Go beyond paid sites and learn about the tools and resources available to research your family history for free.

Unlock the secrets of your past without breaking the bank! In this presentation, attendees will discover a treasure trove of free resources for family historians.

The availability of digitized newspapers continues to grow each day and now researchers can find thousands of newspapers on sites outside of websites like Newspapers.com. This presentation will explore the numerous sites and archives that make newspapers easily accessible for little to no cost.

This presentation will showcase sites that make newspapers available to researchers for free or very little cost, such as Advantage Archives and Chronicling America, as well as the resources for newspaper research available at local FamilySearch Centers and archives. Attendees will walk away armed with a wide array of resources to begin tracing their family history in newspapers.

Following the completion of the transcontinental railroad, an army of itinerant laborers descended upon America, supplying the manpower and muscle that helped fuel our country’s industrial growth. Your ancestor may have been one of these men. This presentation will cover the history of hobos and records that you can use to tell their stories.

Hobos, tramps, and vagabonds, collectively known as itinerant workers, constituted a population of close to 100,000 people. They comprised a grouping of individuals who traveled and worked across the Midwest, Great Plains, and Mountain West between the years 1870 and 1940. This presentation will introduce the audience to the history of this subculture using documents like tramp ledgers, letters, and diaries and assist them in locating the hobos in their families and telling their stories.

After America entered World War I in 1917, the Council of National Defense ordered the establishment of women’s councils as a domestic defense, where they registered over 4,000,000 women to provide services during the war. The data compiled represent the largest forgotten census of American women ever conducted.

This presentation will introduce attendees to the history of the Woman’s Committee of the Council of National Defense and the registration cards they created. It will cover where to find these records and how to use them in telling the stories of the women in their family history.

The Midwest encompasses eleven states and nearly seventy million people with an innumerable amount of archives. From federal, state, local, and university archives the large number of places to find records can be overwhelming to the family historian. This session will explore the vast number of archives found within the Midwest while highlighting select records found within these archives.

An introduction to investigating your family history. In this presentation, you will learn about major record groups that genealogists use such as census, land, probate, court, and more. It will cover the difference between original and derivative records and guide you through the Genealogical Proof Standard and two major online databases – FamilySearch and Ancestry. Whether you are new to family history research or just need a refresher on best research practices this is the presentation for you.

Social media can help broaden our understanding of genealogy and our ancestors. In this presentation you will learn how to harness the power of social media to further your research and increase your genealogy knowledge.

As the only state to form by separating from a Confederate state, West Virginia has a rich and vibrant history with stories and records from people of bygone eras up to the present. During the session, we will explore the wide array of federal, state, and regional archives that hold the records that tell the story of West Virginia and its people.

During this presentation, we will explore why it can be difficult to locate the women in our trees. The challenge and frustration of tracing female ancestors is one that every researcher will experience at one time or another. However, there are some tried and true techniques that will help you overcome these challenges. This presentation will focus on why it is sometimes difficult to locate the women in our trees and the records and techniques that can help locate these elusive women. 

Land records are one of the major record groups used by genealogists when performing US research due to their extensive coverage, availability, and valuable information. During this presentation, you will learn why land records are a valuable source for locating family in a particular place and time. Many free adult males living in the US before the mid-1800s owned land. Therefore, land records are a valuable source for locating a family in a particular time and place. Land records usually pre-date vital records and may pre-date census and church records in some areas.

The Homestead Act of 1862 opened millions of acres of land for settlement across 30 states. Interested individuals needed to meet certain criteria before the land could gain title to this land. The records created from this process are often overlooked by family historians. This session will help you understand the wealth of knowledge that can be found in these valuable records.

Your ancestors went west for many reasons: opportunity, land, and promise. Learn about the overland trails that many of them used to head west. This session will help you understand what your ancestors experienced along the way and how you can discover them in the records they left behind. what they experienced along the way and how you can discover your pioneer ancestors in the records they left behind.

Have you ever wondered where professional genealogists go to begin their research? Do you need help creating a research plan or just need to know when a state began keeping birth records? Or do you want to know how to access millions of records that have yet to be digitized? All these questions can be answered with the FamilySearch Wiki and catalog. In this session you will learn how to navigate both and how they can help you be a better family history researcher.