Diana Elder, AG® Lecture Topics

Please contact me about speaking at your event – Diana@FamilyLocket.com

RootsTech 2020

 

PROFESSIONAL GENEALOGY

When to Hire a Professional Genealogist – A professional genealogist can help you brick down a brick wall in your genealogy by looking at the research with a new perspective. Learn what services professionals offer, how to identify a qualified researcher, and how best to prepare your research for a professional project.

Accreditation: A Pathway to Becoming a Better Researcher –  The process to become an Accredited Genealogy Professional through the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists will strengthen your skills in analysis and correlation of records, research planning, source citations, report writing, and more. Learn about the process and what you can do now to prepare.

RESEARCH STRATEGIES

Research Like a Pro Seminar

In this four-hour seminar, your group will be treated to four lectures teaching the Research Like a Pro process using case studies and examples. Although used by professionals to solve difficult cases, this step-by-step method is easily understood by any level of genealogist. The lectures cover the following information:

– Form an objective focusing your research for an entire project.

– Review your research with new eyes by creating a timeline and carefully analyzing the source, information, and evidence.

– Construct a locality guide to direct your research.

– Create a plan to keep your research on track.

– Style source citations, giving your work credibility.

– Set up a research log to organize and track your searches.

– Write a report detailing your findings and ideas for future research.

Burned Courthouses and Flooded Churches

When disaster strikes, and records are lost, how do you compensate? Learn strategies to deal with the loss, such as exploring alternate jurisdictions, studying the locality for additional repositories, and carefully analyzing any remaining records. We’ll discuss key research processes that help to focus, track, and correlate the research.

Caring for Your Family Tree: How to Prune and Graft In New Branches

Accepting hints without careful analysis can add incorrect people to your family. Learn how to analyze the relationships, dates, and places before adding a new source or person to your tree.

Jurisdictions Explained: Finding New Avenues of Research for Your Family

Exploring each level of record keeping for a locality can reveal additional records for a research subject. Learn about records on the town, city, county, state, regional, and federal levels and how to locate them.

Location, Location, Location: Putting Your Ancestors in Their Place

Locality research is key to making progress in genealogy research. Understanding the history, geography, records, and repositories for the research locality is the foundation for building a solid research plan and finding additional information about your ancestor.

Look at Your Family in a Whole New Way: With a Mind Map

Mind mapping can help to visualize a difficult research problem, such as men of the same name, multiple generations in a county, and more. Mind mapping can be done on paper, on a whiteboard, or with a computer program. Learn proven techniques to map your family history and make more discoveries.

Research Logs: The Key to Organizing Your Family History

Research logs are key in tracking negative and positive searches so you can make progress in your research. Learn about various types of logs, then follow a case study showing how the research log was key in solving the problem.

Research Planning for the Win: Next Steps for Breaking Down a Brick Wall

Fruitful research begins with a plan. Learn the steps and how to harness the power of thought before action.

Source Citations: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Documenting sources doesn’t have to be difficult. Learn what details need to be included in a source citation and how to deal with online sources and those in your personal files. 

Tracking a Migrating Ancestor Through Land and Tax Records

Connecting a migrating ancestor to his place of origin is a difficult task. Land and tax records can place an individual in a county in between census years, even if the location was temporary. Learning how to use these records can tell the rest of an ancestor’s story.

Using Evidence Analysis in a Timeline to Separate Individuals of the Same Name

Merged identities are a common problem in genealogy – especially in online trees. Arranging records in a timeline and careful evidence analysis of each record can separate identities and lead to new research opportunities. Learn about sources, information, and evidence and the power careful analysis has to find errors in research conclusions.

Where Did They Go? Migration Trails and Roads

Have you located the route your ancestors might have taken as they traveled to a new area? Could exploring migration open up new areas of research in your genealogy brick walls? Taking a look at the historical roads and trails that our ancestors possibly traveled can add to their story and help us understand more about their lives. It might even lead to more discoveries that could expand our knowledge of the family and extend our ancestry.

