Tag Archives: Institute

Unlocking the Real Lives of Farmers: A Genealogy Course

Genealogical Education, ,

GRIP Genealogy Institute is coming up fast! I am coordinating our “Not Just Farmer’s” course along with Cyndi Ingle and Paula Stuart-Warren. The virtual courses, which this course is, are taking place from 22-26 June 2026.

The motivation behind the course was years of listening to people at genealogical events, whether it was local meetings or national conferences, say “oh, my ancestors were just farmers.” As if! Most of our ancestors were farmers. Before grocery stores, families had to grow their own food for survival. Some ancestors had what we call today “side hustles” to supplement their income. Farming crops has some down time while the crops grow, or if it is too rainy to harvest, or during the winter. So, many farmers took on other occupations as well.

Some specialized in a particular breed of livestock. Mine raised Duroc Jersey Swine. Others may have focused on chickens, sheep, beef cattle, dairy cows, or other animals. Some farms also had fruit orchards, bushes, or grape vines. Whatever your ancestor engaged in, it was a vital part of the family’s survival. And not just the family, but the community as well. While one farmer may have raised dairy cows and made butter, another may have raised hens for eggs. They likely engaged in bartering or selling at a local marketplace.

Farming was (and still is) a hard occupation. Lots of long days full of physical labor. Maybe not as exciting as other occupations, but that depends on your definition of exciting. And if you think your farming ancestors were not captured in records, you would be wrong.

In the farmer’s course, we cover many topics but always bring it back to the records that can be found for those topics:

  • Inventions and Ingenuity – advancements in technology and farming techniques
  • Ranching – cattle and sheep, livestock drives
  • Land – a farmer or rancher needs land to grow the crops or raise the livestock
  • Farm buildings, such as barns, can tell the story of your ancestor’s heritage
  • Specific farm products and going to market
  • Using finding aids and collections to find diaries, journals, account books, etc.
  • Farming newspapers and newsletters
  • Side-Hustles, other jobs that farmers engaged in
  • Farming outside the law – bootleggers, squatters, tax evaders
  • Farming education, from the local fairs to higher education
  • Farming organizations, clubs, and unions
  • Women’s roles in agricultural families
  • Social programs to help the farmers during hard times
  • Cultural divides and barriers in farming

Throughout the week we will be building a “profile” for your farmer. We will have a spreadsheet template students can use (or you can build your own) to fill out information about a farming ancestor of their choosing. This template acts as a research log that you can then use to write a narrative about your farming ancestor.

Farmers are a crucial part of our society. They provide the food. But they do more than that, engaging in communities and contributing to the survival of those communities.

I hope you will consider doing a deep dive with us regarding your farming ancestors. You can read more details about the course here, and register here.

A Great Lakes Interlude

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Before I continue on with the George Long discussion, I wanted to take a moment to share some details about something that is coming up. Registration is open for GRIP Genealogy Institute.

I have the great pleasure to coordinate a course on the Great Lakes, and I wanted to share some information about the course’s contents and why it is an important region for genealogical research. I grew up near Lake Erie and enjoyed learning about the history of the area when I was a kid (well, to be honest, I didn’t retain a lot, what child really does?) but I appreciate it more now as an adult learning about my ancestors and how the region affected them and their livelihoods.

The lakes served as a vital transportation route that contributed to the westward expansion of the U.S. and Canada. If you had ancestors that lived around the lakes, they were likely impacted by the lakes’ usefulness in some way. Shipping routes and advancements in shipping technology, both for resources and people, contributed to the growth of the region. The fluidity of the border between the U.S. and Canada allowed border-dwellers to cross often for commerce, trade, occupations, shopping, attending church, and so on. Border crossing requirements were not put into place until the mid-1890s. The course will walk attendees through not only the history of the area but also has a deep focus on records in terms of what is available and how to access them.

