Special Joint Webinar with the Afro-American Genealogical and Historical Society of Chicago (AAGHSC)
Funeral Home Collections: Utilizing Genealogical Societies and Others for Crowd Sourcing
What useful information can you get from a funeral home for genealogical research? Funeral home records can contain so much more than a death certificate and obituary! Files can reveal the deceased and the family’s extended genealogical information, church affiliations, financial status, and even how they planned for the future. This lecture also describes processing the large donated funeral home collection using a genealogical society.
Ari Wilkins, a graduate of Louisiana State University, has been actively researching family history since 1998. Ari worked with the esteemed genealogist, Dr. James Rose, for many years on his final project Generations: The WPA Ex-Slave Narrative Database. She is the owner of the genealogical consulting company, Black Genesis. Ms. Wilkins also works as a contributor for Proquest’s African American Heritage database.
Ms. Wilkins has spoken nationally at the National Genealogical Society, Federation of Genealogical Societies, Texas State Genealogical Society, Ohio Genealogical Society, Samford Institute of Genealogical and Historical Research, American Library Association, and a multitude of local societies.
Ari has been a Library Associate at Dallas Public Library since 2007. She teaches a series of basic research classes using popular genealogical websites. She specializes in African American research.
Registration is required and registration fee is $5.00. Please register for Funeral Home Collections: Utilizing Genealogical Societies and Others for Crowd Sourcing on May 1, 2021 10:00 AM CST at:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1920322760865156107
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Mark Hansen, the author of The City in a Garden: A Guide to the History of Hyde Park and Kenwood, will recount episodes in the history of Chicago through brief portraits of ten South Side families.
This webinar will be Part 2 of a presentation Mark gave for CGS in January. Mark does an amazing job sharing maps, pictures, sources, history and stories about South Side families.
John Mark Hansen is the Charles L Hutchinson Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago. He joined the Chicago faculty in 1986. A native of Kansas, he received his bachelor’s degree at the University of Kansas in 1981 and his Ph.D. at Yale University in 1987. Hansen’s research in political science ranges in top from elections and citizen activism to Congress and interest group politics. Lately, he has set out to chronicle the history of Chicago’s South Side. His first book from the project, The City in a Garden: A Guide to the History of Hyde Park and Kenwood, appeared in 2019.
Registration is required via the Chicago Genealogical Society website under Events. Registration will close 1 hour prior to the event. The webinar will take place virtually via ZOOM. All people registered will receive an email the morning of the event with log-in instructions and a link. This information is not to be shared.
Our speaker will be Pam Vestal
One of the biggest hurdles to overcome in genealogy is the seemingly illegible handwriting in our ancestors’ records. Whether you struggle to navigate colonial penmanship that doesn’t even look like English or wrestle with contemporary documents that are poorly written, a few good strategies can make all the difference. We’ll look at more than 20 techniques to help you figure out what the chicken scratches on the page say as well as what the style of writing might reveal about our ancestors.
Pam Vestal is a professional genealogist and speaker who has lectured nationally for FGS and NGS and regionally from coast to coast. Her articles have appeared in the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly and the FGS's Forum magazine. Making her home in West Linn, Oregon, Pam is the owner of Generations Genealogy, LLC.
Chicago Genealogical Society is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Address: PO Box 1160, Chicago, IL 60690-1160
