Upcoming Genealogy Events for 2018

by Robert M. Wilbanks IV, B.A.
Chief Genealogist & Historian, C.S.A.
genealogy@arizonascots.com

A few months ago, I talked about the importance of “Networking and Ongoing Learning”. As you progress in your genealogy, discovering new and interesting facets of your family history, you will find that there is always something more to learn about the research process and resources available.

Finding others with common research interests, but with more practical experience, is an important, and fun, aspect to genealogy.

Whether it is finding a distant cousin who has made more progress in the researching of your common family tree, or learning from a record type expert, or research locality expert, networking with others to learn more is just one aspect of becoming a more skilled researcher.

The other key aspect, is just straight forward genealogy education. Getting out there and learning more. Self-learning and continuing education is very low cost and readily available in a variety of formats and locations.

Even though you may not have Arizona ancestry, local genealogy societies across the state are a great place to network, learning from others, and attend meetings, and learn from great presenters on a variety of topics. With the beginning of a new year, I thought I would let you know of a variety of highly significant genealogy conferences and seminars coming up in the next few months hosted by various Arizona genealogy societies. Don’t hesitate to take the time to go out and learn more. Here are just a few events coming in January through March.

The Pinal County Genealogists (www.pinalctyazgen.com), will be hosting their annual conference, 2018 Genealogy Workshop, on Saturday, January 27th in Casa Grande. Registration is now open and the 62 page syllabus of speakers, topics and handouts, is now available as a downloadable PDF.

At a Free Event, the Tucson Family History Center will be hosting their 2018 Family History Fair on Saturday, February 3, with 35 classes. Visit their website for more details. (www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Tucson_Arizona_Family_History_Center)

The Mesa FamilySearch Library (www.mesarfhc.org), features many on-site classes, online classes and webinars. They also host the largest annual multi-track all day genealogy conference in Arizona, held every October at ASU; and it is Free. If you missed this conference, you have a chance to see the same speakers and topics in two Free mini-Conferences; one in the East Valley and one in the West Valley. The East Valley mini-Conference will be Saturday, February 10th at the ASU Polytechnic Campus LDS Institute building on Innovation Way out by the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. The West Valley location and date have not yet been set; likely a Saturday in March. Visit the website frequently to watch for announcements and registration information.

The West Valley Genealogical Society (azwvgs.org) is the largest genealogy society in Arizona and operates its own genealogy library with over 4000 square feet of books and more, plus access to a wide variety of subscription based genealogy databases. In addition to their monthly meetings, the Library provides a number of “How-to” genealogy classes on a variety of topics. Their annual seminar on February 17, 2018 will feature Cyndi Ingalls of Cyndi’s List fame (www.cyndislist.com). A website that sorts and organizes all known genealogy websites on the internet, currently with over 336 thousand web links in 220 categories.

The Green Valley Genealogical Society, south of Tucson, (azgvgs.org) will be featuring Gena Philibert-Ortega at the 2018 Seminar on February 17th. She is a world noted speaker, author and editor, on various subjects involving genealogy, women’s studies and social history.

The Pima County Genealogy Society, in Tucson, (azpimagensoc.org) is hosting a special DNA Seminar by CeCe Moore, the genetic genealogy consultant for Dr. Louis Gates Jr. and the PBS TV series “Finding Your Roots”. This seminar will be Saturday, March 10, 2018 in Tucson. Visit the website for details and registration information.

The Family History Society of Arizona (fhsa.org) has seven chapters around the valley that each meet a different day of the month. You could theoretically attend all seven meetings monthly. Their annual meeting will be March 24th and will feature highly noted Thomas W. Jones, a noted speaker and an award-winning writer, and editor of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, a very highly noted publication.

There are many other Arizona genealogy groups, historical and heritage societies that you can find through the Arizona Genealogical Advisory Board (AzGAB) (azgab.com), promoting genealogy and history by addressing the educational needs and interests of Arizona’s genealogical community through cooperation by the various groups and individuals. They have an impressive calendar of genealogy events around Arizona. They will be kicking off celebrating 2018 as their 30th year at their own Seminar in the afternoon of February 10th in Mesa. They will be hosting nationally known Paula Stuart Warren, author, speaker, consultant, specialist in Midwestern research, major U.S. repositories, Native American genealogy, and more.

This is another of a series of articles in which I show you the basics of searching for your family history, discussing the use of family records, public records, and online resources nationally and internationally, etc. The previous articles are now available on the Genealogy Section of this website.   See “Genealogy” in the menu options at the top of the web page.