I have a fantastic team of women teaching in the course with me: Cyndi Ingle, Paula Stuart-Warren, and Judy Russell. We will join forces to bring this important area to life through the following topics:

The sessions, and a bit about each:

  • Early to 1850s Geography, History, and Migration – Cyndi Ingle, in which she starts the day off with the early Mesozoic Period and brings us into the 1850s.
  • 1850s to Modern Geography, History & Migration – Cari Taplin, in which I get the better deal and only have to cover about a century of history.
  • Cash, Bounty, Homestead, and Timber: Land in the Great Lakes Region – Cari Taplin. I will discuss the ways in which settlers obtained land, the resources they discovered, and records for both the U.S. and Ontario.
  • Census Records in the Great Lakes Region – Cari Taplin. We all probably know all about census records, but this presentation will dig deeper into the censuses and census issues particular to this region, examining both countries’ records, and we will discuss some helpful methodologies for using censuses in this region.
1860 Racine, Wisconsin, Ward 1
  • Finding Birth, Marriage and Death Records in the Great Lakes Region – Cyndi will take a deep dive into vital records and alternative records for the times before vital registration was required. She will help students find challenging records for births, marriages, and deaths in both the U.S. and Ontario.
  • Crossing the Border Between the United States and Canada – Cyndi walks the class through the many records that are available regarding border crossings, including the St. Albans List.
  • Steamers, Tugs, and Schooners: Shipping and Commerce on the Great Lakes – Cari Taplin. This is quite possibly my favorite topic in the Great Lakes course. The Great Lakes waterways were instrumental in the growth of the region, for both Canada and the United States. In this class, we will examine the major shipping routes and ports, discuss passenger lists, shipwrecks, military defense, and transportation, and how that led to population growth. We will also talk about the major businesses that boomed with the expansion of shipping on the lakes.
  • Military Records on Both Sides of the Conflict – Cari Taplin. From the Revolutionary War to the War of 1812, and on to present day, we will discuss the Great Lakes region in terms of defensive strategies for military conflicts, but also about the records that exists for soldiers who moved to the area and left records.
  • Paupers, Pews & Planks: The Law of the Great Lakes – Judy Russell is as entertaining and educational as ever as she walks us through the laws in the Great Lakes region. She will discuss law issues from its origins in the Northwest Territory through individual territorial legislatures and on through statehood. The law of the Great Lakes Region has reflected the particular needs and concerns of its people and its economies. Most importantly, Judy will guide students to resources where they will be able to find the law applicable to genealogical questions at various times in the region’s history, with examples of how knowing the law can help explain records and solve genealogical problems.
  • On a Mission: Religion in the Great Lakes Region – Cari Taplin. Some of the earliest settlers and explorers in the Great Lakes were missionaries of various faiths, looking to convert the native tribes and indigenous peoples living in the area. This class will focus on major religions in the Great Lakes region, a history and timeline of their arrival and expansion in specific areas, and will include a discussion on the main denominational repositories for research.
  • Tracing French Canadian Ancestors – Paula Stuart-Warren will cover the important topic of the French Canadians in the Great Lakes region. If you have an ancestor from a Great Lakes state or province, it’s likely you have found a French Canadian connection. Your German or British Isles ancestor or their sibling may have married into a French Canadian family. Whichever is the case, the records are amazing; the names of parents are generally found. Learn about the general history of the people, the fantastic records created, the books and online resources, the repositories, and meet some new cousins. 
  • Researching in Ontario – Paula Stuart-Warren. Ontario is the only Canadian province to border the Great Lakes. Paula will walk students through researching in this important province. She will talk about the major resources that are available to researchers with connections to Ontario.
  • Great Lakes Newspapers: Defy the Borders – Cari Taplin. We will discuss the importance of newspapers in the Great Lakes region and how the news did not pay attention to the borders. We will discuss the importance of newspapers in the daily lives of our Great Lakes ancestors, and what riches can be unearthed between the sheets of newsprint. The availability of U.S and Canadian newspapers in the Great Lakes Region repositories will be shared.
Duluth Herald, 29 July 1918, p 2.
  • Naturalization and Citizenship in the U.S. & Canada – Paula will share information about migration between Canada and the United States, and as it progressed, new residents may have become citizens. This process was important to immigrants in order to assimilate into their new home, obtain land, vote, and take part in other government programs. This class will discuss important aspects of the naturalization process focusing on the Great Lakes region. First papers, declarations, final papers, passports, and other records useful for tracking down immigrant ancestors will be examined and methods for locating those records will be discussed.
  • Beyond Shipping: Making a Living in the Great Lakes Region – Cyndi will discuss the unique occupations in the Great Lakes region. Occupations went far beyond shipping and fishing. Farming, trapping, mining, timber, and railroads drew our ancestors to live and work in this area too. She will discuss the history of various industries that helped grow the area.
  • Major Archives and Libraries in the Great Lakes Region and their Fantastic Records – Cyndi will focus solely on repositories in this session. The research repositories in the area offer extensive in-house and online material for family historians. We’ll cover some at local, provincial, state, and country level. Overlooked treasures offer information that just might fill in those missing family details.
  • Mapping the Great Lakes using Google Earth – Cyndi will dazzle and amaze us with the capabilities of Google Earth and demonstrate how to create migration maps, plot out land owned by our ancestors, and make historical map overlays to show the changes in the Great Lakes region over time.
  • Bringing it all together: Two Case Studies – Captain Stephen Meeker, Sailor on the Great Lakes, and Those Loyalist Taplins – Cari A. Taplin. I finish out the week by sharing two Great Lakes families I continue to research. First, we will examine sailor, Captain Stephen Meeker, descendant of sailors and shipbuilders, who successfully brought the Percival Roberts through a storm. Second, follow the migration of the Taplin family around the Great Lakes as they arrived in the U.S., moved to Canada to avoid the Revolutionary War and ended up in Minnesota and Wisconsin around the time of the Civil War.

