Hands-On Genealogy Workshop

NSSAR Staff Genealogist, Denise Hall, will begin the workshop with a short demonstration on how to correctly print documentation images from online sources. This will last no more than a half-hour.

Following the first part, she will focus on how to use familysearch.org, a totally free website containing millions of actual records (from the U.S. and around the globe), including birth, death, and marriage records, as well as some wills, probates, and deed documents. Familysearch also has a variety of books available in electronic format. You are encouraged to bring laptops, tablets, etc., so that you can follow along and ask questions as you go. If you have not used familysearch.org before, or have never established a user name and password, you are encouraged to do so before this workshop. It is a totally free website, but because of contractual agreements with sources of some of the documents, you will occasionally encounter "sign in to view this document" in your searches. So, setting up your user name and password ahead of time will save you time later. Just remember to write it down! One other caveat: if you have an older laptop, such as one still running on Windows XP that still has Internet Explorer as the browser, you will not be able to use familysearch.org on it, unless you download a newer browser, such as Chrome.

Feel free to bring a sack lunch to eat after the workshop or Subway is available the next block down.