I have been teaching in a professional capacity for over twenty years. I love speaking about genealogy and learning from others which is why I’ve designed my presentations to be as informative as possible while also allowing time for questions and suggestions from participants. The following sessions have typically been delivered in 90 minutes, but can be adapted for your group or individual needs. These sessions can be delivered in person or online and can also be used as templates for one-on-one tutorials with myself. Contact me to find out more.
First I want to tell you that we thoroughly enjoyed your presentation last week! Your information was perfectly organized and easy to follow. That is, of course, very important but the best part is your delightful enthusiasm which reached out to all of us in a beautiful way. I am sure that no one wanted to go home! When is the next one?! – Getting Started with Ancestry.com & DNA Testing attendee
Getting Started with Online Genealogy Research
Learn how to get started with your online genealogy research. Find out about free tools, how to effectively use subscription-based family tree resources, and how to organize what you find.
- Audience: beginners, intermediate
- Duration: 90 minutes, including Q&A
Getting Started with Ancestry.com & DNA Testing
Learn how to make the most of Ancestry.com to find out more about your ancestors. We’ll cover how to search through billions of records, how to build family trees, and talk about DNA testing and connecting with new-found relatives. Although this workshop is aimed towards beginners, we welcome everyone with an interest and experience in genealogy.
- Audience: beginners, intermediate
- Duration: 90 minutes, including Q&A
DNA Testing for Genealogy
Find out about the different types of DNA testing that are available and which might be best for your needs. We’ll talk about ethnicity estimates, privacy issues and how to use your results and matches to help break through brick walls in your family tree.
- Audience: beginners, intermediate (you do not need to have taken a DNA test prior to this presentation)
- Duration: 90 minutes, including Q&A
- Handout: DNA Testing for Genealogy [PDF]
Trusting Your Sources: How Do You Know You’ve Found the Right Record?
You’ve worked hard to collect records for your ancestors, but how do you know you have the right records for the right people? This talk gives tips on how to find and evaluate records and ensure your research is top-notch. Using the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) as our guide, we’ll discuss a compelling case study that seemed watertight… until it wasn’t.
- Audience: beginners, intermediate
- Duration: 90 minutes, including Q&A
Sharing & Writing About Your Family History
You’ve done all the research. Now what? How do you share it with your family? How do you get them interested in their ancestry? In this session, we’ll talk about where you can find information that adds further colour and depth to your ancestors’ lives. We’ll then discuss various ways to share this information with your own descendants.
- Audience: beginners, intermediate
- Duration: 90 minutes, including Q&A
Back to School Basics for the Family Historian
Family historians typically love to learn and fortunately for us, there are endless opportunities for doing so! Conferences, books, webinars, courses, blogs, podcasts, institutes, workshops, society memberships, publications, and meetings, and much, much more… So where do you start? How do you pick and choose? And what do you do with everything you’ve learned? This session gives an overview of some of the best educational resources out there (including the free stuff!), how to prioritize your educational goals, and how to organize and remember all the good stuff you’ve learned.
- Audience: any level
- Duration: 60 minutes, including Q&A
Travelling Back in Time Using Google Earth Pro
This session demonstrates how you can visually wow your friends and relatives with your family history research. Google Earth Pro is a free program that gives you a way to map out your ancestors’ lives and add in as many visuals and text as you can find. It can help us better understand the places where our ancestors lived and sometimes even leads us to answers we’ve been searching for. Kids especially love to “fly” through time and see where their ancestors lived.
- Audience: any level
- Duration: 90 minutes, including Q&A