We do hope you will join us for a week full of fun and genealogy!

Visit this website for more information and to register: https://grip.ngsgenealogy.org

Upcoming Institute Course: Research in the Great Lakes

Genealogical Education, , , , , ,

This summer, I have the pleasure of coordinating the course “The Spirit of the Inland Seas: Research in the Great Lakes Region.” Three other outstanding instructors—Cyndi Ingle, Paula Stuart-Warren, and Judy Russell—will share their expertise with us. They are all amazingly talented and knowledgeable women.

We will discuss topics such as the area’s historical significance, especially in the growth and development of the U.S. and Canada. The resources in the Great Lakes area were major attractors for mining, timber, farming, etc. The lakes acted like highways, moving people and goods from one place to another with more speed and ease than previous modes of transportation.

Not only will you hear from some spectacular instructors, but we all put a lot of time and energy into creating an extensive syllabus that contains not only what we discuss during the presentations but also extra information we don’t have time to cover. Also, it never fails that as we are preparing for the institutes, we find more information that we couldn’t fit into the syllabus before the deadline, so we make addendums that we share during the week. We are committed to providing a high-quality experience and an in-depth dive into the subjects.

The course will be held VIRTUALLY, so you can attend from home, 22-27 June 2025, through GRIP Genealogy Institute. Details about the institute can be found here: https://grip.ngsgenealogy.org/#1#schedule

Registration opens on 4 February 2025 at the link above. Be sure to put that on your calendar! We have a lot of fun in our courses and hope to see you there!

The Nigerian Prince: Swindlers and Vigilantes in Agriculture

Farming Ancestors, , , , ,

Scammers are nothing new. They have probably existed as long as people have. And you only have to look so far as the newspapers to see them in the 1800s in the U.S. In our GRIP course, “Not Just Farmers,” I will be talking about “Farming Outside the Law.”

One topic I’ll be covering are vigilante groups who were not happy with the speed that law-makers moved. If they saw an injustice, they just took it upon themselves to right the wrongs. A premise I can get behind in general, but you know these groups always take things too far. One group’s goal was to intimidate sheepmen from grazing on public lands. There was a belief that sheep were inferior to cattle (longer story that I have time to go into here) and therefore groups formed to run off the sheepherders. Well, intimidation turned to violence and killing of sheep.

Another topic I’ll be touching on are the scammers, conmen, swindlers, and thieves that used an agricultural front to make their fortune. Many news articles can be found warning communities of a conman working in an area. For example…

Swindlers and people taking the law into their own hands… it’s a tale as old as time. And we’ll be talking more about it in our course. I hope you can join us!

GRIP: Digging Deeper

Genealogical Education, ,

Another course offered at GRIP Genealogy Institute this summer is coordinated by Paula Stuart-Warren, CG, FMGS, FUGA. It is called “Digging Deeper: Records, Tools, and Skills.” I am one of the instructors for this course and am looking forward to it!

For the complete details and to register, visit this link.

Paula is a fantastic instructor. She does an excellent job with hands-on experiences in addition to the lectures. This course is great for anyone wanting to expand or polish their genealogical skills.

I’ll be teaching two classes, one on PERSI (Periodical Source Index) and one on Probate Records.

Paula is also teaching in the “Not Just Farmers” course I am coordinating and in “Midwest Family History Research: Migrations and Sources” coordinated by Jay Fonkert. She wrote a blog post about this here.

There are a lot of educational opportunities coming up this summer. This class is one you should consider if you haven’t taken it already!

