Saturday Seminars
Join Us On the Third Saturday of Each Month
Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries, Inc., is proud to sponsor Saturday Seminars to benefit you, the genealogy library patron. The seminars are FREE and are held at the W.O. Haggard, Jr. Library, 2501 Coit Rd., Plano, Texas, in the first floor Program Room or you can attend via Zoom. Doors open at 10:15 a.m. Registration is not necessary. The content is suitable for all levels of genealogy research so bring your friends to learn and have fun at the same time! As always, donations are gladly accepted! Email [email protected] to be added to the distribution list for the Zoom link.
Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries, Inc., is proud to sponsor Saturday Seminars to benefit you, the genealogy library patron. The seminars are FREE and are held at the W.O. Haggard, Jr. Library, 2501 Coit Rd., Plano, Texas, in the first floor Program Room or you can attend via Zoom. Doors open at 10:15 a.m. Registration is not necessary. The content is suitable for all levels of genealogy research so bring your friends to learn and have fun at the same time! As always, donations are gladly accepted! Email [email protected] to be added to the distribution list for the Zoom link.
April 19, 2025 - "What's New at FamilySearch.org" by Lynell Moss (This meeting will be in the Program Room in the Genealogy Section due to early voting.)
Speaker: Lynell Moss was born and raised in Dallas County. Her ancestors began arriving in Dallas County in 1845, with the last arriving about 1895. She has been doing family history research for nearly 60 years. Lynell serves in the Plano Family History Center / FamilySearch Center since she moved to Plano in 1990. Besides helping our patrons she has served as the person who ordered the films and microfiche, trainer for our consultants, director of the center, and director of the Great Family Search Conference. Lynell beta tested all of the CD programs FamilySearch produced, and is beginning testing the new CET program. She has over 47,000 people in her database and LOVE researching her family (and her husband’s). She is a member of the Dallas Genealogical Society, Texas State Genealogical Society and the National Genealogical Society.
Speaker: Lynell Moss was born and raised in Dallas County. Her ancestors began arriving in Dallas County in 1845, with the last arriving about 1895. She has been doing family history research for nearly 60 years. Lynell serves in the Plano Family History Center / FamilySearch Center since she moved to Plano in 1990. Besides helping our patrons she has served as the person who ordered the films and microfiche, trainer for our consultants, director of the center, and director of the Great Family Search Conference. Lynell beta tested all of the CD programs FamilySearch produced, and is beginning testing the new CET program. She has over 47,000 people in her database and LOVE researching her family (and her husband’s). She is a member of the Dallas Genealogical Society, Texas State Genealogical Society and the National Genealogical Society.
May 17, 2025 - "Linking Generations with Court and Land Records" by Judy Russell - It’s the single biggest issue genealogists face: how do we connect one generation to the next with evidence we can rely on? Vital records are excellent documentation, but they often don’t exist for the time and place we’re researching. That’s when we have to find workarounds to make sure we’re not simply putting people into family lines because they share the same names. Using court and land records, we can often find the evidence we need to link the generations accurately.
Speaker: Judy G. Russell, The Legal Genealogist ® , is a genealogist with a law degree. She writes, teaches and lectures on a wide variety of genealogical topics, providing expert guidance through the murky territory where law and family history intersect. A Colorado native with roots deep in the American south on her mother’s side and entirely in Germany on her father’s side, she holds a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and a law degree from Rutgers School of Law-Newark. Before she retired, she worked as a newspaper reporter, trade association writer, legal investigator, defense attorney, federal prosecutor, law editor and, for more than 20 years, as an adjunct member of the faculty at Rutgers Law School.
She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the National Genealogical Society and numerous state and regional genealogical societies. A recipient of the Silver Tray Award from the Utah Genealogical Association and the 2017 Award of Excellence from the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, she now serves as a member of the NGSQ editorial board.
