Educating yourself to break down the Brick Walls- 3 Area Genealogy Societies

One of the areas that I see the newer genealogist not participating in is the local chapter meetings of genealogical societies in their area. These clubs offer wonderful learning situations normally held once a month. Participating in them will help you accelerate your genealogy journey.

Local chapter meetings are beneficial due to the speakers they have come into speak once a month and the ability to meet with other like minded individuals that can help you with your research. Even if your family does not come from the area you live in you still have so much to gain from joining the local group. The speakers tend to cover a wide variety of topics that will help you with your current research as well as challenges you might have moving forward. Group members tend to have a wide variety of experience levels that can benefit you with your own research. Sharing with others is the key to getting your help on your own research. Members tend to be more than willing to share their knowledge. Having a second set of ears hear your challenges can be very helpful to your search.

Many groups maintain a newsletter and some form of internet presence. These can help you with again learning new skills and sharing with others. Joining the group that is located in the area where the majority of your family lived will also prove helpful in your search. As time moves forward even groups that are not in your local area are conducting their meetings over the Internet so people that are not able to physically attend meetings can participate. This is so important.

Another valuable mission of most groups is cemetery or transcription projects. Without this valuable service the genealogy community as a whole will not continue to grow with new sources. Make sure to be a part of this.

So go out there and find your local genealogy group. Attend some meetings. Make sure to be open to sharing. You will gain so much from participating in the group.

Please share your thoughts and ideas.

Educating yourself to break down the Brick Walls- 2

This will be my second installment of using learning to break down your Brick Walls that you face in your genealogy research. Another great way to learn and educate yourself on problems you are having with your genealogy is online seminars. Many venues for this type of thing are offered.

Two that I have participated in are put on by Ancestry and Legacy. Go to either one of these websites for times and schedule of upcoming programs. The advantage to this type of format is that you can ask questions either during the presentation or upon completion. I have been in some of these programs and there has been hundreds of people. This allows you to learn from the speaker and the participants in the presentation.

Many genealogy groups are starting to offer online presentations. APG, Southern California Genealogical Society and Rootstech are just a few that come to mind. Watching live is not only exciting, but very informational.

As always please comment with thoughts and ideas. Tomorrow I will write about attending area genealogical meetings and their benefits.

Educating yourself to break down the Brick Walls.

As genealogist we will all come to some point in our family search that we hit a brick wall. The key to resolving it is educating yourself on the subject that is stopping you. Luckily in this day and age there are several areas on the Internet and offline that can help you in your search. Over the next couple of days I am going to write about some items that will help you.

Videos are all over the internet to help us with understanding the various aspects of genealogy research. You can learn from A to Z on almost every subject. Start out with identifying subjects that will you need help breaking your genealogy breaking your brick wall down on. Example would be what does the death record really tell me? What information on this record am I missing that may be a clue?

There are two great sources on the Internet to watch videos that will help educate you better on subjects that we need to learn more about. I have had many moments in my research when I educate myself that the solution to the Brick Wall becomes very clear. The first website you can take a look at would be www.familysearch.org. Here you can learn information by very knowledgeable presenters on a variety of subjects. The second site I like to go to is You Tube. Sure this site has videos on cute animals and the next big thing, but it also has videos on genealogy.

Try these sites out and let me know what you learn. Tomorrow I will speak on the subject of online seminars.

New beginning

Well it has been a big transition over the last thirteen months. Genealogy has given me joys and many challenges.

Work part has been slow at best. Except for one very large research project. Continuing to learn how to attract new clients has been a give and take. I continue to use Social as a large component. My website does better at attracting spam than it does clients. Will need to continue to work on this part of my business.

Speaking has been good, but will always be a small part of my mission. Continue to speak in both Michigan and Ohio for various genealogy groups. My teaching has screeched to a halt due to lack of interest. I will not be teaching coming up here in the fall.

As I move forward need to evaluate my direction and make changes. Starting my blog back up is part of my rethinking.

As always love to hear your comments.