Schedule by Date - 2026

It is virtually impossible to do research in Eastern Europe without first knowing the name of the village where your ancestors came from.

A country name or even a general area is too broad.

Having this village information will enhance your experience during the conference.

This morning workshop will focus on helping you find the village of origin.

Instruction will be given in the use of United States and Canadian record sources that may provide this information as well as methodologies to use when your search has not produced an answer.

In the afternoon participants can spend time at the FamilySearch Library using the available records and subscription sites.

One-on-one consultation times can be scheduled to provide research assistance.

Note: This workshop ends at the point where identification of the name of the village of origin is found.

Though highly possible, it is not guaranteed that the village name will be found.

Additional research may be needed upon your return home.

This class focuses on reading Polish-language civil registration records created in the Russian Partition, including the long-form birth, marriage, and death entries used throughout the 19th century.

Participants will learn to recognize the structure of metryki, interpret Polish genealogical vocabulary, and extract key details such as names, ages, relationships, occupations, and places.

The session includes step-by-step instruction and guided practice with real examples from the Congress Kingdom of Poland and surrounding regions.

Attendees will gain practical strategies for navigating spelling variations, grammatical endings, and narrative phrasing to confidently read Polish records from the Russian administrative system.

While a later conference class describes why this approach is so productive, this session focuses on the tools and the “how-to” methods.

It demonstrates how to access “hidden information”, oft-overlooked yet powerful web tools and organizing the information you have in a way that provides new insights.

Using each attendee’s research data, a method and tool will be demonstrated.

The resources will be accessed online and shared live with all participants.

Every immigrant throws us curve balls, real examples and best-practices for dealing with them will provide the researcher with a way of thinking that moves beyond the obvious.

JewishGen is a massive resource for anyone embarking on Jewish research.

It can be overwhelming.

In this workshop, we will look at the component databases that make up JewishGen, explore research techniques and discuss how to use the results of the searches.

In addition to finding information about Jews from all over the world, there are tools on JewishGen to help identify towns and immigrant records that can help inform general research and explain Jewish culture.

After the morning workshop, one-on-one consultation times can be scheduled in the afternoon to provide research assistance.

One of the challenges of German Genealogy is reading the German handwriting.

Even for a modern reader of German due to the differences in script and alphabet it can be a challenge.

This class hopes to provide an overview to the two main scripts used with the German language and the alphabet/letters most commonly found on genealogical documents so family historians may decipher them.

It will also present the most commonly found words and phrases and strategies for dealing with challenges.

A survey of websites with significant collections of digitial images of records from Poland with tips for finding records.

The presentation will include records from the territories of modern Poland as well as the 2nd Polish Republic, with an emphasis on birth, marriage, and death records.

Describes a strategy and method for searching ancestral records that often overcomes many dead-ends.

The strategy leverages archive record organization, indirect methods and “hidden” yet accessible information simply not presented by information source.

A surname search often provides random and unrelated results and dead-ends.

Most contemporary tools fail to take advantage of extended information.

This presentation describes a method of indirect research using related information common to the research subject to peruse archival sources.

A key element of this strategy is the identification of the ancestral village.

Attendance at the earlier hands-on Break Through workshop is highly recommended.

This presentation provides a brief walkthrough of how to locate civil registration records, beginning with identifying the location of the civil registration office of one’s specific German town.

The focus will be on the format of civil birth, marriage, and death records in Germany during the era of federal civil registration record-keeping, with tips and tricks to help them decipher the handwritten parts of these records (marginal notes included).

This session will also introduce endless German civil registration deciphering practice available via DecipherInk, a new subscription-based mobile app.

This class explores language changes in genealogical records created in the Russian Empire, with a special focus on the Polish territories under Russian rule.

Participants will learn why record language shifted between Polish and Russian at various times, how clerks implemented or resisted these changes, and what linguistic clues help identify the transition points.

The session includes examples of Polish-language and Russian-language metryki, hybrid records written during transitional years, and strategies for understanding name variants, terminology changes, and administrative formulas.

Attendees will gain confidence in recognizing and interpreting records across shifting linguistic and political environments.

Jewish-specific sites such as JewishGen, JRI-Poland and Gesher Galicia can be very powerful for genealogical research--including for those researching non-Jewish ancestry from Eastern and Central Europe.

Learn about the breadth and depth of information available on these sites and how they can aid in your research, potentially identifying town information, traditional genealogical information such as vital records or census-type records and more.

