Legacy Family Tree Webinars hits a milestone
Looks like this could be Resource Week here at The Legal Genealogist!
Yesterday, we all rejoiced over the return of the interactive county formation maps at the New Berry Library.1
Today, well, it’s a different kind of resource that we can all rejoice over.
Legacy Family Tree Webinars hits the Big 5-0-0 this week.
That’s not a typo. Not the Big 5-0.
The Big 5-0-0.
The 500th webinar in its series of marvelous presentations on just about every aspect of genealogy you can imagine will be given this week.
And in recognition of hitting that milestone, Family Tree Webinars is offering free access to all 500 recorded presentations for the entire weekend. The free period starts on Friday and runs through Sunday evening. All it asks in return: “Just visit www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com and browse or search for any topic or presenter and enjoy! Then, tell us about what you learned. And if you LOVE what you are learning, consider joining us for a month or for a year to enjoy the memberships even longer.”2
Webinar host Geoff Rasmussen tells the story of the journey to webinar #500 in his blog post at Legacy News. He talks there about the very first webinar ever presented in this series — on the 15th of September 2010, when he presented Mapping Software for Genealogists.3
The 500th webinar is this week — Friday, to be precise, at 2 p.m. EDT, when Eric Basir presents Complete Photo Restoration in 4 Easy Steps (“Learn how to scan, restore and print a photo like the pros from beginning to end in four basic steps. Audience members are encouraged to send photos from which Eric will choose one to use during this demonstration. Includes scanning and restoration”).
And, in between, some of the field’s most amazing presenters, on the most amazing range and variety of topics.
Take genealogy and the law, for example — not that I’d be particularly interested in that topic or anything… And, before I go on, truth in advertising time: because I am a webinar presenter, if you do decide to subscribe to the webinar series, I will financially benefit, along with all the other presenters. Just sayin’. But look at what you can learn about! Here’s just a sampler of my recorded webinars:
• That First Trip to the Courthouse: “If there is one home truth in genealogy research, it’s this: not everything is available online. Sooner or later, every genealogist has got to make that first trip to the courthouse to check out the original records available there. Learn how to prepare for that trip, the rules of the road, what to expect, what to ask for, and how to be sure you’ll be welcomed back the next time.”
• How Knowing the Law Makes Us Better Genealogists: “To understand our ancestors’ lives – why they did what they did, we need to understand the law that governed their lives in so many ways. Knowing the law our ancestors lived by helps us make sense of the records they left and find clues to more and different records.”
• The Fair Court: Records of Chancery Courts: “Only one court has ever had doing what’s fair as part of its official mission: the chancery court. With different names in different states (and countries), it was often the go-to court for cases of great genealogical value, including divorces, guardianships, real property partition and more.”
• D-I-V-O-R-C-E!: “Our ancestors’ marriages lasted so much longer than our own. One reason: it was so hard to get a divorce. But it still happened, and the records created in the process tell us much about our ancestors, their lives and the laws they lived by.”
• The Private Laws of the Federal and State Governments: “Few researchers realize that many early federal and state laws were private laws -specifically for the benefit of individuals or families. The records can be fabulous for genealogists. Learn how to find these genealogical gems in federal and state collections.”
Want to learn more about DNA testing? How about an entire series of webinars from The Genetic Genealogist Blaine Bettinger? His Foundations in DNA series is simply fabulous: Genealogy and DNA, DNA Overview, Y-DNA, Mitochondrial DNA and Autosomal DNA.
How about Irish research? Check out John Grenham’s Foundations of Irish Genealogy series, starting with The Raw Materials of Irish Genealogy — and don’t overlook his new one: Why are Irish records so weird?
If your ancestors were German, check out Ursula Krause’s Finding Your Ancestors’ German Hometown, Gail Blankenau’s Deciphering German Script, Jim Beidler’s Zigzagging through German Church Records — and make sure you register for Luana Darby’s upcoming Is this the End? Taking Your German Brick Walls Down Piece by Piece.
If methodology is your thing, as both a presenter and a trustee of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, I can personally attest to the quality of presentations available as a result of the partnership of BCG and Family Tree Webinars. From Elizabeth Shown Mills’ FAN + GPS + DNA: The Problem-Solver’s Great Trifecta to Rebecca Whitman Koford’s Are You My Grandpa? Men of the Same Name, the BCG webinars cover the waterfront of genealogical methods.
Other categories for you to browse: Beginners, Family Search, Google, Records (from Adoption Records to World War II records, and, of course, Legacy Family Tree’s own software. And there’s so much more.
So check it out this weekend. You’re guaranteed to find more of interest and use to your genealogy than you’ll be able to fit into your free time.
Congratulations to Family Tree Webinars for the Big 5-0-0 — and thank you for the free weekend!
SOURCES
- See Judy G. Russell, “They’re back!!,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 10 Apr 2017 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 11 Apr 2017). ↩
- Geoff Rasmussen, “The journey to webinar #500, plus free access this weekend,” Legacy News, posted 10 Apr 2017 (http://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/ : accessed 10 Apr 2017). ↩
- Ibid. ↩
When I started, I was just trying to figure out how to do good genealogical research. I was a scientist, so had knowledge about research techniques, but not much about gen resources and the standards unique to genealogical and historical research. Because of health limitations, I try to do as much as I can online, then do a field trip with a list of questions and locations and repositories, and bury myself in paperwork and photo taking. I learned ALL of this thought the webinars put together by Geoff and his team. Judy, your webinars alone would have made subscribing to Legacy Webinars worthwhile. But I actually managed to get a pretty good education by putting what I learned to use immediately and practicing. When Legacy teamed up with BCG, it was a dream come true. I hope to “go on the clock” soon. And I sort of almost kinda feel ready. Thanks to you and all the presenters, and especially to Geoff for having a vision and making it happen.