4 Ways To Find A Genealogical Society

There are many reasons to join a local genealogical society. Societies have knowledgeable members and sponsor educational events. Even if you do not have ancestors who lived in your current location, you may find members researching those locations. Finding people who share your interest in genealogy can be very energizing!

But, have you considered contacting or joining a society in a location where your ancestors lived? The society may have useful resources or participate in projects that could benefit your research. There may be experts in the society to help you with local research.

 

1. The Federation of Genealogical Societies 

The FGS maintains a list of member societies. You can search by name or use the dropdown box to select your state.

 

 

2. Search the listing at D’addezio.com

D’addezio.com hosts a Directory of Historical Societies in the United States, Canada and Australia. These listings include genealogical societies.

Click on the link for your state of interest to see a list of genealogical and historical societies. Many of the listings just show mailing addresses, so you may have to Google the name to look for an online presence.

 

 

3. Use Google to find a society.

Use search terms that include your state or city and genealogical society
Example:  maryland genealogical society
If the state has two words, use quotes around the state’s name:
“new york” genealogical society

 

4. Search Facebook For A Society
You use search terms on Facebook, just as you do in Google, to learn about societies.
Alternately, you can download the free list compiled by Katherine R. Willson from her Social Media Genealogy website. As of February 2017 this PDF has 308 pages with more than 10,600 links. Note, you will only find nonprofit organizations in this list.

Save

Save

RootsTech 2017 Videos and Syllabi

Rootstech 2017 has come and gone, but we can all still enjoy it!

Have you wanted to watch the videos and download the syllabi from RootsTech 2017? Whether or not you attended this year’s RootsTech, watching the videos is educational and the syllabi can be a great resource.

To watch the videos for each day of RootsTech, go to:

https://www.rootstech.org/videos-wed

https://www.rootstech.org/videos-thu

https://www.rootstech.org/videos-fri

https://www.rootstech.org/videos-sat

You can also switch between the days by using the menu in the upper right corner of the webpage.

(2016 videos can be found at: https://www.rootstech.org/videos.)

The syllabi are not posted on the RootsTech website; you will need to use an app to access them. The good news is that will stay available indefinitely on that app. The better news is that you can view the app on a webpage: http://app.core-apps.com/rootstech2017/

 

 

Click on Conference Schedule. From there, you can browse by Day or by Track.

 

 

After you select the way you want to view the sessions, you will see the lists of sessions.

Look at the star next to the title of the class. If there is a PDF icon to the right of the star, then the speaker did provide a syllabus for the class.

 

 

Click on the arrow to the right to view the information for the session and scroll to the bottom. At the bottom is a Resources section, you will see the “Handouts”. Click on the arrow next to Handouts to view the titles of the handouts.

 

 

Click on the title and the PDF opens up. You can read, print or save the handout (syllabus).

 

 

If there is more than one handout, use the browser’s back arrow to repeat the process, clicking on the second handout.

 

 

When I wrote to the folks at RootTech tech support, they responded that the handouts (syllabi) will be posted online soon. But you do not have to wait until they are!

Save

Save

Using MET Public Domain Artwork

Recently, the Metropolitan Museum of Art made than 375,000 of its public-domain artworks available online. The Met’s images include those of items that are not currently on display, which gives you a chance to look behind the scenes.

This is a great resource for people who enjoy art and history, scholars, and genealogists!

You can find the search page at: http://metmuseum.org/art/collection.

 

 

To limit your search to return only those results in the public domain, in the Show Only group, click the box for “Public Domain Artworks”.

 

 

When you view the results, there may be some that do not seem to be related to your search terms. Be sure to scroll down through the results. To scan through the results more quickly, you can choose to display a larger number of results per page.

 

 

Since I have been doing a lot of World War I research, I used the keywords: World War 1. That returned 5,964 results. It appeared that many of the results had the terms separately, such as world or war.
Searching for keywords: world war i returned 1,699 results. A number of these results were relevant to the First World War. There were several commercial color lithographs published by groups involved in the war effort, like the Red Cross and the Connecticut State Council of Defense.

 

 

Searching using the keywords and quotes around them “world war i” returned 84 results. Some were not related to the First World War.

I experimented using a numeral 1 instead of the letter i. “world war 1” returned 0 results.

Searching for keywords: WWI returned 17 results. One was lace shawl handmade by a member of the Royal Family in England that was donated to the British War Relief Committee during WWI.

Next, I tried searching for keywords: St Mihiel. Two of the results were related to St. Mihiel in WWI. Other St. Mihiel results included engravings and etchings from the opera and ballet.

 

 

To learn more about the website, check out http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/policies-and-documents/image-resources

To see all Open Access items, go to http://metmuseum.org/art/collection#!?showOnly=openaccess

Visit this website, and try out some searches for a topic you are researching. Remember to vary your search terms and try different combinations of words relating to your topic. Look for artwork that you can use about:

• A state you are researching
• A country or place you are researching
• An event you are researching

Good luck!

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Family History Outing: Laws Railroad Museum

The Laws Railroad Museum is located outside of Bishop, CA. Certainly, the museum is of great genealogical interest to researchers who had family in the railroads in the early 1900s, and for those who had family in the area. There is much to learn for those who had family in the gold industry.

 

 

But the displays in the Pioneer Building are unexpected in a railroad museum. One of the displays held a well preserved, well displayed, interesting set of military uniforms, equipment and memorabilia.

 

 

There was a selection of uniforms, equipment and memorabilia from multiple wars.

 

 

There was a display of memorabilia from the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR).

 

 

The WWI artifacts were from the 7th Regiment Michigan Calvary.

 

 

The WWI Soldier’s equipment was also included in the display.

 

 

The exhibit included a bag annotated with battle information and a victory medal.

 

 

Remember when you visit any regional museum to look for exhibits about the military.

 

Save

Save

National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair

Are you looking for an easy way to learn about using the National Archives? Would you like to know more about researching your genealogy at NARA?

The 2016 National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair has come and gone, but the videos have been posted on YouTube, and the handouts are still available. You can learn directly from NARA personnel in the videos and have the handouts for reference.

Check out the 2016 National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair webpage for the topics and links to the videos and handouts. You can follow the links on that page to watch presentations from both days on YouTube.

 

 

You can also download the handouts.

But wait…there’s more! You can access the videos and handouts for the 2015 Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair.

From that webpage you can follow the links to view the Sessions Videos and Handouts. This page also contains links to information about the 2013 and 2014 Virtual Genealogy Fairs.

So, check out the presentations and attend sessions from a NARA Virtual Genealogy Fair right in your own home!

Save

Save