Programs

“We all have much to learn from our fellow writers,” says Barbara Brabec, who will lead this class and answer your questions. After a brief introduction about her current writing endeavors, she will ask for a show of hands to learn what attendees hope to gain from this class. This will launch an open discussion where everyone will have an opportunity to ask questions, explain a problem they’re having, and/or share a tip or lesson they’ve learned the hard way.

Barbara has been self-employed at home since 1971. She is the author of six books published by the trade and another six published under her company imprint. Her experience also includes writing, editing, and publishing a quarterly magazine for five years and for twenty years a bimonthly subscription newsletter and a column for Crafts magazine. In 2010, the self-publication of her first biography and memoir, The Drummer Drives, launched her as a memoirist and storyteller. A second biography and memoir followed in 2017, and a third is now in progress. Her website is BarbaraBrabecProductions.com.

Location:
Naperville Municipal Center – Room B (Lower Level)
400 S Eagle St, Naperville, IL 60540

The Illinois State Archives was established in 1921 and is housed in the Margaret Cross Norton building in Springfield, IL. The State Archives serves as the depository of public records of Illinois state and local governmental agencies which possess permanent administrative, legal, or historical research values. Its collections do not include manuscripts, newspapers, or other nonofficial sources. The Director of the Archives, Dave Joens will give an overview of the available records and discuss how they can assist genealogists looking for family records in Illinois.

David Joens is the Director of the Illinois State Archives, the state agency that is responsible for the preservation of historic Illinois state and local government records. He is a fifth-generation resident of Illinois, an army veteran, and a former newspaper reporter for the Sun Newspapers in Lisle and Naperville. Joens received his Bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, two Master’s degrees from the University of Illinois at Springfield, and a doctorate in Illinois history from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He is the author of three books on Illinois history and government, including “From Slave to State Legislator: John W. E. Thomas, Illinois’ First African American Lawmaker,” published by SIU Press.

Location:
Naperville Municipal Center – Room B (Lower Level)
400 S Eagle St, Naperville, IL 60540

Widen your search for birth dates and locations as well as naturalizations from a variety of underutilized resources such as military rosters, consulate applications, voter registrations, canceled passports, frakturs, and much more. This lecture focuses on both digital and physical resources, so bring your research checklist and see if these resources can help you fill in the gaps in your family tree.

Debra M. Dudek is Head of Adult and Teen Services at the Fountaindale Public Library District in Bolingbrook, IL. She holds a postgraduate certificate in Genealogical, Palaeographic & Heraldic Studies from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Ms. Dudek is the Book Review Editor of the Illinois State Genealogical Society, a board member of the Illinois State Historical Society, and the author of the World War I Research Guide: Tracing American Military and Non-Combatant Ancestors.

Location:
Naperville Municipal Center – Room B (Lower Level)
400 S Eagle St, Naperville, IL 60540

March program update – Join us for Part 2 of “What the Heck Does That Say?: Overcoming the Challenge of Difficult Handwriting” by Pam Vestal. Pam is back in March to complete our handwriting workshop. Don’t worry if you missed the February meeting. We will use the same handout (available to all registrants) to learn more strategies for deciphering documents. A new exercise sheet will be sent to registrants a few days before the session. Our February meeting had a record attendance – don’t miss Part 2 of Pam’s popular program – register today!

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome in genealogy is the seemingly illegible handwriting in our ancestors’ records. In this month’s interactive session, we’ll look at a variety of practical strategies that can help you overcome all kinds of difficult penmanship, whether the document was written yesterday or hundreds of years ago.

(All FVGS meetings are recorded. Access to the recordings is a member benefit. The February and March recordings will be available to members for 30 days after being posted on the website).

Pam Vestal is a professional genealogist and speaker who turned her focus to her longtime love of genealogy after a 20-year writing career. Her articles have appeared in the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly, FGS’s Forum magazine, and the National Genealogical Society Magazine, and her lectures take her from coast to coast. Pam specializes in conducting genealogical research and then transforming that information into illustrated stories that even non-genealogists can enjoy.