Write it Up: Tools of the Trade

The best way to understand and preserve your research findings is to write a report or proof summary. Learn a proven method for organizing your writing and discover how valuable it can be to put your research into words.

RECORDS

Finding Franklin in Census Records 

This beginner-level class is fun for youth and adults alike. Learn why the census was created and what interesting information about your family can be discovered. Learn how to search for census records then explore them to find fun facts about President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Discover tips and tricks, then try your hand at researching your own ancestors in the census records. This hands-on class will open your mind to the clues that census records can provide.

Clueing In To Census Records

Census records are the basis of United States research. Have you discovered all of the clues that can be found in each enumeration? Learn how to make the most of this valuable resource and find the information that will lead to you even more discoveries.

Finding Your Family in Probate records

Are you a bit intimidated by probate research? Have you located a will but neglected to find the “rest of the story?” With probate records being digitized by Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, chances are you have some exciting discoveries to be made. Learn how to locate probate records and use a proven methodology for your research.

Problem-Solving with the Pre-1850 Census: What Can Those Tick Marks Tell You?

The pre-1850 census records may be ignored because of the lack of names and relationships. However, several strategies can turn those tick marks into valuable clues for a family and even be used as evidence in proving identity or relationships.

 

ORGANIZATION & PRODUCTIVITY

A Beginners Guide to Using Airtable for Genealogy

Genealogy research projects generate large amounts of data. Tracking and organizing that data with Airtable allows better analysis that can aid the researcher in making progress on any research problem.

Getting Organized One Paper at a Time

When you are faced with the overwhelming task of organizing years of genealogy research, learning a system to deal with each paper will make this task doable. Learn about digital and physical filing systems, genealogy databases, and more.

Getting Things Done and Family History: Productivity Tips and Tools

How do you stay productive when you have numerous genealogy projects? Learn a system to capture to-do items, prioritize projects, and erase overwhelm.

Is Your Family Tree Protected? The Value of a Personal Genealogical Database and How to Choose

Storage of your valuable genealogical data should be safely under your control not left to an online tree. A desktop program has power features not available in online trees. Learn about the many options available and the criteria you should consider in choosing the program that is best for you.

 

FAMILY SEARCH

The FamilySearch Family Tree and the Genealogical Proof Standard

When working on the collaborative FamilySearch Family Tree, applying the Genealogical Proof Standard to reason statements and sources adds value and credibility to your shared research. 

The FamilySearch Catalog: A Researcher’s Best Friend

The FamilySearch Catalog holds references to billions of records, one of which might answer your research question. Learn how to use the catalog to find valuable unindexed records and new collections to search. Discover how to navigate the search features of the catalog and how to use each to your advantage.

The Dynamic Duo for Locality Research: The FamilySearch Catalog and Research Wiki 

Open up a world of possibilities for your research by learning to use the FamilySearch Catalog and Research Wiki. Discover records, research helps, and more.

What Do I Do Next? 5 Tips for Using FamilySearch Partners

The ability to search FamilySearch partner websites from an ancestor’s details page is powerful but can be confusing. Learn about each of these websites and how to take advantage of the sheer volume of records available to further your research.

DNA

Advanced Airtable Techniques: Sorting, Grouping, and Filtering a Research Log

Find relevant entries in your Airtable research log by using advanced features in Airtable. Write more efficiently by keeping your evidence organized.

Ancestry DNA: Getting the Most Out of Your Results

You’ve taken the DNA test at Ancestry.com. Now what? Learn how to navigate the DNA web page, understand your ethnicity results, and the tools that make finding your cousins easy. Also discover how to upload your raw DNA to other major DNA testing companies for free!

DNA Reports: You’ve made a DNA Discovery. Now How Do You Share It?

Learn strategies for correlating and summarizing your DNA discoveries in a research report to share with clients, cousins, or for your own records.