An internationally-known lecturer and course coordinator and faculty member at numerous genealogical institutes, she holds credentials as a Certified Genealogist ® and Certified Genealogical Lecturer℠ from the Board for Certification of Genealogists ® . Her award-winning blog appears at The Legal Genealogist ® website ( https://www.legalgenealogist.com ).
Speaker: Judy G. Russell, The Legal Genealogist ® , is a genealogist with a law degree. She writes, teaches and lectures on a wide variety of genealogical topics, providing expert guidance through the murky territory where law and family history intersect. A Colorado native with roots deep in the American south on her mother’s side and entirely in Germany on her father’s side, she holds a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and a law degree from Rutgers School of Law-Newark. Before she retired, she worked as a newspaper reporter, trade association writer, legal investigator, defense attorney, federal prosecutor, law editor and, for more than 20 years, as an adjunct member of the faculty at Rutgers Law School.
She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the National Genealogical Society and numerous state and regional genealogical societies. A recipient of the Silver Tray Award from the Utah Genealogical Association and the 2017 Award of Excellence from the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, she now serves as a member of the NGSQ editorial board.
An internationally-known lecturer and course coordinator and faculty member at numerous genealogical institutes, she holds credentials as a Certified Genealogist ® and Certified Genealogical Lecturer℠ from the Board for Certification of Genealogists ® . Her award-winning blog appears at The Legal Genealogist ® website ( https://www.legalgenealogist.com ).
June 21, 2025 - "How Do I Know My Sources Are Good and My Research is Accurate?" - What makes a source a "good" source? How do you know it's reliable? Are you using good research plans? Or do you just feel lost? Overwhelmed? Let's discuss finding information, using it as good evidence, and documenting as you go. This presentation was created from the standpoint of "I wish I knew that before I started researching!"
Speaker: Kim Richardson accidentally became a genealogist when her grandmother and
grandaunt asked for help researching a few ancestors. She loved learning about those
ancestors and has been researching nearly daily since that time, including
professionally. Kim's favorite genealogy activity is empowering others to break through
barriers to achieve their genealogy goals. She discovered why complex genealogy
problems feel overwhelming and created a tool called Brick Wall Buster Cards to
conquer confusion and solve tough problems.
Kim graduated from Mississippi State University. She retired from service to the State of
Mississippi after 25 years as an advocate for victims of violent crime and working in
highway traffic safety programs. She continues to work in a professional capacity
conducting genealogy research and teaching others that they can solve genealogical
brick wall problems. She has researched for Who Do You Think You Are? and Finding
Your Roots. She also wrote the “Mississippi Research Guide” for Family Tree
Magazine.
Speaker: Kim Richardson accidentally became a genealogist when her grandmother and
grandaunt asked for help researching a few ancestors. She loved learning about those
ancestors and has been researching nearly daily since that time, including
professionally. Kim's favorite genealogy activity is empowering others to break through
barriers to achieve their genealogy goals. She discovered why complex genealogy
problems feel overwhelming and created a tool called Brick Wall Buster Cards to
conquer confusion and solve tough problems.
Kim graduated from Mississippi State University. She retired from service to the State of
Mississippi after 25 years as an advocate for victims of violent crime and working in
highway traffic safety programs. She continues to work in a professional capacity
conducting genealogy research and teaching others that they can solve genealogical
brick wall problems. She has researched for Who Do You Think You Are? and Finding
Your Roots. She also wrote the “Mississippi Research Guide” for Family Tree
Magazine.
July 19, 2025 - "Navigating the Historical and Genealogical Treasures Within Repositories, Libraries, and More" by Katherine R. Willson - Unlock practical techniques to uncover valuable repositories in ancestral regions, master the use of repository finding aids and subject headings, and effortlessly navigate select websites and digital collections to take your genealogical research to the next level.
