… and you can join in

Every year, around the time of its Board of Trustees meeting in Salt Lake City in October, the Board for Certification of Genealogists does something special.

It says “thank you” to the Family History Library and its staff for everything they do for us, and for the genealogical community as a whole.

The FHL is the home-away-from-home for many of us — the repository of all those rolls of microfilm and all those books and all that amazing knowledge inside the heads of the resource staff.

It’s the place where you can check the deeds from 1799-1803, discover you need the deeds from 1804-1810, and simply get up from the microfilm reader, put the first roll of microfilm back, grab the second one and keep researching without missing a beat.

It’s the place where you can find that one printed copy of the obscure book about a unique set of records in a county whose records were otherwise destroyed by fire or flood.

And — best of all — it’s the place where you can ask for help when you find yourself stuck trying to figure out which parish or which canton or which county would have your ancestors’ records at that time.

Open six days a week, and always always always free, the Family History Library is simply a wonderful place.

The Board for Certification of Genealogists and its trustees — and The Legal Genealogist is one, having just been re-elected to my third and final three-year term (term limits! yay!) — know this only too well, and we are grateful.

So we say thank you each October with a free lecture series — the Reisinger Lectures, named for the late Joy Reisinger, former BCG Vice President and Certified Genealogist Emeritus — for the Family History Library and its staff. It’s also always free and always open to anyone who’s anywhere near Salt Lake City at the time.

And, this year, for the second year in a row, you can join in at home.

Because, thanks to BCG’s webinar partner, Legacy Family Tree Webinars, the day-long series of lectures will be broadcast and recorded — free.

As explained by BCG President Richard G. “Rick” Sayre, “Every October BCG presents a series of lectures at the Family History Library given by some of the most distinguished genealogists in our field. This year they are also available online. We do this to educate genealogists at all levels and to promote uniform standards of competence and ethics.”

Five lectures will be presented, starting at 9:00 a.m. Mountain daylight time (MDT) and running through to 4:30 p.m. MDT, on Friday, October 19, 2018:

• 9:00-10:00 a.m. MDT – “Past Conflict Repatriation: The Role of Genealogists and Methodology in Fulfilling Our Nation’s Promise,” presented by Jeanne Larzalere Bloom, CG

• 10:30-11:30 a.m. MDT – “Deeper Analysis: Techniques for Successful Problem Solving,” presented by Elissa Scalise Powell, CG, CGL

• 1:00-2:00 p.m. MDT – “John Jacob Kramer: Case Study of Mistaken Identity among Revolutionary War Soldiers”, presented by Rebecca Whitman Koford, CG, CGL

• 2:15-3:15 p.m. MDT – “Using Indirect and Negative Evidence to Prove Unrecorded Events,” presented by Thomas W. Jones, PhD, CG, CGL

• 3:30-4:30 MDT – “The Discriminating Genealogist: Telling Good Evidence from Bad,” presented by yours truly, Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL

You can go to www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com/BCG to sign up individually, or go to this link here to sign up for more than one of the lectures at once.

We hope you can join us as we at BCG say “thank you” to the Family History Library and its staff!