CGS Announces November Webinar

Identity Puzzles: How to Make Sure You're Following the Right Character

Our speaker will be J.H. (“Jay”) Fonkert, CG

November 7, 2020 at 1:30pm CST

Merging or separating identities is a core genealogical problem. Sometimes we find a man or woman of the same name in several different places over time and need to merge identity fragments. Other times, we find two easily confounded individuals in the same place and time, and have to separate identities. A series of research vignettes, including the case of two Johan Sebastian Welhavens of Chicago, illustrate the importance of certain identity in genealogical research.

J. H. (“Jay”) Fonkert, CG, is a genealogy researcher, educator, and writer, who focuses on 19th-century Midwest research. He is a co-managing editor of Minnesota Genealogist and president of the Minnesota Genealogical Society. He has lectured at numerous regional and national conferences, lectured for genealogy societies in eleven states, and has published more than 80 research and teaching articles, including three in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. He is a former trustee of the BCG Education Fund and a former director of the Association of Professional Genealogists.

Registration is required via the Chicago Genealogical Society website under Events. Registration will close 1 hour before the event starts. 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.