday, Feb 2: 8:30-10:00 am: Inventing the Future, as a Community (Keynote Address) by Jay L. Verkler 11:00 [...]

This year’s Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy has come to an end.  Good thing because we have learned a lot and need time to implement it, plus we are all very tired. Highlights: Christy Fillerup and the UGA/SLIG team produced a smashingly successful institute.  If there were any snags, I never noticed them.  I was [...]

This past week has been a whirlwind of genealogy education.  I’ll give you a recap of the highlights on Monday.  In the meantime, I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat to hear the lineup for next year’s Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, so … drum roll … American Research and Records: Focus on [...]

This morning Thomas Jones led us through last night’s homework assignment. Rick Sayre discussed “Rural and Urban Map Strategies: Analysis, Interpretation, and Correlation.” He talked about how to critically evaluate a map and correlate it with other information.  David Rumsey’s site has 29,000 maps online deliberately selected and scanned for use.  To use DeedMapper, we [...]

Are you tired yet?  I AM!  I was up ‘til 12:30 AM last night working on my homework, but I got the right answer!  We were supposed to determine a man’s father, and there were at least five or six possible men that had to be considered and eliminated before one man was left standing.  [...]

Day three of Thomas W. Jones’ Advanced Genealogical Methods course:  Today we spent time mastering how to transcribe, abstract, extract, quote, and document sources.  We also studied how law may be used in complex genealogical problems, and the differences between Canon and Church law,  Civil law, Common Law, and Statute law!  (I remember now why [...]

This morning in Thomas Jones’ Advanced Methodology course he counseled us that the most important things we can do as genealogists is (1) record the oral family history stories in our family and distribute that record to others, and (2) contribute our DNA.   Then, he drilled deeper into source and evidence analysis.  Here’s some key [...]

This morning we met at 7:00 AM for SLIG’s Welcome Breakfast.  (As I write this now in the evening at it seems so long ago!)  I sat at a table with Paula Stuart-Warren, Craig Scott, Thomas Jones, Joshua Taylor, Linda Woodward Geiger, and a few others.  They are faculty this week!  I felt I was in [...]

Last night I checked in at the Radisson Hotel in Salt Lake City, dropped my luggage in my room, and headed to the SLIG check in.  Christy Fillerup, Director, has done a fantastic job pulling this institute together.  The check in went so seamless, everyone that had arrived had picked up their materials within the [...]

I’m sure you caught it on the news:  A Costa cruise ship captain sailed too close to the Italian shore, the ship grounded, quickly took on water,  and listed to the side as it began to sink.  Four thousand passengers on board were told to abandon ship.  In the midst of all the confusion, when [...]