Upcoming presentations
Hard to believe we’re already into April of 2026, Easter is just around the corner, and The Legal Genealogist is hard at work catching up from a milestone-birthday-trip that shoulda been a Nile cruise but — given world events — turned into a 4500km trip to South Australia and Victoria instead.
Having just gotten back, I may not be entirely sure what time zone I’m in — or even what season this is (Australia is going into fall as the United States goes into spring) — but there’s a lot coming up and, as always, I’d love to have you come along, to the extent possible, on the trip.
April 2026
• Wednesday, 8 April, 2 p.m. EDT: Legacy Family Tree Webinars is hosting the virtual presentation Advertising the Law: The Gems in the Legal Notices. For more information and to register, see the webinar page.
• Saturday, 11 April, 10 a.m. EDT: The Bucks County (PA) Genealogical Society is hosting the virtual presentation NARA Mythbusters: Your Family IS in the Archives. For more information and to register, see the event page.
• Tuesday, 14 April, 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT): The Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society is hosting the virtual presentation Polls, Personalty and Property – Making Sense of Tax Lists. For more information and to register, see the society’s events page.
• Thursday, 16 April, 7 p.m. MDT (9 p.m. EDT): The Virtual Chapter of the Utah Genealogical Society is hosting the virtual presentation In That Case: Using Published Court Cases. For more information and to register, see the event page.
• Saturday, 18 April, 10:45 a.m. CDT (11:45 a.m. EDT): The Genealogy Friends of Plano (TX) Libraries will host the virtual presentation Inventing America: Records of the U.S. Patent Office. For more information and to register, see the Saturday Seminars page.
• Monday, 20 April, 2 p.m. CDT (3 p.m. EDT): The Mid-Continent Public Library Midwest Genealogy Center branch is hosting the virtual presentation Who, What, Why, When, Where, and How of American Divorce. For more information and to register, see the event page.
• Saturday, 25 April: The Virginia Genealogical Society will be hosting its virtual 2026 Spring Seminar, The Eve of Independence: Colonial Research in Virginia from 9:50 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. ET. I’m one of three individual presenters, with the topic From Crown to Commonwealth: A Revolution in Virginia Inheritance. Barbara Vines Little leads off with From Jamestowne to the Commonwealth, 1607-1776: Virginia’s Surviving Records and What They Can Tell Us, and Craig Scott adds The Virginia Colonial War Experience. There’s also a terrific panel discussion on Lines of Descent: Standards and Strategies for Colonial Era Lineage Applications, with Nicki Peak Birch, Lyndon H. Hart III, and Kimberly Ormsby Nagy. Details and a registration link can be found on the society’s events page.
May 2026
• Saturday-Sunday, 2-3 May: The Genealogical Society of Nova Scotia is hosting its 2026 Virtual Conference with a terrific line-up of speakers covering a wide variety of topics ranging from AI to genealogical methodology. I’m honored to be included, presenting Dowered or Bound Out: Records of Widows and Orphans at 1:45 p.m. AT (12:45 p.m. ET) on Saturday. For more information about this event and to register, see the the conference website.
• Wednesday-Saturday, 27-30 May: The National Genealogical Society is hosting its 48th annual Familly History Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This year, as the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, the theme of America at 250 will focus on understanding the nation’s past and preserving its records for the future. I’ll be presenting twice: on Friday, 29 May, at 9:30 a.m., on Twenty-Eight Volumes of Gold: U.S. Territorial Papers; and on Saturday, 30 May, at 11 a.m., on Occupants, Owners or Nations: Native Rights to Land. For more information about this event — which does include a virtual option for access to session recordings, see the the conference website.
Come on out and join us, if you can, for one or more of these events and note, in some cases, that registration will be free or at a reduced cost to members of the host society — and some are limited to members only… There are some reaaaaaaally good reasons for joining genealogical societies… Just sayin’…
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Coming up: April-May 2026,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 2 April 2026).