For the complete details and to register, visit this link.

Blogging has Taken a Backseat to Farming

Farming Ancestors, , , , , ,

Hello friends. You may have noticed (or maybe not) that my blog went a bit silent there for a bit. That’s because I’ve been in writing overdrive preparing for my newest course “Not Just Farmers: Records, Relationships, and the Reality of Their Lives” that will occur at the NGS GRIP Genealogy Institute (formerly the Genealogical Institute of Pittsburgh), virtually, June 23-28., 2024. Registration is now open. Of course, I’m not the only instructor. I am being joined by Cyndi Ingle and Paula Stuart-Warren as well.

I get tired of hearing genealogists of all kinds say “oh my ancestors weren’t that _____ (interesting, important, etc.) because they were ‘just farmers.'” There is a commonly held belief that they did not lead interesting or important lives, and that they just didn’t leave many records. So, this course is designed to defy all of those misconceptions. There is nothing more important than providing food and other necessary supplies to your family and community.

The focus of our course is on North American farming and agricultural ancestors and their families. The course will dispel the myth that our ancestors are “just farmers” without a rich and documented life. Farmers have often been dismissed by the assumption that there is not much to find or to learn about their lives and the issues they faced. The variety of records–often underused or undiscovered–give depth and breadth to the lives of our ancestors. Understanding the history of farming and learning about the unique records of the people, products, and land, will give a deeper picture of what hearty families we descend from. Students will build an “agricultural profile” for their farming ancestors by the end of the week. This profile can help to craft a robust background of their “just farmer” ancestors.

My Grandpa Karl Miller on His Tractor

The full breakdown of the courses and who will be teaching those can be seen on the GRIP website. My topics include:

  • Inventions and Ingenuity: Advancement in Farming Over Time
  • Get Along, Little Doggy! The Agricultural Contributions of Ranches
  • Historical Side-Hustles: Other Income Streams of Our Farming Ancestors
  • Farming Outside the Law: Squatters, Tax-Evaders, and Bootleggers
  • Female Farmers: Women’s Issues in Agricultural Families
  • Taking Care of the Farmers: Social Programs Benefitting Our Farming Ancestors
  • A Case Study – Building Your Ancestor’s Agricultural Profile

I am going to share tidbits that I’ve been writing and collecting for this course on my blog over the next several months. So, break out your bibbed-overalls and work boots, and hang on to the tractor’s steering wheel and let’s go for a hay ride through farming lives and their records. (Did I get enough farming metaphors in there?)

Review: New Jersey Family History Institute

Genealogical Education, New Jersey, , , ,

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending the New Jersey Family History Institute … from the comfort of my own home! Melissa A. Johnson, CG® has put together a fantastic two-day course on New Jersey Family History Research. I have a project in mind to work on some of my New Jersey ancestry and so when I saw this opportunity, I jumped on it. njfhi-logoThe course is offered online or in person “to learn all about sources and strategies for researching NJ ancestors and families.” 

I expected two days of lectures giving me a run-down of the unique history, geography, record sets, and other information to help me with my New Jersey research. I even figured I’d fold laundry while I listened. What I got was a whole lot more. I did manage to fold the laundry, but I also found myself paying very close attention, taking notes, answering class exercises in the chat, and creating a research plan for a future research trip!

Melissa has done a fantastic job of creating an in-depth, interactive course (even with the online audience), with in-class exercises pertaining to the topic of the hour. She asked for people to share their answer to the exercises, including those online, and would read them out for everyone’s benefit, which also made me feel like part of the class. Optional homework was given as well.

This course covered topics ranging from the basic timeline of New Jersey, highlighting key points as they would pertain to records and research, to laws and their impact on research findings, a breakdown of the court system, major resources, libraries, collections, and so on. A lot of attention was given to differentiation between the Colonial period and post-statehood. Melissa is a fantastic instructor, not only because she provides the students with the information they need to be successful in their research, but by also giving relevant exercises that were challenging and educational on the topic at hand. Furthermore, she is very cognizant of the online community tuning in as well, repeating questions from those in class and interacting with us in an individual and meaningful way.

While this course is over for this year, I suspect it will be held again. The website indicates that more courses will be added in the future on other topics as well. You can join the mailing list to be informed when new events are added.

I will be watching this educational resource for future opportunities and encourage you to do so as well!

Fox listening in
Even my dog “Special Agent Fox Mulder” (Fox for short) had a fun time listening to Melissa’s course!