Speaker: Katherine R. Willson of Dexter, Michigan is an engaging & dynamic genealogy lecturer at local, regional, and national conferences; an educator teaching beginning, intermediate, and advanced genealogy classes in Michigan since 2001; the author of The Genealogist’s Guide to Grand Rapids, Michigan (published in 2018 by The In-Depth Genealogist), and a professional researcher for private clients. Her research specialties include solving difficult genealogical problems in the Great Lakes region, as well as tracing westward migration from the Midwest.Her genealogy interests began as an 8-year-old Junior Girl Scout working towards the now-retired “My Heritage” badge, and her passion was fueled when, after college, both her mother’s and father’s relatives gave her binders containing generations’ worth of family information. (Katherine is a 7th generation Michigander with pre-statehood ancestors arriving from New York in the early 1830s, with the Sample/Moore line settling in Oakland County and the Havens/Arnold line settling in Lenawee County.)
Her success in using Facebook to break down genealogical brick walls both personally and in her classroom inspired her to catalog 16,700+ Facebook genealogy links (updated January 2021). Additionally, she has compiled 190+ instructional genealogical channels on YouTube (updated February 2022), and 76 genealogy-related podcasts (updated February 2022).
Her passion for genealogy combined with practical and creative strategies keeps Katherine’s audience fully engaged and actively participating in her energetic and entertaining presentations. Participants leave with the tools necessary to do their own research, as well as the inspiration to do it!
Speaker: Katherine R. Willson of Dexter, Michigan is an engaging & dynamic genealogy lecturer at local, regional, and national conferences; an educator teaching beginning, intermediate, and advanced genealogy classes in Michigan since 2001; the author of The Genealogist’s Guide to Grand Rapids, Michigan (published in 2018 by The In-Depth Genealogist), and a professional researcher for private clients. Her research specialties include solving difficult genealogical problems in the Great Lakes region, as well as tracing westward migration from the Midwest.Her genealogy interests began as an 8-year-old Junior Girl Scout working towards the now-retired “My Heritage” badge, and her passion was fueled when, after college, both her mother’s and father’s relatives gave her binders containing generations’ worth of family information. (Katherine is a 7th generation Michigander with pre-statehood ancestors arriving from New York in the early 1830s, with the Sample/Moore line settling in Oakland County and the Havens/Arnold line settling in Lenawee County.)
Her success in using Facebook to break down genealogical brick walls both personally and in her classroom inspired her to catalog 16,700+ Facebook genealogy links (updated January 2021). Additionally, she has compiled 190+ instructional genealogical channels on YouTube (updated February 2022), and 76 genealogy-related podcasts (updated February 2022).
Her passion for genealogy combined with practical and creative strategies keeps Katherine’s audience fully engaged and actively participating in her energetic and entertaining presentations. Participants leave with the tools necessary to do their own research, as well as the inspiration to do it!
2025 Programs
2024 Programs:
2023 Programs:
- January 18, 2025 - "Avoiding An Ancestor Identity Crisis" by Shelley Bishop - How can you tell if a name in a database or record is really your ancestor? Genealogists often deal with the challenges of identifying ancestors despite same names, irregular spellings, inconsistent ages, similar places, unknown maiden names, missing vital records, ancestral migration, and boundary changes. Knowing how to sort these issues out is crucial to building an accurate family tree. Join genealogist Shelley Bishop who will demonstrate the use of seven strategies to help you solve identity problems and keep your research on track.
- February 15, 2025 - "Using Fold3 to Your Advantage" by Craig R. Scott - With every subscription service, there are nuances. What is free? What will you have to pay for? How can I best use this tool, efficiently, but effectively? Where are their mistakes? How can I find what I need, even when I cannot seem to find it? Come learn my tricks about Fold3.com.
- March 15, 2025 - "Strategies to Identify DNA Matches" by Kelli Bergheimer - Learn how to sort your matches (Leeds Method) and use clustering tools to build a master list of how each match is related to you! Learn to take advantage of inferred matches of your siblings to add more depth and data to your list. And develop a plan for identifying each first, second, and third cousin match in your match list.