From California to Virginia: Confirming the Emigrant Ancestor with a Paper Trail and Y-DNA

Learn strategies to confirm generational links as you move back in time, then how to employ Y-DNA to provide evidence of an emigrant ancestor.

How to Evaluate an Ancestry DNA ThruLine Using Documentary Research and DNA Analysis

ThruLines can suggest ancestors that seem to include DNA evidence but are based on faulty family trees. Learn a process to evaluate any ThruLine connection.

Solving a Family Mystery with DNA

Learn how combining traditional research with DNA evidence revealed an unknown grandfather in this compelling case study. Follow the project from the beginning steps of creating an objective to writing the conclusions. Discover the importance of a research log and careful tracking of sources. Finally, see how Y-DNA and autosomal DNA used in tandem with the documentary sources solved this family’s mystery.

 Pedigree Triangulation: A Key Methodology for Genetic Genealogy

Learn the power of pedigree triangulation in analyzing DNA matches and building your genetic family tree. Discover how to use company tools such as Ancestry’s Thrulines and MyHeritage’s Theory of Family Relativity to boost your efficiency and accelerate your discovery of common ancestors. We’ll discuss the basic steps of analyzing the amount of shared DNA, then building incomplete trees, and comparing surnames and locations.

Using Ethnicity Estimates and Locality Research to Shed Light on a DNA Project

When working through a DNA research project, biogeographical estimates can inform locality research, providing clues for ancestor origins as well as new places to explore.

What Do You Want to Know? Focus Your DNA Research with an Objective 

Focusing on a definitive and answerable research question will move your DNA research forward. Creating an objective with key identifying information guides the process.

Who’s Her Daddy? Testing an Ancestry DNA Thruline Hypothesis for a Female Ancestor

When no record names a father, discover how documentary records, a migration study, and DNA evidence can confirm a hypothesis in this pre-1850 case study.

CREATING AND SHARING FAMILY HISTORY

Getting to Know Your Mormon Pioneer Ancestor: Seven Steps to Success

The LDS church began emphasizing family history about 1890, so you may think that those branches of your family tree are complete and accurate. In reality, your pioneer lines may be reasonably accurate up to a point, but the dates, places, and relationships are often based on family knowledge and not fully documented. Learn seven steps to guide you in your journey of discovering the real story of your Mormon Pioneer.

Heirlooms: Connecting the Past With Your Posterity

How can you ensure that family heirlooms retain their importance in telling the family narrative? The key is to discover, record, and share the stories behind the heirlooms. Learn specific ways to meaningfully share your family history with all ages through the things your ancestors left behind.

Researching and Writing about Skeletons in the Family History Closet

We all have them: ancestor stories that tend to be hushed up: illegitimate children, desertion, abuse, mental illness, etc. How do we discover the facts and what do we do when our family history research uncovers something unexpected? Recording these kinds of details can be difficult. We’ll explore ways to tell our ancestor’s story with integrity and kindness.

REGIONAL

Finding That Elusive Southern Ancestor

Research in the United States South presents many difficulties: burned counties, poor record-keeping, frequent migration, and more. Explore ways to overcome these obstacles and discover your Southern roots.

Navigating the Unique Texas Land Grant System 

Your Texas ancestor might have received land from Spain, Mexico, the Republic, or the State of Texas. Learn how to locate the records needed in research.

Separating Multiple Generations of Virginians with the Same Name

When many descendants of the original settler inherit his name, diagramming and careful analysis of land, tax, and probate records can reconstruct families.

Settlers of Indian Territory: Discovering Their Story in This Unique Place and Time

Learn the push/pull factors that drew settlers to Indian Territory and what records were created that reveal their actions.

Who was Polly Cessna? Using Early Georgia Records to Uncover a Woman’s Identity

Discover how thorough research in court, tax, and land records in several jurisdictions revealed Polly’s two marriages, a divorce, and two sets of children.