
Family History Month takes place every October. I got a kick-start last month when an area FamilySearch Center had a Family History Day in late September to get my mojo going. The keynote speaker was one of my favorites, Sunny Jane Morton, who gave her presentation on PERSI 2.0 (and despite having learned about PERSI so many times over the 9 years of being serious about my genealogy, this time I finally got it).
In the coming weeks, I will be attending the Early Morning Genealogy my local library is hosting. We get to hang out in the Special Collections division where the library opens up to us an hour early to begin researching. I’ve said it a zillion times, I am so very lucky to have such a wonderful resource. With a wide array of genealogy databases available for free (many are viewable at the local branches but a few are Main Library specific), I should be able to find some information about whoever I choose to explore that day.
At the end of the month my own county’s FamilySearch Center is hosting their Family History Day where they will have programming introducing researchers of all levels to the various online databases – Ancestry, AI, Find My Past, Find a Grave, etc. Though I know a lot of things about a lot of the different programs, I always learn something I didn’t know, or could simply be reminded about something I have forgotten.
Check your local libraries and FamilySearch Centers to see if there are free programs near you to attend. It’s always fun just to get together with other researchers and learn about their discoveries because it may give you an idea on how to chip away at a problem you’re having.
Here is to a successful Family History Month!