To go to the flyer and form to use to register for the Fall Seminar with Gena Philibert-Ortega, click here. You should be able to print the form out and either mail the form with the registration fee or bring the completed form and fee into the library. Copies of the flyer and registration form will also be available at the librarian's desk at the library.

Our Fall Seminar this year will be taking place on Saturday, October 28 at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church. Our presenter this year will be Gena Philibert-Ortega. She is a nationally known and respected speaker and this should be an especially interesting seminar. The topics and focus of our seminar will be our female ancestors and should prove valuable to anyone doing research on their family. Registration forms will be available at the library and on-line in September. Below are the details:

Gena Philibert-Ortega is an author, researcher, and instructor whose focus is genealogy, social and women's history. She holds a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies (Psychology and Women's Studies) & a Master’s degree in Religion. Her published works include 3 books, numerous articles published in magazines and online, & Tracing Female Ancestors (Moorshead Publishing). She is the editor of the Utah Genealogical Association’s magazine, Crossroads. Her writings can also be found on the GenealogyBank blog. She has presented to diverse groups including the National Genealogical Society Conference, Alberta Genealogical Society Conference, Geo-Literary Society, & the Legacy Family Tree Webinar series. Her research projects include Sowerby’s British Mineralogy: Its Influence on Martha Proby and Others in the Scientific Community during the 19th Century for the Gemological Institute of America, as well as genealogical research for the first season of PBS’s Genealogy Roadshow & the Travel Channel’s Follow Your Past. 

Topics:

Unsung Heroes: Women's Contributions During World War I

As genealogists, we are familiar with military records but what else can we discover about our families during the World War I era? What about women’s roles and the records they left behind? In this presentation, we will concentrate on women on the American home front and what records can be used to tell their stories.

Rediscovering Female Ancestors Through Historical Newspapers

Through the lens of historical newspapers, we will delve into the untold stories of our female ancestors. Newspapers are the great equalizer and women’s lives are found in their pages. In this lecture we will discuss they types of newspaper articles women are found in, where to find newspapers online and off, and search tips specific to researching women.

Learning More about American Female Ancestors Prior to 1850

One of the stumbling blocks for family historians is researching before 1850 when the US census is limited to only the names of the head of household. Compounded by laws that affected women, such as coverture, and those female ancestors can be fairly invisible to the researcher. So how do you research your female ancestor? What records document their lives? Using case studies, we will take a look at how to approach this research and what records are available so you can be successful in finding your female ancestors.

Tracing Her Legacy: 20 Records that Document Female Ancestors

“Women are difficult to research.” While this is true, there are records out there that document their lives. In order to find women, we need to take a different approach to how we research. In this presentation we will focus on 20 US records that focus on women’s lives from the colonial period to the 20th century.