“NARA Nuggets: Genealogy in the Archives”

There are a lot of great benefits to membership in the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), including its webinar series that began back in 2012.

Tonight, you can join The Legal Genealogist and enjoy that benefit — for free, even if you’re not an APG member — in a webinar focusing on the genealogical gems that can be found in the records of the National Archives.

It’s part of the lead-up to this year’s Professional Management Conference (PMC), one of the premier conferences each year for genealogists who are trying to step up their game.

Since this year’s conference is in the Washington, D.C., area — it’s being held September 29 through October 1 at the DoubleTree Crystal City Hotel in Arlington, Virginia — APG is using its webinar series to introduce its members and other potential attendees to the resources of the Nation’s Capital.

In June, Shannon Combs-Bennett presented “A Genealogist’s Tour of the Nation’s Capital,” in July, Darryn Lickliter spoke on “The DAR Library: Resources for Genealogists” (recordings are now available for APG members only) and, on September 18, Angela Packer McGhie will offer an “Introduction to Researching at the Library of Congress.”

Tonight, it’s my turn, and I’m going to be presenting “NARA Nuggets: Genealogy in the Archives.” The webinar gets underway at 8 p.m. EDT (7 p.m. CDT, 6 p.m. MDT, 5 p.m. PDT.)

Here’s the official blurb:

Even professional genealogists can easily overlook some of the genealogically-valuable nuggets tucked away in the National Archives. This presentation will help PMC attendees consider whether devote some of their research time to some of the underutilized records that can be found in Archives I (downtown) and Archives II (College Park, Maryland). Records such as patent, post office and weather records, just to name a few, are well worth the effort to find and review, and the presentation will go on to feature other less-utilized NARA records located in repositories outside the Washington D.C. area.

So we’re going to try to focus on some of the underutilized resources of NARA… and, yeah, I already know there’s no way we can begin to cover them all. But with luck you’ll come away from the webinar with some ideas for research you hadn’t thought about before, and some clues about how to best prepare for a research trip to NARA — and for the PMC if you can make it.

Again, this webinar is free and open to all genealogists, courtesy of the Association of Professional Genealogists, so reserve your webinar seat now (the registration link is here).