SLIG Spring Virtual 2025

Course 1: Reconstructing Ancestral Neighborhoods & Networks

Kimberly T. Powell and Gerald H. Smith, CG

Understanding the physical and social landscapes where our ancestors lived can be crucial to solving problems of identity, kinship, and origin. This hands-on, advanced course, for students with experience in land records and platting, offers critical skills and practical strategies for constructing community networks around elusive ancestors. We’ll explore the integration of advanced land platting techniques with modern mapping technologies and historical maps to place ancestors in a specific location, trace the development of the neighborhoods in which they lived, and uncover insights into historical relationships and migration patterns. In-class examples and exercises will also demonstrate triangulation techniques for determining approximate location from partial data and the use of reconstructed ancestral networks to identify key associates, disambiguate same-name people, and locate “missing” individuals. NOTE: This course requires previous completion of the week-long land platting course offered at either SLIG or IGHR or permission of the instructors.

Course 2: Researching Women from 1860 to 1950

Gena Philibert-Ortega, MA, MAR

There’s no doubt that researching female ancestors can be difficult. The records genealogist’s use doesn’t always include women by name. Women’s marital name changes coupled with the fact that women’s historical legal rights precluded them from activities that leave a record trail, make finding her story seem impossible.

As we consider our female ancestors, we must enhance our approach from strictly genealogical research to research that includes historical and social history sources and context. By expanding our research to include other methodologies and sources, we can learn more about our female ancestors.

In this course, we will explore women's historical experiences to understand better their lives and the records left behind. Conducting exhaustive research and writing techniques will also be discussed. This course will focus on the 1860-1950 years in the United States so we can narrow our scope and start telling the stories of our most recent female ancestors. Our focus will be recreating women’s communities, finding records, and writing her story so we can share it with family members.

Course 3: A Century of Change: The Emigrant-Immigrant-Migrant Experience in the U.S., 1825–1925

Pamela J. Vittorio, MA, PLCGS

In the century from 1825 to 1925, our ancestors experienced innovations that had a profound effect on every aspect of their lives. This course explores the emigrant-immigrant-migrant experience during the transportation, industrial, and technological revolutions. Dig into your ancestors’ socio-historical backgrounds and develop a better understanding of the push-pull that brought them to North American shores. Determine how they arranged transatlantic passage, used various transportation methods in the U.S., purchased land, built a house, found work, became a U.S. citizen and a part of their community.

In this course, we will consider the factors that affect a person’s identity, such as language(s), educational background, communication methods, occupations, forms of socialization and entertainment, religious affiliations, and social mobility. In the social history/culture sessions, we discuss family traditions and cultural mores that may or may not be woven into the threads of the American tapestry. We will examine and interpret information from our most frequently-used records (e.g., census, BMDs, immigration records) and correlate them with other less-used record types, such as advertisements, city or farm directories, diaries, journals, business ledgers and receipts, and transportation records—to enrich our ancestors’ stories and place them alongside the people with whom they interacted in their day-to-day lives.

The session lectures and discussions cycle through topics on people and identity, social history and culture, and investigation of a wide variety of record types from which we can extract and weave information into our ancestors’ stories. Every fourth session culminates in tips and techniques for writing a family narrative or case study, and receiving feedback.

Course 4: The Art of Writing a Research Report

Debra A. Hoffman, PLCGS

Want to effectively capture your research whether writing for yourself or a client? Writing effective research reports can be a challenge. This course will provide instruction and hands-on experience creating an efficient and effective report. A team of professional genealogists will share their expertise in technical writing, evidence analysis, incorporating visual elements, organizing material, time-saving strategies, and documentation. Examples of a variety of reporting formats covering simple to complex research problems from a variety of professional perspectives will be shared and available to review during the course. Participants will learn both by evaluating provided reports and writing a research report during the week. Students should have a laptop to work on practice exercises in class and complete writing assignments.