This class teaches researchers how to use essential tools for identifying German localities and their parish and civil jurisdictions, focusing on MeyersGaz.org and Kevan Hansen’s Map Guide to German Parish Registers.

Participants will learn how to interpret gazetteer entries, understand jurisdictional layers, handle name variants, and connect localities to the correct Protestant or Catholic parish.

The session includes demonstrations of MeyersGaz map overlays, examples from the Hansen map guides, and case studies that walk through locating records for specific towns.

Attendees will gain practical skills for navigating German administrative geography and finding where genealogical records were created.

A deeper dive into reading Polish records in Russian, with practice in deciphering example birth, marriage, and death records.

Habsburg administrative geography defeats researchers before they open a single record.

Crownlands, komitats, and jurisdictional layers don't align with modern borders — a village listed as "Hungary" in 1900 may be Slovak, Romanian, or Ukrainian today.

Mapire's georeferenced military surveys (1st–3rd) locate villages that no longer exist, match German and Magyar placename variants, and reveal parish jurisdictions.

This session builds geographic and archival literacy as the essential foundation for every downstream collection.

Live demo navigates OeStA finding aids and regional Landesarchive alongside Mapire overlays, establishing the research framework all subsequent talks assume.

This presentation explores the profound influence of monasteries and convents on everyday life in Central Europe from the Middle Ages through the end of feudalism.

Topics include the origins and cause of serfdom, the legal and economic framework of the German Empire, and the social consequences for peasants tied to monastic estates.

Attendees will learn how monasteries functioned as economic powerhouses, exercised judicial authority, and shaped the lives of those who lived and worked on their lands—often quite differently from peasants under noble rule.

The session offers valuable historical context for anyone researching family roots in this period.

Polish genealogical records are among the richest and most carefully preserved in Eastern Europe — but also among the most complex to access.

This session guides researchers from beginner to experienced through the complete landscape of online and archive-based Polish research, covering the history of FamilySearch microfilming in Poland, practical navigation of both FamilySearch and the Polish National Archives portal (Szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl), and record types far beyond the standard vital register.

Participants will also learn how Poland's 100-year privacy law and GDPR requirements shape access to recent records, and will leave with a curated list of supplementary databases, tools, and societies — including Geneteka, the Poznan Project, GenBaza, and more — to carry their research forward when the major portals fall short.

In the 1850s, the Russian Empire's implementation of mandatory conscription dramatically reshaped the lives of many families, especially within marginalized communities.

This talk will examine the devastating impact conscription had on a Jewish family living altered their future generations.in the Empire, utilizing a series of court cases, heartfelt petitions and other documentation, highlighting how it fractured familial bonds, disrupted lives, and deeply affected the community as a whole.

By focusing on the experiences of one family, we will explore the emotional and social toll of forced military service, shedding light on how it altered their future generations.

Learn how to use the main websites for German research: FamilySearch, Ancestry, Matricula, and Archion.

Case studies will be used to demonstrate how to use the sites.

When immigrants settled in a new country, they were often joined later by other immigrants from the same town or region.

Learn about research strategies for identifying and leveraging chain migration patterns for Polish ancestors.

In the 1850s, the Russian Empire's implementation of mandatory conscription dramatically reshaped the lives of many families, especially within marginalized communities.

This talk will examine the devastating impact conscription had on a Jewish family living altered their future generations.in the Empire, utilizing a series of court cases, heartfelt petitions and other documentation, highlighting how it fractured familial bonds, disrupted lives, and deeply affected the community as a whole.

By focusing on the experiences of one family, we will explore the emotional and social toll of forced military service, shedding light on how it altered their future generations.

In this lecture, I discuss the history, structure, and purpose of guilds.

Then, we look at some of the many record types that guilds created and how they can be of use to the researcher, especially when church records are missing and how these records can fill those gaps.

Find out what it is like to visit a Polish archive.

This session will include tips and strategies for visiting and using Polish archives and maximizing your research on-site.

During WWII, Anastasia Badera was sent to work in Germany, along with thousands of other “Ostarbeiters.” A Ukrainian woman from Vinnytsia, she fell in love there with an Italian man, Giuseppe Romano.

As she and others returned or were returned to Soviet-controlled territories, they underwent a thorough investigation or “filtration” process by the KGB.

Like many others, Anastasia provided officials with extensive background information, including a brief autobiography and photographs.

