George G. Morgan and Drew Smith, co-hosts of “The Genealogy Guys Podcast,” are coming to Western Michigan on November 6th and 7th to speak at the Western Michigan Genealogical Society’s 55th Anniversary Conference.
“We’re glad to be coming to Grand Rapids next month,” says Drew. George is happy to be returning. He owned a home in Cass County in the 1980s and loves Michigan. “I can’t wait to see Grand Rapids again!” he says.
The Western Michigan Genealogical Society is celebrating its 55th anniversary with a banquet on Friday evening, November 6th. George and Drew will be presenting a very special talk for the banquet. The all-day seminar, titled “Got Ancestors?! Guydes to Genealogical Research” will be held on Saturday, November 7th, at the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College, beginning at 9:00 AM and continuing until 4:30 PM.
The Genealogy Guys are well-known genealogical experts, authors, columnists, and popular speakers all over the U.S., in Canada, and in the U.K. “The society has selected three of my most popular talks,” says George. “Bring ‘em back to Life: Developing an Ancestor Profile, addresses creating and using timelines to get past brick walls and to produce biographical outlines for one or more ancestors. I’ve used this methodology time after time to help break through genealogical roadblocks, and it really works.” He will present a session called The Genealogist as CSI in which he compares genealogical methods with those used by crime scene investigators, such as those shown on the CBS television shows. George is also a master on-site researcher, and he will share his expertise with you in his lecture, Planning a Very Successful Genealogical Research Trip.
Drew is a reference librarian at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He also is a recognized expert in the use of technology in family history research. He says of his lecture, The Family History in Your Cells: Using DNA for Genealogical Research, “Many people are intimidated by using DNA testing as a research tool. They don’t understand the basics and how genetics can be used in our genealogy. My goal in this session is to make it understandable, and to explain how researchers can share test results with one another to help make important family connections.” He’ll remove the mystery of creating and maintaining a blog in Dear Diary: Today I Made a Great Discovery. And if you want to learn about difference genealogical database software programs, he’ll share up-to-date comparisons of the most popular Windows programs in Kicking the Tires of Popular Genealogy Software.
“One of the things that Drew and I love doing is recording a free genealogy program each week called The Genealogy Guys Podcast,” George says. “We’ve been recording these for over 4 years and have over 185 episodes available online for people to listen to. We’re excited to be recording a LIVE podcast episode at the seminar.”
“We’ve done this a number of times at live society events, including the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Little Rock earlier this fall,” says Drew. “It’s great to take questions from the people in the audience. They challenge us and we do our best to provide ideas and suggestions for their research.”
George and Drew are revved up to come to Grand Rapids to share information and to talk with you.