Upcoming presentations
Yes, as always, The Legal Genealogist has a lot coming up in the next few weeks and, as always, you’re invited along as much as possible.
But I want to emphasize one upcoming event in particular, because it’s one of my favorite topics, it’s coming up fast, and it’s aimed directly at some of our most difficult genealogical questions.
It’s a new workshop–Genealogy’s Secret Weapon: Tax Records from Whiskey to Watches, a two-session, four-hour deep dive into tax records. Part of the Family History Academy course offerings, it starts next week, on Wednesday, October 7 at 7 p.m. EDT, with the second session a week later, Wednesday, October 14 at 7 p.m. EDT.
The bottom line is that taxes were set and collected at local, county or parish, state and federal levels, creating records that survive in extraordinary variety in places and for time periods where other records simply don’t. They capture individuals and families who left little trace elsewhere. But many genealogists don’t use these amazing records, or don’t use them well, because they don’t know where to find them, don’t fully understand them, or don’t know how to use them effectively.
This workshop takes aim directly at those gaps in our genealogical education with a registration cost of $157 — less than 50 cents a day if you figure an annual budget. It can help you figure out how to dig out that key genealogical data from tax records and how to use that data effectively to resolve identity questions, track movement over time, and provide evidence for everything from relationships to relative economic position. If you need to miss a session, or the time doesn’t work out to join live, both sessions will be recorded and available for 14 days.
Register now and come join us next week and the week after.
Seriously. You do not want to miss this one.
And, of course, even in addition to institute courses for which registration is closed, there’s more.
October 2026
• Saturday, 3 October, 3 p.m. BST/10 a.m. EDT: The Devon Family History Society, Exeter, England, is hosting its virtual Annual General Meeting and Webinar, where I’ll be presenting The Robot Genealogist: Separating Fact from Fiction in AI-Assisted Research. For more information, see the event page and sign up for the society mail list at this link.
• Wednesdays, October 7 and October 14, 7 p.m. EDT: The Family History Academy is hosting Genealogy’s Secret Weapon: Tax Records from Whiskey to Watches. — that virtual two-part course that I’m so excited about. Think about it: even when our ancestors left behind nothing but footprints in places where they lived, the tax people found ’em — and created records about them. We’re going to look at records from all over — not just the US, but Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom too. For more information and to register, see the FHA course website.
• Thursday, 15 October, 7:00 p.m. EDT: The Ford’s Colony (VA) Genealogy Club is hosting the virtual presentation Where There Is–or Isn’t–a Will. For more information, see the society’s meeting schedule page.
• Wednesday, 21 October, 6:00 p.m. CDT/7 p.m. EDT: The St. Louis County Library is hosting the virtual presentation From 1619 to Juneteenth: Slavery and the Law Before the Civil War. For more information, see the library’s events calendar page.
November 2026
• Saturday, 7 November, 9:15 a.m. EST: The Friends of the Virginia Archives will present the annual Richard Slatten Lecture at the Library of Virginia in Richmond. This all-day in-person event features four lectures: Linking the Generations with Court and Land Records; Property Rights and Wrongs–African-Americans at the Courthouse; Where There Is–or Isn’t–a Will; and After the Courthouse Burns: Rekindling Family History through DNA. For more information and to register, see the brochure online or email the Friends of the Virginia State Archives at slattenlecture2026@gmail.com.
• Tuesday, 10 November, 7 p.m. EST: The Kentucky Genealogical Society is hosting the virtual presentation “Disabled or Deceased in the Line of Duty”-Military Pensions and the Civil War. For more information and to register for this program on pensioners in Kentucky and beyond, see the society’s events page.
• Wednesday, 11 November, 7 p.m. MST/9 p.m. EST: The Pikes Peak Genealogical Society is hosting the virtual presentation A Sentence of Transportation. For more information, see the society’s events page. Non-members can request an invitation (see the monthly meetings page.
• Saturday, 14 November, 11 a.m. EST: The Hudson County (NJ) Genealogical & Historical Society is hosting the virtual members-only presentation “Disabled or Deceased in the Line of Duty”-Military Pensions and the Civil War focusing on pensioners in New Jersey and beyond. Members get log-in info for all members-only webinars automatically, but there’s plenty of time to join! See the society membership page.
• Saturday, 21 November, 10 a.m. MST/12 noon EST: The Castle Rock Colorado Genealogical Society is hosting the virtual presentation Doing Time – Prison Records as Genealogy Resources. For more information, keep an eye on the society’s upcoming events page.
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…
And you really want that tax course starting next week. Really.
Just sayin’…
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Coming up: October-November 2026,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/ : posted 1 Oct 2026).