In a bid to preserve as much of Ukraine’s archival heritage as possible, FamilySearch has digitized over 100 million images, in 31 archives, since 2021.

Anastasia’s file is one of more than 300,000 such filtration files.

In my presentation, I will briefly describe FamilySearch’s efforts to capture these images.

I will then present interesting examples of stories and photographs from the collection, such as Ukrainians recounting attempts to flee from the invading German army but being surrounded; a maid servant spending time in a penitentiary due to “tension with the family”; and others.

I will conclude with a brief overview of the filtration records and how to search them.

The filtration records provide heart wrenching details on the lives of ordinary people who endured horrific trials.

Many of those who went through the filtration process were sent to labor camps or other penitentiaries, never to return.

At the same time, the records paint vivid portraits of what life was like in Ukraine and Europe before, during, and after the war.

And importantly for genealogy, the records provide detailed biological and genealogical information, including birth places, residence, occupation, and family relations.

This growing collection provides a rich resource for research on many aspects of Ukraine’s history and heritage.

Are your ancestors from Prussia-Poland?

Come learn about the various gazetteers and websites that are unique to the area.

Knowing all the resources that are available helps ensure that nothing is overlooked.

The records you are looking for might be online, and you just don’t know it.

Some of the resources that will be discussed are Westpreusse.de, Namenindex, Ahnenspuren, and more!

Polish War Cemeteries are in Europe from WWI, the Polish-Soviet war, and WWII.

Many Polish burials are found at www.CWGC.org in the listings of World War II military burials.

Polish burials are in cemeteries of the armies in which they fought.

Not all burials in military cemeteries are military.

Most military cemeteries have monuments listing the missing as well as burials of the unknown.

Some military burials are in civilian cemeteries.

Chart of world-wide burial locations with handout.

Photos of Polish burials in several cemeteries in Europe are included.

Advises on military and burial sources online and onsite.

J-Roots is a Russian language Jewish genealogy portal that is a trove of genealogical information.

This talk will demonstrate how an English speaker can navigate this site and demonstrate the types of successes that can be had on J-Roots, which can include identifying family records both online and in archives, indexes of records that cannot be found anywhere else, and experts (many on-the-ground in Eastern Europe) to assist you in identifying next steps for researching family from a particular area.

Are your ancestors from Prussia-Poland?

Come learn about the various websites that are unique to the area.

Knowing all the resources that are available helps ensure that nothing is overlooked.

The records you are looking for might be online, and you just don’t know it.

In part 2, come learn about Pommerscher Greif, Genealogia w Archiwach, BaSIA, and more!

From the fall of France, Polish military and their families started arriving in the UK.

By 1953, over 250,000 Polish born people were living in the UK.

They were helped with the Polish Resettlement Corps which provided training for employment and integration into life in the UK, run by the War Office.

This evolved with the Polish Resettlement Act, run by the Assistance Board.

Initially, they lived in 256 former military camps for British, Canadian, and American troops.

While eligible for UK citizenship, some choose to live in other countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, and the US.

Name changes, both in adopted countries and in the old world, make determining Ashkenazic (central and eastern European) Jewish names a genealogical puzzle.

One cannot take research back to the old country until one has identified forenames and last names.

This presentation will introduce some of the basic clues for recognizing the same person recorded under a variety of names

This presentation provides a brief walkthrough of how to locate civil registration records, beginning with identifying the location of the civil registration office of one’s specific German town.

The focus will be on the format of civil birth, marriage, and death records in Germany during the era of federal civil registration record-keeping, with tips and tricks to help them decipher the handwritten parts of these records (marginal notes included).

This session will also introduce endless German civil registration deciphering practice available via DecipherInk, a new subscription-based mobile app.

This presentation will (1) Introduce the family story and initial research steps. (2) Explain how attending a FEEFHS conference helped me prove this family story. (3) Focus on the multitude of strategies three researchers from three countries (US, Belgium, and Denmark) and two continents, as well as records in three languages (English, German, and Danish) helped verify this family story. (4) Explain the importance of reexamining earlier research and revisiting important archives, Circus World Museum, and Harvard University. (5) Discuss collateral lines. (6) Provide examples of onsite and online information from various records, next steps, and results.

This presentation highlights a database of over 100,000 Jewish vital records from the Latvian State Historical Archives, translated and expanded by Christine Usdin and the Latvia Research Division.

