{"id":6644,"date":"2018-04-10T03:13:39","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T03:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?page_id=6644"},"modified":"2020-01-14T14:57:44","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T14:57:44","slug":"lecture-topics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?page_id=6644","title":{"rendered":"Lecture Topics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I can give all-day seminars on a variety of topics. Most of these presentations can run from an hour to an our and fifteen minutes&#8211;depending upon your group&#8217;s event.\u00a0 Presentations are informational, laid-back, practical, and entertaining. The focus is on giving you ideas and suggestions to help your research, not seeing how many footnotes or citations can be crammed into one presentation. Contact me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com with questions or requests for additional information. Additional topics available upon request.<\/p>\n<p><b>Is Your Process the Problem?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is your research approach the problem? This lecture discusses research approaches that may be hindering your chances of success, how to get around those incorrect ways of thinking, and additional approaches that may improve your chance of success.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Before Your DNA Results Come Back<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is more to do while waiting for your DNA results to come back than repeatedly checking your email. This presentation discusses what to do while waiting, the importance of tracking as many relatives as you can, creating a &#8220;working&#8221; tree separate from your &#8220;good&#8221; tree, and more.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Making Your Case<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Writing up your genealogical conclusions is good for your research&#8211;whether you want to share with others or just refine your own thought process and analysis. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Facebook Genealogy Techniques<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Facebook is more that status updates and cat pictures. Learn ways to harness Facebook to expand your genealogical research, connect with fellow researchers and relatives, increase your genealogical research skills, and share with relatives. Pros and cons of using Facebook will be discussed.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What it Does Not Say<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many times a record only scratches the surface of what was going on when that record was created. This lecture looks at why a record was created and how state statute, common practice, economic situations, family issues, and other factors may be the &#8220;real story&#8221; behind any document. Also discusses how to determine (when possible) what those \u201cunwritten\u201d issues were.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Researching the Entire Family and Beyond<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Focusing only on the direct line can cause significant information to be overlooked and\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">larger patterns, records, and information to go unnoticed. This lecture discusses, via examples, the importance of researching the siblings, extended family, and associates of the ancestor of interest.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Research on a Tight Budget<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses some no-cost and low-cost ways to expand your genealogical\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">research. Mention is also made of those times when \u201cfree\u201d or \u201clow-cost\u201d is not possible.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Organizing Online Research<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When a five minute search does not locate an individual in a database, it is time to organize your online research process so that process can be evaluated and modified if information is not located. Through several examples we will see ways to structure effective searches, search processes, and search analysis.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Ostfriesian Research<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture focuses on unique research opportunities and challenges in this area of\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">northern Germany near the Dutch border. Michael is one-half Ostfriesian by ancestry.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Newspaper Research<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses how to access papers, effective search strategies for manual\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">versus digital searching, what types of papers to search, and what to look for in\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">newspapers besides obituaries.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Tried and Tested Tidbits<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture contains a wide variety of \u201cquick tips\u201d geared towards genealogists at all\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">levels. A little bit of this and a little bit of that.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>An Introduction to the Courthouse<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture provides an overview to the records typically found in a county courthouse:\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">land, probate, court, and vital records.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Land Records (Public Land States)<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses the basics of how land is described in public land states and\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">effective search strategies for records in these localities, including a discussion of basic\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">terminology. Intended for the researcher with little or no experience in land records.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Land Records (Public Land States): Intermediate<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses search strategies via example for land records in public land\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">states. Not geared towards beginning researchers and with the idea that attendees are\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">already familiar with basic land terminology and deed terms.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Organization of Information: Seeing the Patterns<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses various ways to organize information with the hope that\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">previously unnoticed trends become apparent. Begins with a brief discussion of family\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">group charts and pedigree charts and continues into chronologies and other less-often\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">used charts and organizational methods.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Locating Emigrant Origins<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses sources and methods for possibly locating from where an\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">immigrant ancestor originated.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Naturalization: An Unnatural Process<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses naturalization from the colonial era until World War II with an\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">emphasis on how history has impacted the amount of records that were created.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Documentation Roadblocks on the Information Superhighway<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The internet contains a great deal of information\u2014some of it accurate and some of it\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">not. This lecture discusses how to assess the validity of online information and concerns\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">about citing online sources.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Court Records (beginning or intermediate)<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses county court records, search procedures and analysis. It can be\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">presented at a beginning or an intermediate level. The intermediate level lecture\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">focuses on several case studies and assumes attendees are familiar with basic\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">terminology and how court records are organized and accessed.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Probate Records (beginning or intermediate)<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The same as Court Records (see above) only for probate records.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Search for the Parents of Francis Trautvetter (using Illinois resources)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture provides an good overview of Illinois records and sources all done within\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the context of a case study of an Illinois native born in 1851.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Why are There Errors in Records?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Errors create a variety of problems for the genealogist. This lecture looks at the causes\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of errors and discrepancies in records and includes commentary on handling these\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">issues in a genealogical database.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Finding Barbara&#8217;s Beaus and Gesche&#8217;s Girls<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two case studies focusing on women in the mid-1880s through the early 1900s.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Notetaking, Abstracting, and Extracting<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses procedures for notetaking, abstracting, and extracting along with\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a discussion of what type of source is being used.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Where Could It Be Written?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finding that fact, date or name frequently boils down to asking \u201cwhere could that fact be\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">written?\u201d In this lecture, we discuss an approach for determining where a record\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">containing the information we need could be located.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Organizing Your Online Research<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researching online databases is more than type and click. This lecture discusses\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">effective organization strategies for using online databases so that unnecessary\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">searches are not conducted and that all reasonable name variants are included.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Problem Solving Applied to Genealogy<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">George Polya designed a 4-step process for solving problems, particularly mathematics\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cstory problems.\u201d This approach is applied to genealogy, both theoretically and through\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">several examples.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>I Found it: Now What?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Part of finding something is completely analyzing it. This lecture looks at a dozen or so\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">documents found in actual research and sees what additional sources and methods are\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">suggested by each individual document.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Land Platting in Metes and Bounds<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses the basics of platting property in metes and bounds, software\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that is available for this specific purpose and why the average genealogist would even\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">want to bother platting a piece of property.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Using the Bureau of Land Management Tract Books<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses how the Bureau of Land Management tract books are organized,\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">what information they contain, how to search them and accessing the actual records of\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">federal land acquisition referenced in these books.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Federal Land Records<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This lecture discusses the ways in which federal land was obtained, an overview of the\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">federal land acquisition process, when the records are most likely to be informative, and\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how federal land records are accessed.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Where did the Farm Go?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your ancestor owned a farm? How it was transferred from his ownership may provide\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">more genealogical clues than you suspect.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can give all-day seminars on a variety of topics. Most of these presentations can run from an hour to an our and fifteen minutes&#8211;depending upon your group&#8217;s event.\u00a0 Presentations are informational, laid-back, practical, and entertaining. The focus is on giving you ideas and suggestions to help your research, not seeing how many footnotes or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6644","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}