Genealogy Institutes – Part Six

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If you’ve never been to a genealogy institute, you may not know what to expect. The first time for anything is always a little mysterious. I hope some items in this post will help dispel some of the mystery and give you a good idea of what to expect throughout your week. These tips are from my personal experiences at GRIP and IGHR. Some of the other institutes might work a little bit differently and have some aspects that I am not aware of yet. If you have been to one of the other institutes and would like to share something that I have missed, please feel free to do so in the comments.

photo-13Generally registration and check-in occurs on Sunday afternoon. This is where you will be given your name badge, meal tickets, keys to your dorm room, your class binder and any other items necessary for your week. If you are not staying on campus, this is a good time to find your hotel, get acquainted with the area for any amenities you might require such as a grocery store, a coffee shop, restaurants and the like. Some institutes have a Sunday evening dinner with an orientation session. This is where you will learn about specifics for the week, what optional evening sessions might be available, any changes to the schedule, and other details about the campus or the institute. This is a great time to get to know your fellow classmates and institute attendees. In your binder will also be a schedule for the week, a class roster with contact information so you can connect with your classmates, and other informational pages in addition to your lecture notes for the week.

Plan on being in classes all week. There will be slight variations in starting and ending times depending on your course instructor. Throughout the day there are planned break and lunch times. Sometimes in the afternoon there are coordinated breaks with free snacks and drinks. Depending on the course, you might be expected to do homework. Of course this is optional, but you will get so much more out of what you are learning in class if you do the homework. Later in the week there might be a banquet with a dinner, a speaker and any awards or honors the group gives out. You may also experience the joy of class pictures day. GRIP especially loves the class picture and sells their own polo-style shirts for students to wear on picture day.

One of my favorite features of attending an institute is that the pace is slower than you might find at a state or national conference. There is time to speak with your instructors and fellow students. No one is rushing to get to the next lecture. The size of the classes is small enough to allow for very insightful discussions and meaningful relationship building. These are amazing networking opportunities and a great way to meet people at a similar experience level or who share specific interests as you. And of course, at the end of the week you earn a certificate for all of the hard work you put in all week.

I enjoy getting to learn from these distinguished instructors in a more intimate setting and I love seeing all of my genealogy friends and meeting new ones. I love attending institutes for all of the reasons I described in this series and probably some that I didn’t. The most important thing to remember is to have fun! I hope that you will try an institute in the future!

Genealogy Institutes – Part Two

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There are what I would consider five major genealogy institutes: British, IGHR, GRIP, NIGR, and SLIG. Readers, if there are others that I’m missing, please don’t hesitate to let me know. I may want to attend! By institute, I mean the week-long, in-depth course you take on one topic with one or two instructors for the entire week. You can read the previous post to read my description of an institute. This post will begin the tour of those five and give some insights into what I know about each of them. They are being presented here in random order, and just to remind you, I have only been to GRIP and IGHR personally although I will be attending SLIG in January. So while some of this is firsthand knowledge, other bits are what I have read, heard or found on their websites, which I will also be linking to for easy access.

I find institutes to be invaluable learning opportunities for genealogists wanting to know more and go deeper into a topic. There are many choices within these five institutes. They all seem to have a core of classes that are taught annually and some that rotate. Check their websites for each year’s lineup.

2013-08-08 12.49.06 pmThe first institute that I will be covering is the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History Institute (or “British Institute” for short). As the title would suggest, this institute focuses mainly on British Isles research, including Irish research. It is held annually in October at the Radisson in downtown Salt Lake City which is located within walking distance of the Family History Library. Classes are designed so that you have class/lecture time in the morning with time at the library in the afternoon and individual instruction time with your instructor. For current pricing, visit their website.

This year the institute is offering four tracks:

  • “Sources For Tracing Pre-mid-nineteenth Century English Ancestors” with Maggie Loughran and Paul Blake
  • “From Simple to Complex: Applying Genealogy’s Standard of Acceptability to British Research” with Tom Jones
  • “Irish Land Records and Fragmentary Evidence Correlation” with David Rencher
  • “Using the Cloud for British Family History Research” with Graham Walter

The website currently only lists David Rencher’s course as being sold out, so there may still be time to register and go if you are interested. I have not attended this institute yet, but it is in my future plan to do so. If any of you have input on your experiences with British Institute and would like to share them, please do so in the comments.

Next up, IGHR and GRIP.