49th Annual Family History Workshop
The Family History Workshop is a one-day genealogy workshop. Breakout sessions run in four concurrent tracks, including a Beginner Track for those new to or interested in genealogy, a featured main speaker, and everything in between, giving attendees a wide variety of topics to choose from.
Main Speaker
Diane Schmidt, President of the Germanic Genealogy Society
Diane Schmidt is President of the Germanic Genealogy Society (GGS) of Minnesota, Chair of its Library Committee, and a board member of the Pommern Regional Group (PRG). She has written a monthly column about library resources for GGS’s electronic newsletter and has given several presentations for GGS, PRG, the International Germanic Genealogy Partnership, and other societies.
She has also had an article, “John Schmidt: A Case Study in Common Names”, published in the Germanic Genealogy Journal, Spring/Summer 2021. Her German ancestors come from Baden, Württemberg, and Pomerania. A former Biology Librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she enjoys sharing knowledge of Germanic genealogy topics and helping beginners.
Diane Schmidt will give the following presentations:
Germanic Genealogy 101. A very basic presentation for beginners; discusses the need to find birthplaces for emigrant ancestors using US resources, how to learn to read a little genealogical German and the old German script, and where to find church records. I also show several church records and cover a few common misconceptions and general trends German genealogists may encounter such as illegitimacy and naming patterns.
Finding an Emigrant Ancestor’s Birthplace. One of my emigrant ancestors was actually, for real, named Johann Schmidt. Using this ancestor with a generic name and his FAN club as examples, I discuss more than 20 common birthplace sources and briefly cover several less likely but still worthy places to look.
Mangled Place Names. German genealogists often find that the birthplaces for their emigrant ancestors were misspelled in American records. This presentation provides some techniques for figuring out the correct spelling of place names including websites, books, information on German pronunciation and spelling, and more. I also cover several tactics that can make the job easier.
What’s in a Name? German Surnames. People are often fascinated by the meaning of their surnames. While surname research is often not very useful in finding a birthplace in some cases it can be valuable, and even if not it can add some interest to your family tree. This presentation discusses the origins of German surnames, how to discover their meanings and distribution, variant spellings, and the value of examining your surname for genealogy.
Family History Workshop Sponsors
Minnesota State University Moorhead Livingston Lord Library
The mission of Livingston Lord Library at Minnesota State University Moorhead is to support the academic and cultural experiences of students, faculty, and citizens of this region and to encourage their active, life-long learning.
Northern Lights Library Network
Funded by the Minnesota Legislature through the Minnesota Department of Education, Northern Lights Library Network (NLLN) is one of seven Minnesota multicounty, multitype library cooperative systems. NLLN is comprised of two hundred eighty academic, public, school, and special libraries in twenty-three counties in North-Central, Northwest, and West-Central Minnesota. NLLN works at the grassroots level to bring together all types of libraries and collections in the region to discover, enhance, and share resources through administrative, technological, and educational support.