'Navigating Key Genealogy Websites' Presentation Held at Library

Anthony Lauriano hosted his second presentation on genealogy at the public library Tuesday night. The course, “Navigating Key Genealogy Websites,” is the follow-up to his “Introduction to Genealogy” presentation, which took place earlier this month.

Audience members filled the library meeting room, armed with pen and paper to take notes on how to effectively trace their lineage as far back as the late 1800s. They were provided with additional handouts, and had the option to sign up to create a special group that can meet regularly at the library to work on their ancestry together.

Using a slideshow, Lauriano was able to point out websites, from the popular ancestry.com to the lesser-known site, theshipslist.com, which can serve as valuable resources in one’s search for family history.

He taught the audience how to navigate these complex websites, pointing out the most useful pages to visit, as well as the steps involved in finding family members and getting past difficulties during a search.

Lauriano stated, “You need to find three or four records that match before knowing for sure that it is your ancestor,” because spelling errors were common in the early part of the 20^th century. 

Lauriano  then took it a step further and compared different websites to one another in order to show which sites offered better information in certain areas of research, such as census reports or birth records, advising that one must take the information gathered from these various sources and be able to piece them together to create a clear, accurate story of his/her family history.

Other topics discussed included the importance of obtaining church records and how to locate and acquire information from Family History
Centers. 

Provided that enough attendees signed up for the weekly meet-ups, the library hopes to subscribe to ancestry.com and provide the resource at no cost to those who wish to utilize what they learned together.