Free Genealogy Webinars are Just a Click Away!

Twelve months of mostly being at home has given many of us the chance to explore new ways of learning using our computers or tablets. Have you discovered the benefits of free webinars yet? Did you know you can watch thousands of digital recordings without any fees at all? Yes, sometimes there are advertisements, but they are relatively unobtrusive and easily passed over. By now, many of us also know that there are instructions online for just about anything we want to do. In fact, just last week, like magic, a two-minute YouTube video saved this writer a trip to the store and the price of a new pneumatic door closer when just a few squeezes of a piece of metal with a strong pair of pliers was all it needed. OK, that was fixer-upper stuff—what about our favorite hobby? Are there free webinars available on genealogy? Indeed there are, and here are some places you can start to look for them.

St. Louis Genealogical Society

During this past year, StLGS has begun adding digital recordings of our monthly meetings, Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings, and classes to our website. All meeting webinars are free; however, classes are for StLGS members only. To see the growing collection of webinars that are currently on our website, use the links below.

• Monthly meetings
• German SIG meetings
• Irish SIG meetings
• Jewish SIG meetings
• Classes (for members only; be sure you log in first)

YouTube

By far the largest repository for genealogy videos is YouTube. A search for “Genealogy” at the top of the window will yield enough recordings to keep you glued to your computer screen for months. 

Recordings from many major companies reside on YouTube because of ease of access, and you will recognize familiar and reliable names such as National Geographic, Ancestry, FamilySearch, and Internet Archive. You will also recognize many of the presenters, such as Lisa Louise Cooke, Crista Cowan, and Diahan Southard. 

When you do a search for a particular topic, you get a screen, such as the one on the left, that gives you the name of the recording, its owner, and its run time. You can click on the title or the graphic to get to the actual recording. You will likely see advertisements, some of which you can skip by clicking the little tab on the far right of the screen (see below, right) and some of which you have to let run. You may be asked to subscribe to a “Channel Membership,” which most often is free and which gives you the benefit of being notified when new recordings are posted. 

Once you have a recording running, pause it for a moment and scroll below the video. There, you will find a place for viewer comments, but, more exciting, there’s another list of “suggested” related recordings. See how easy it is to go down the rabbit hole? 

FamilySearch

When you can tear yourself away from YouTube, check out FamilySearch’s ever-growing and incredibly useful wiki. Did you know there were series of short videos online in the wiki that concentrate on European research? Currently sets of videos are available for Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Poland, and Slovakia. 

You can start with a set of “how-to” recordings (not shown here) or scroll down the page to the area in which you are interested to see what is there. (See above for a sample.)

As you can see by the German series shown above, the offerings are sequential and thorough. As with the YouTube pages, if you scroll under the recording once it is visible, you will find a link to a handout and, further down, under “Related Content,” are other recordings you might find helpful.

FamilySearch also has an online Learning Center, and that has more than 2,100 digital recordings on topics that vary from “Beginning Research Techniques” to a multi-part seminar on “German Paleography.” 

Ancestry

A little-known part of Ancestry’s website is the Ancestry Academy. Here you will find a selection of recordings on multiple topics: 

• 5 Minute Finds
• Researching Your Military Ancestors in the U.S.
• Newspapers.com
• Getting the Most Out of Ancestry
• Researching a State
• Researching Outside the United States
• Methodology and Skills
• Find a Grave
• Understanding DNA
• Did You Know?
• Census Records

Again, you can see the length of the recordings and how many are in each set on the introductory screen (shown below). Clicking on a graphic brings up the actual recording. You do not have to be an Ancestry subscriber to watch most of the videos.

Have a great time watching and learning!