Covering births, marriages, divorces, and deaths mainly from 1854–1909 (with some records from 1838–1921), it references about 400,000 individuals.

The resource helps preserve Latvian Jewish history and includes archival links to original digitized documents on FamilySearch and Raduraksti.

An overview of online parish maps showing locations of parishes for Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, Czechia, Croatia, Romania and Poland.

These maps can substitute for harder-to-use gazetteers.

Clicking on a parish will also often link to online records.

We'll go over how to access and use the resources on each of these maps.

Teutonic Knights, imperial powers, and pagan peasants all converge in this small but geopolitically sensitive region.

This presentation will introduce basic Baltic history and geography, including the use of gazetteers and maps.

This will be followed by an overview of major repositories and catalogs, such as FamilySearch, state archives, and online databases.

Much of the presentation will discuss primary record types: metrical books, confessant lists, censuses, revision lists, family lists, civil registration, and less common record types.

There are extra clues on many Jewish gravestones, especially when they contain Hebrew text.

But if you can't read Hebrew, it's harder to know what the stones say.

Banai will try to teach you to read some of the Hebrew alphabet, especially geared towards finding the additional useful data often found on Jewish gravestones.

An overview of how to access and navigate Czech cadastral maps online.

These hyper-local maps show specific houses and plots of land for each village, including details such as the type of material the houses were made of and house numbers.

The plots of land on the map sketches also list names of the farmers for each plot from when the map was drawn.

Context is key.

Understanding the history of the region can provide clues to our ancestors lives that nothing else can.

It can help explain the choices they made and where the records ended up.

This class provides an overview of the history of Eastern Europe along with resources to learn more so genealogists can better understand the wider historical narrative of their ancestors lives and be more effective researchers.

The Russian Volunteer Fleet operated with 13 ships out of Libau, Latvia.

As an eastern port, and closest to the Pale of Settlement, it was a choice for those immigrants who did not want to use the eastern passage through Germany.

In a very short period of time, it became apparent that this route was a source of illegal immigrants, those infected with disease, and bribery scandals that rocked the American immigration legal system.

We will look at a couple of incidents and the impact on the immigration laws between 1906 and 1931 directly due to the Russia Volunteer Fleet.

This class will introduce the census records created across the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and explain what information they can contain for family history research.

It will also show where these records are located today, how they are organized by region, and how researchers can access them online or through archival repositories.

The class is designed to help attendees understand both the historical context of the censuses and the practical steps needed to use them effectively in genealogical research.

Membership in an ethnic organization or landsmanshaftn not only connected immigrants from the same country, region, or religion but often provided benefits to the individual and/or their family.

Mutual aid societies were a source of relief aid, loans, and death benefits while immigrant banks provided a way to purchase passenger tickets to bring family members to America.

Records from all of these sources will help provide more information about an immigrant ancestor as well as aid in cluster research and village of origin identification.

Travel to Lithuania is always a wonderful experience.

There is lots to see and do – Lithuania had a vibrant Jewish community, was regarded as a preeminent center of learning and Jewish life.

Vilnius and Kaunas, the two largest cities in the country provide a glimpse into the vast spectrum of what Lithuanian Jewish life was like.

Even in those two cities, there are many hidden gems.

When we leave the big cities, there is even more that most people miss on their trips.

Join me for a discussion of those hidden gems.

This session is based on my own exploration of Jewish life in Lithuania.

Our Jewish ancestors generally didn't plan to live in the Russian Empire--but the Russian Empire took over the lands in which they lived.

Jews' lives were highly regulated, but this produced a significant amount of paperwork, much of which still exists today.

This talk discusses the basic vital records, census and revision lists, but also covers other records that will place Jewish residents and help understand their lives in the Russian Empire.

It will cover where to locate these records – both in archives and online; how and why these records were created; and what each teaches, as well as some less genealogically traditional records.

You will also learn about resources to find documents relating to relatives who lived in the Soviet Union; even if your family left pre-Russian Revolution, they almost surely had relatives who remained.

This presentation will outline the parameters for integrating AI into genealogy without compromising historical truth or the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS).

The presentation suggests that researchers must evolve into "forensic auditors" who govern AI interpretations rather than acting solely as data gatherers.

The outline proposes an "AI Source Reliability Scale" (Grades 1–5) to verify evidence and avoid "hallucinations" that can cause an "Echo Chamber Effect" of bad data.