- April 19, 2025 - "What's New at FamilySearch.org" by Lynell Moss (This meeting will be in the Program Room in the Genealogy Section due to voting.)
- May 17, 2025 - "Linking Generations with Court and Land Records" by Judy Russell - It’s the single biggest issue genealogists face: how do we connect one generation to the next with evidence we can rely on? Vital records are excellent documentation, but they often don’t exist for the time and place we’re researching. That’s when we have to find workarounds to make sure we’re not simply putting people into family lines because they share the same names. Using court and land records, we can often find the evidence we need to link the generations accurately.
- June 21, 2025 - "How Do I Know My Sources Are Good and My Research is Accurate?" by Kim Richardson - What makes a source a "good" source? How do you know it's reliable? Are you using good research plans? Or do you just feel lost? Overwhelmed? Let's discuss finding information, using it as good evidence, and documenting as you go. This presentation was created from the standpoint of "I wish I knew that before I started researching!"
- July 19, 2025 - "Navigating the Historical and Genealogical Treasures Within Repositories, Libraries, and More" by Katherine R. Willson - Unlock practical techniques to uncover valuable repositories in ancestral regions, master the use of repository finding aids and subject headings, and effortlessly navigate select websites and digital collections to take your genealogical research to the next level
- August 16, 2025 - All Day Virtual Seminar with Thomas MacEntee
- September 20,2025
- October 18, 2025
- November 15, 2025
- December 20, 2025 - Show and Tell - in person at the library only
2024 Programs:
- January 20, 2024—”A Nose for News: Sniffing Out Stories in Newspapers” by Mary Roddy
- February 17, 2024—”The Fair Court: Records of the Chancery Court” by Judy Russell
- March 16, 2024—”A New Strategy for Brick Walls" by Kim Richardson
- April 20, 2024— “The Value of Transcribing Historical Records” by LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson
- May 18, 2024—”A Foundational Step in Research Strategy—What is the Research Question” by Emily Richardson
- June 15, 2024—”AI and Genealogy” by Thomas MacEntee
- July 20, 2024—”Working With An Online Family Tree” by Bernard Meisner
- August 17, 2024—”Diseases, Disasters, Distress: Bad for Your Ancestors, Good for Genealogy” by Lisa Alzo
- September 21, 2024 - "Research: From Planning to Writing" All Day Virtual Seminar
- October 19, 2024 - "Avoiding Bias: Consider All The Possibilities" by Barbara Coakley
- November 16, 2024 - "After You're Gone: Future Proofing Your Genealogy Research" by Thomas MacEntee
- December 21, 2024 - Show and Tell - this event is in the library only.
2023 Programs:
- January 21 - Discussion Group
- February 18 - "Applying to a Lineage Society" by Emily Richardson
- March 18 - "Census Records - Have You Really Looked at Them?" by Barbara Coakley
- April 15 - "Shaky Leaf Syndrome: Using Website Generated Hints More Effectively" by Sarah Cochran
- May 20 - "10 Genealogical Brick Walls You Will Face" by Robert Cameron Weir
- June 17 - "Appreciating Conflicting Evidence: Analysis and Resolution Develops Broader Research" and "Indirect Evidence: Finding What Was Not Written" by Rebecca Whitman Koford - This meeting will last until 1 pm.
- July 15 - " "FamilySearch Hidden Treasures or Discoveries of a Fearless Button Pusher" by Lynell Moss.
- August 19 - "30 Types of Maps Useful in Genealogy," by Margaret Kapustiak
- September 16 - All Day Seminar
- October 21 - "After They Are Gone: What Probate Records Tell Us," by Barbara Coakley
- November 18 - "Researching Graphically: Expanding Your Research with Timelines, Charts, Spreadsheets and Diagrams" by Ari Wilkins
- December 16 - Annual Show and Tell - In Person at Haggard Library Only
