Tag: Pennsylvania Genealogy Event

Genealogy

It’s Family History Month!

Becky

October is Family History Month and I always try to take part in various programs to help get me focused on my genealogy. In the coming paragraphs I’ll share with you what my month is consisting of to help me find my family members.

Early Morning Genealogy

My local library has a Special Collections department where they kicked off Family History Month by having an “Early Morning Genealogy” program where family historians were able to head to the library before the library opened and begin to research. As I’ve stated before I am so lucky that my library has a wonderful resource in our Special Collections area, including books from just about every state and various countries as well.

Representatives from various local groups are in attendance as well. I know in past years we have had ambassadors from D.A.R., Daughters of the the War of 1812, Palatines, this year we had someone willing to assist with Slovak research and DNA questions. It’s just a great environment to talk with others who enjoy this hobby and you learn so much.

Watching Genealogy Videos

There are so many videos out there on the internet that can help you find out more ways to find your people. One is the website Family Tree Webinars as they have 2,845 programs where you can watch and learn about so many different topics. Yes, it helps to be a member but they do have new webinars presented weekly that you can watch free for a week.

This snippet was taken on the evening of 11 Oct 2026 – but I’m sure all these statistics will be different within days.

Over the summer I signed up for the 2nd Pennsylvania Genealogy Event, or PaGE. It is the virtual genealogy conference by the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. With a majority of their membership coming from those who live outside the states borders, they opt for an online conference. This year they provided the programming 2 weeks before they had their 4 day conference where you could then attend a 30 minute Q&A session with each presenter. We now have until November 11 to continue to watch both the presentations and their Q&A’s. The topics this year have been amazing and I’ve learned so much. But I’ve seized the moment with Family History Month to really get myself into the zone of getting caught up before the presentations go away.

So far I’ve watched presentations on coal mining towns, blue collar jobs, finding clergy, and using religious records. Next up for me for tomorrow will be “Local Counties & Histories”.

I hope it’s okay I snipped this photo of the PaGE website, but it’s so beautiful I want to remember it! But in case you want to learn more about the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania – click here.

You can also gain a lot of knowledge just by searching the term “genealogy” on YouTube. It’s amazing what you can find, and who knows, if you focus your research even more you may be able to find exactly what you need to chip away at a brick wall.

Local Family History Days

Next weekend my local FamilySearch Center will be having their Family History Day where they will provide programming on Polish, Italian, and African American Ancestry, FamilySearch, Ancestry.com, AI and more. I always enjoy a day where I can learn about a variety of things, and sometimes sitting in on a class I think I know so much about still has me learn something new. If you live in an area where a FamilySearch Center is located, check them out to see what sort of programs they are offering this month. Just go to FamilySearch.org and look under “locations” to find out.

Keep It Simple

If you are like me and sometimes get overwhelmed trying to figure out what you want to begin researching about, sometimes you just need to pick a branch you know you need to work on. Last weekend for “Early Morning Genealogy” I opted to choose my 2nd-great-grandmother, Anna Maria Leighty, as there is so much I need to work on with that line. I’m so glad I did as I happened to find a published genealogy book on the Leighty line on Ancestry.com. It gave me names to look into and for some reason, new people popped up on my radar to look into for others in my family that have had me puzzled for a while. They always say re-look over the documents you have, and they aren’t kidding how sometimes you see stuff you hadn’t seen before.

Enjoy this month dedicated to our wonderful hobby and I wish each of you the best of luck on finding some hidden information on the ancestors that came before you.

Genealogy

Family History Month

Becky

Today is the final day of October 2023 and did you accomplish anything for Family History Month? I didn’t really have a chance to work on my family history much, but I did seize some time to take some classes that I’ll share with you.

PA Ancestors

I belong to a group on the website PA Ancestors and I began the month by taking a class entitled “Discover Your Ancestors Workshop”. It was very helpful – I found it allowed me to focus on my problem at hand (we worked on a brick wall throughout the workshop). Though I haven’t knocked my brick wall down yet, I do have a better sense of records I need to go through in order to find more information on Suzanna Akers (I focused on her alone as opposed to her and Andrew combined).

In case you are unfamiliar with PA Ancestors, it is a group run by Denys Allen and it focuses on Pennsylvania Genealogy. It began as a podcast and has grown into a group. Just so incredibly helpful as those of us who research Pennsylvania know it can be challenging.

NGS Class: Foundations 102

I also realized that I had not worked on my Foundations 102 class much since ordering it in early July (I thought I had done it in August) and since you have 6 months to complete it (you can get an extension) I figured I’d better get a move on as I was on the second module still.

I did manage to finish module 2, which was all about using FamilySearch.org, I am now working on the module about Vital Records. I still have a deep dive into Census Records, Newspapers, and Cemeteries to go before it concludes at the end of December.

This is a class you can purchase through the National Genealogical Society. I have found them to be quite interesting, some stuff I know, but other things I don’t. My goal is to complete all the classes they have in order to advance my genealogical education.

If you are interested in learning about the educational opportunities with NGS, click here.

Finishing Up the Pennsylvania Genealogy Event, or PaGE

I’ve also tried to watch all the recordings that I wanted to see and their corresponding Q&A videos for the Pennsylvania Genealogy Event, aka PaGE, that took place the first week of August. I spent the extra to have access to the recordings for a few extra months so I could watch everything (if they do this again I’ll know to work less and pay attention more during the live Q&A’s as they really tried hard to have those who attended interact throughout the week).

Some of the presentations were just phenomenal and I’m so glad I took the time to listen to each and every one as I still learned things that I might not have known before.

Most Importantly

I learned throughout the month I need to take the time to spend on my family history. I miss making the discoveries about my family and that feeling I get when I get one step closer to figuring out a monumental find. Between starting a new job, and my son being a senior… I feel like I’m in a whirlwind and never have time to just sit down and relax (when I do I instantly fall asleep, I’m typing this after eating a quick lunch so I hopefully will complete it).

I hope you were all able to make good use of Family History Month, if you made any discoveries please share them in the comments below. If you didn’t because you were busy, I totally understand. There’s always November.