Genealogy Seminar

On Saturday, October 18, the Plymouth Historical Museum will hold the eighth in a series of genealogical workshops to help family historians of all levels research their American ancestors. This seminar features Marie Varrelman Melchiori, CG, CGL, and Kathy Petlewski.

 

Marie Varrelman Melchiori, CG, CGL, is a professional genealogist  specializing in Union and Confederate records at the National Archives in Washington, DC. She is a Certified Genealogist and a Certified Genealogical Lecturer through the Board for Certification of Genealogists. Marie has been a lecturer for the National Institute on Genealogical Research since 1987, serving as the assistant director from 1987 to 2002. She lectured at National Genealogical Society (NGS) and Federation of Genealogical Societies Conferences from 1988 to 2012. Since 2009, she has been a co-director for the January NGS Research Trip to Salt Lake City. Marie has been a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists since 1983, and received APG’s Graham Thomas Smallwood Award of Merit in 1999. She received a BS in Nursing from Rutgers University. Marie's topics will be:

There were women who fought as active soldiers in all the wars but they are not the ones discussed in this lecture. These were the wives, mothers or sisters of a soldier. They might have been women employed by the Army as matrons or laundresses or they might have applied for restitution for goods taken by the military. There were many different ways women could have interacted with the military organization of the United States.

Most researchers are well aware that the pension records and the bounty land records are a marvelous source for family information, unfortunately many stop with them. Many of the records discussed might be unknown to the average researcher, such as the correspondence and carded records of the military. The records cover the time frame from 1776 to 1914.

This session is based on the current way many people do National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) research. But can all NARA military research be done online? No, it cannot. Can indexes be run and trips arranged to use the NARA time more effectively, yes, for the most part. Are there some NARA military records that have been digitized and online? Yes. Are their MANY original records at NARA that are not digitized or even microfilmed. YES.

This will be a look at some of the records on the subscription sites such as Ancestry.com and Fold3.com as well as the free sites FamilySearch.org and the NARA.gov. Idiosyncracies of the web sites will be discussed. The necessity for proper source citation will be mentioned.

 

Kathy is in her 28th variety of hats including reference librarian, webmaster, and genealogy and local history specialist. She received her education both locally and in North Carolina, with a BA in American history from the University of Detroit, an MA in colonial American history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and an MSLS from Wayne State University. Kathy has been involved in genealogical research for more than fifty years and is a frequent guest speaker at local and state genealogical society meetings. Her column, “Reference Desk,” appears regularly in the National Genealogical Society Magazine. Kathy's topics will be:

Years ago, researching genealogy was a solitary pursuit done at home, in libraries and through the mail. Today’s social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Flickr have changed this dramatically. Find out how using these free online services can aid in your research, provide useful information and perhaps even expand your circle of relatives!

Our female ancestors, whether immigrants or pioneers establishing homes in new settlements in our country, were frequently separated from their friends and relatives back home. Many turned to letters or diaries to give voice to their experiences and the routine of their daily lives. Thankfully, a great number of these documents have either been published as print editions or are available online. In this program, we’ll examine the various resources available for finding these writings and how to access them.

While reading contemporary accounts of how your female ancestors may have lived is not the only way to enrich your family history, it certainly adds a human quality to your understanding of the hardships they endured as well as the joys they felt in creating a home and raising a family in a new land.