Looking for a low budget option for expanding your genealogy skills?  Here are some of the best new finds in free online genealogy webinars for July/August 2017!  This month, there is a great assortment of programs with fantastic and knowledgeable speakers.

Here’s a quick summary of this month’s Best Bang for Your Buck picks:

• Her Name Wasn’t ‘Unknown’: Uncovering Female Ancestors presented by Gena Philibert-Ortega at the Sacramento Public Library
• Journey into German Genealogy with German Genealogy Translator Katherine Schober
• Understanding Naturalization for Genealogists presented by James Tanner and hosted online by BYU Family History Library
• Several great webinars posted by the Genealogical Society of Ireland

Honorable Mention

• Getting the Most Out of Online Genealogy Sources presented by Kim Smeenk and sponsored by the Washington State Library

Best of the Best Free Webinars: July/August 2017

Her Name Wasn’t ‘Unknown’: Uncovering Female Ancestors presented by Gena Philibert-Ortega at the Sacramento Public Library

Tracing female ancestors can be a difficult research goal, with women’s records and presence being more elusive than those of their male counterparts.  In this great program, Gena Philibert-Ortega introduces some great strategies and suggestions for tracking down the hidden half your family tree.

 

Journey into German Genealogy with German Genealogy Translator Katherine Schober

With a lack of robust German census records available to most researchers, it’s nice to take a look at alternative records.  Genealogy researcher and translator Katherine Schober has uploaded a fantastic video appropriate for beginning and intermediate genealogists online for free.  She’s a great presenter, and I hope she updates her YouTube page with more videos in the future!

 

Understanding Naturalization for Genealogists presented by James Tanner and hosted online by BYU Family History Library

In the United States, naturalization is a complex set of changing laws which have evolved over time.  Depending upon when your ancestor arrived in the country, it is important to keep track of the requirements and process of how immigrants became citizens, and well as where these records are housed.  Enter James Tanner.  I’m already a huge fan of the BYU Family History Library webinar series online, which has over 300 genealogy videos available for free to researchers.  When you’re finished unpuzzling your naturalization brickwalls, you’ll want to check out James Tanner’s other videos on Making the Most of Fold3, Tax Records for Genealogists, and The Ultimate Brick Wall Buster.

 

The Genealogical Society of Ireland has uploaded a new series of recorded programs which are available for free on YouTube.  The presenters and topics are excellent, and I would suggest watching each video with the Closed Captioning option turned on.  If you’re not familiar with Irish accents, the closed captioning option may be helpful to you.

Some of their videos include:

• OpenStreetMaps: Historical Geography Meets Genealogy with Brian Hollinshead
• The Story of Our DNA with Mike Mulligan from Ancestry.com
• Sources for Genealogical Research in the National Archives, Ireland with Tom Quinlan, Keeper, National Archives of Ireland

Honorable Mention

Getting the Most Out of Online Genealogy Sources presented by Kim Smeenk and sponsored by the Washington State Library

This is a great introduction webinar to genealogy research using library resources which are specific to Washington.  However, fast forward through the ‘how to access databases’ portion of the webinar, and there’s a treasure trove of tips, hints, and methodologies for using large databases such as Ancestry.com.  This is a great learning tool for MLIS students or librarians who want to help patrons with genealogy research online.

 

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See You At The Library!