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome in genealogy is the seemingly illegible handwriting in our ancestors’ records. Whether you struggle to navigate colonial penmanship that doesn’t even look like English or wrestle with contemporary documents that are poorly written, a few good strategies can make all the difference. We’ll look at more than 20 techniques to help you figure out what the chicken scratches on the page say, as well as what the style of writing might reveal about our ancestors.

Pam Vestal is a professional genealogist and speaker who turned her focus to her longtime love of genealogy after a 20-year writing career. Her articles have appeared in the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly, FGS’s Forum magazine, and the National Genealogical Society Magazine, and her lectures take her from coast to coast. Pam specializes in conducting genealogical research and then transforming that information into illustrated stories that even non-genealogists can enjoy.

If your genealogy research is stuck or you’ve “lost” your ancestor, stop actually looking for that particular ancestor. Instead, turn your attention to the events happening around them and the social issues that could have been influencing their life and the decisions they made. Understanding the answers to questions about social history gives us better insight into the lives our ancestors lived.

Lisa Lisson is the genealogy researcher behind Are You My Cousin?, a website where she has helped genealogy researchers around the world learn how to search for and find their ancestors. Through hundreds of genealogy blog posts, YouTube videos, and online masterclasses, she shares research strategies and how-to tutorials to take the overwhelm out of genealogy research.  Find her at www.LisaLisson.com.

Once you have identified the location for a family event, you have an opening to create a rich, detailed life portrait for your ancestor. Location research allows genealogists to learn the details surrounding their family, helping to give context and understanding to their lives. We will take a look at location research across time, learning what to do when you recognize the place and especially when you don’t!

Laura, a former FVGS President, has been involved in genealogy for more than 20 years. Laura was an Illinois State Genealogical Society President and has been a member of the ISGS Governing Board for many years. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with degrees focused on historic preservation and land use/environmental planning. Laura worked for 13 years as a math tutor for grades 1-9. Areas of genealogical research include Norway, Canada, France, Bohemia, and Sweden. Part of Laura’s family was in Chicago prior to the fire in 1871. Her Illinois research focuses on Cook, Kane, McHenry, and Kankakee counties.

Dean Jobb will speak about his book The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer. Before Jack the Ripper, before The Devil in the White City’s H.H. Holmes, the world’s deadliest serial killer was the Canadian doctor Thomas Neill Cream. Between 1877 and 1892 he murdered ten people — nine of them vulnerable young women — in Canada, the United States, and England. Learn more about the four murders he committed in the Chicago area in the early 1880s and how the Illinois justice system failed to stop him.

Dean Jobb is an author, journalist, and a professor at the University of King’s College in Nova Scotia, where he teaches in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction program. The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream, was longlisted for the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence and received an honorable mention in the Chicago Writers Association’s Nonfiction Book of the Year awards. His book Empire of Deception, the story of 1920s Chicago con man Leo Koretz, won the Crime Writers of Canada award for best true crime book and was chosen as the Chicago Writers Association’s Book of the Year. Dean writes the monthly true crime column “Stranger Than Fiction” for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and his features and book reviews have appeared in other major publications.

Farm records can be an insightful tool for understanding your ancestor’s place in the world. Were they wealthy, prosperous farmers or scratch farming to survive? Agricultural census, land records and mortgage books, court records, farm directories, newspapers, and personal ledgers and diaries can each provide an additional layer of insight into your family tree.

Tina Beaird is the owner of Tamarack Genealogy and is also a Genealogy/Local History Librarian at the Plainfield Public Library. Tina lectures extensively on topics including genealogical methodology, military research and archival preservation. She is a member of the Genealogical Speakers Guild and the Association of Professional Genealogists as well as First V.P. of the Illinois State Genealogical Society, Board Director for the Northern Illinois Historic League, and the Oswego Heritage Association. She volunteers her time with several historical and genealogical societies across Illinois. Tina has provided research assistance for nearly twenty years and has been researching her family’s history, as time permits, for over thirty years. She is a rabid baseball fan and her and her family have visited 24 out of 30 Major League Ballparks across the U.S.