Finally, the presentation emphasizes the best practices, including the Master Prompt Structure, professional transparency, and adherence to The Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy (CRAIGEN.org) principles for responsible research.

The EWZ records have family history that may not be available elsewhere.

This presentation will (1) Focus on the history of Baltic resettlement patterns. (2) Explain the five components of the EWZ records and the two best sources to locate them. (3) Explain the importance of the A Alt [Reich] designation versus the O Ost [East] designation with examples. (4) Provide examples of the unique information from records and the results. (4) Acknowledge how FEEFHS has helped me as a researcher with examples. (5) Provide a list of the best sources.

This class introduces researchers to the essential tools for locating towns and parishes in the former Russian Empire, with a focus on Skorowidz 1934, the Spiski locality lists, and the RGN index.

Participants will learn how to identify historical administrative jurisdictions, understand locality hierarchies, and trace places across changing borders and languages.

The session includes step-by-step instruction, demonstrations of each gazetteer, and case studies showing how to determine where genealogical records were created.

Attendees will leave with practical strategies for resolving variant spellings, navigating administrative shifts, and confidently finding localities in Russian Empire research.

This class will give researchers a summary of how to search for and interpret records from online and offline repositories for their Croatian and Slovenian ancestors.

Online resources covered will include lists of useful family history websites, archival websites, and public genealogy blogs.

Offline resources will include Hungarian and Austrian gazetteers, lists of Croatian archives, and useful tips for contacting record repositories, whether state-run or more private, in Croatia and Slovenia.

An overview of how to read church records and civil registration from the Austro-Hungarian Empire will be covered as well.

The Holocaust during World War II in Europe has the dubious distinction of being the most documented atrocity of its kind.

All researchers, regardless of faith, may find links to relatives in Europe who were victimized by the German National Socialists (Nazis) and their collaborators.

Jewish people were specifically targeted.

But victims also included homosexuals, Catholics, Roma and Shinti, blacks and mixed-race individuals, political enemies, prisoners of war, and people with physical or mental disabilities.

This presentation will identify online databases and archival collections that should be accessed if any of your relatives were in Europe during this time.

Description: For various reasons immigrants came to the U.S. then returned back to their country of origin—sometimes multiple times.This session will provide motives for return, examples of individuals who traveled back, and resources.

DNA is a tool utilized by genealogists on a regular basis now for family history.

This class dives into the math tools that can be used by the average family historian to take their DNA and matches to the next level and see how accurate their matching is and see if it makes sense given the other data.

It also explores how the math changes if they belong to a pedigree collapse or endogamous community.

It is practical strategies to apply to DNA matches to help better understand what is going on and potentially help solve family history mysteries.

This presentation explains the complex reorganization of Central Europe following the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.

While hundreds of smaller entities were consolidated into fewer, larger states like the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Confederation of the Rhine, the political landscape remained fractured.

The successor German Confederation (1815) still comprised dozens of members (kingdoms, duchies, and free cities)—a far cry from the 300+ sovereign states, ecclesiastical territories, and vassal principalities that existed previously.

This session explores how this shifting mosaic evolved into modern nations such as France, Italy, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, and Poland.

Learn about two amazing databases for researching World War I and World War II soldiers from the Russian Empire and USSR.

Each contains tens of millions of names with record images Including casualty records, records of military awards, and more.

Helene Sender was born in Konken, Germany.

Her family knew that she fled to France in 1940 and reached the United States in 1941, traveling through Lisbon.

But much of her journey remained a mystery.

How did she escape Nazi Europe?

What records documented her path, and where were they preserved?

Discover how to reconstruct such histories by tracing migration routes, locating dispersed records, and interpreting incomplete or conflicting sources.

Using Helene’s story as a case study, participants will learn where to find documentation, how to evaluate evidence across borders, and how to fill gaps between family memory and historical record.

Genteam.at is a site that offers many resources for research in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Learn about the many links to records and indexes for various jurisdictions.

But perhaps most important of all is the gazetteer, which can link the researcher directly to the archive where desired records are held.

This 50-minute presentation introduces family historians to Hungarian surname research using authoritative Hungarian onomastic scholarship.

Attendees will learn the four major surname categories: patronymic, occupational, nickname, and toponymic/ethnic.

They'll discover why roughly 7-8% of Hungarian bear surnames derive from ethnic group names.

The session covers spelling variants across borders and time periods, plus the Magyarization movement's impact on approximately 300,000 surname changes.

We also establish realistic expectations about what surnames can and cannot prove about ancestry.

Participants leave with practical search strategies, key scholarly resources, and the analytical framework needed to interpret their ancestral surnames in Hungarian records.

This session will provide an overview of how to begin the Slovak genealogy research process using both traditional and online sources and provide an overview of how to organize your research.

Key strategies for identifying your ancestral village, locating and interpreting vital records, using FamilySearch and subscription databases, contacting Slovak archives and tips for overcoming the most common research pitfalls will be discussed.

Genealogical research in Hungary is often based on understanding where people were registered rather than where they actually lived.

Even small distances between residence and registration locations can make research difficult or misleading.

This presentation examines two distinct historical contexts. 1.

In early modern Hungary, Protestants were subject to religious restrictions: baptisms, marriages, and deaths were recorded at designated articular locations or entered into Catholic registers, often outside their communities. 2.

In contrast, the Jász and Kun communities functioned as self-governing groups with strong local administrative structures, producing concentrated and coherent records.

The session offers practical strategies for navigating place-specific research challenges.

In this two-part series, the participants will learn the basics of Lithuanian genealogical research.

The first part of the class will focus on the key events in Lithuanian history that shaped how the territory of present-day Lithuania changed over time.

The presentation will address the differences between three historical regions in the nineteenth century (Russian occupied Lithuania, Klaipėda Region, and Užnemunė Region) and their research specifics, including religion, language, names, and calendars.

Building upon the historical foundations of Part I, this session transitions from context to practice.

This class will discuss the primary record types used in Lithuanian genealogical research and explain how these records are organized and where they are kept.

The class will highlight key online repositories specific to Lithuanian genealogy and teach how to navigate them efficiently.

Lastly, the presentation will discuss the logistics of onsite research at the Lithuanian archives.

In Estonia and Latvia especially, Lutheran church books form the backbone of genealogical reconstruction from the seventeenth through early twentieth centuries.

Baptism, marriage, burial, and confirmation registers often include detailed notes on parentage, farm names, and social status.

Because these regions were under Swedish and later Russian rule, record-keeping was relatively consistent and literacy levels were high.

Researchers must account for multiple languages—German, Latin, Russian, Estonian, and Latvian—across time.

Cross-referencing parish registers with confirmation lists and communion rolls can help track family movement between estates and identify relationships not explicit in vital entries.

Learn how often-overlooked German emigration records may reveal your ancestral hometown.

Looking for your Black Sea German ancestors?

Trying to understand the complicated history of Germans in this region (now Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Georgia)?

We’ll talk about how German settlers came to this area and how historical events impact the types of research records available for different parts of the Black Sea region.

Follow the tale of a German family that immigrates to Russia.

After years of peaceful prosperity, the fate of two branches of the family diverge.

One branch immigrates to the U.S. while the other suffers under the Soviet regime, losing their homes and, for some, their lives.

We’ll blend historical events and learn about the types of records used to document the story of this family.

Wander through time and explore your ancestral villages on geolocated maps.

In the past decade, efforts have been made to scan and georeference historical maps that have been sitting in archives for hundreds of years.

You will learn how to use information from the Germans from Russia Settlement Locations map to travel back in time and find your ancestral colonies on period maps using their GPS coordinates.

You will learn where to find repositories of detailed maps online, how to overcome language issues with technology, and how to capture images and cite your findings.

Every month new town genealogies and indexed church records are published on the Internet.

Learn how to locate available collections and use them effectively.

These records also open new possibilities for area searches.

A basic understanding of common sounds used in the German language and various ways to write them helps researchers identify places and find persons in records.

This class discussed vowel and consonant shifts, various ways to spell common sounds phonetically, and tools for decoding misspelled personal and place names.

Archives hold many records important to the genealogist.

This class discusses different types of German archives, how to find the archive that may hold the records you need, the use of archive inventories, and rules for using archives successfully.

It started with the same questions we’ve all had.

Where was my ancestor’s village?

Does it still exist?

What is it called today?

Was it far from other villages?

Is it still in Russia?

How do I find it on these old maps?

Where is it on today’s map?

This presentation introduces the Germans from Russia Settlement Locations project, a geographic genealogy tool built using Google MyMaps that plots the locations of German colonies across the Imperial Russian Empire.

We’ll review the history of the project and the research methods, tour the map, and discuss what’s coming next.