Missouri, St. Louis, and Irish Offerings at our Family History Conference, Saturday, 4 May 2024

Last week, we told you about the FamilySearch part of the program for our annual Family History Conference, Successfully Navigating Websites for Your Genealogy, coming up on Saturday, 4 May 2024. (Did you miss last week’s post? You can read it here.) But, in addition to the three lectures that our featured speaker, Chief Genealogical Officer for FamilySearch David Rencher is presenting on the library and its catalogs, we have five more exciting talks scheduled for the big day. You can learn more about important resources at the State Historical Society of Missouri, the brand-new Clark Family Branch library here in St. Louis County, our own StLGS website, and fantastic sources for online Irish research. PLUS, all participants will have access to the full slate of eight lectures and an electronic version of the syllabus via our website for three months after the conference. Excited? Read on for more information . . .

If you are researching ancestors who lived in Missouri, you will want to know more about the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO), with headquarters in Columbia, Missouri. We are lucky to have two representatives from the SHSMO as presenters at our conference. Senior Archivist Heather Richmond will tell us about “Researching Family and Local History in the State Historical Society of Missouri’s Digital Collections.” You may not know that the SHSMO holds the state’s largest collection of historical newspapers, and Katelyn “Katie” Ziegler, newspaper librarian, will help us learn more about how to “Use the News: Research with the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project.”

Construction is almost complete on the newest building in the St. Louis County Library system. As we eagerly await the opening of the Clark Family Branch with its dedicated genealogy section, Brent Trout, manager of the History & Genealogy Department, will update us with the latest news in “Library Renewed: History and Genealogy at the Clark Family Branch.” 

The last lectures of the day will appeal to a wide range of interests. Those with Irish ancestors may want to concentrate on David Rencher’s “Using Irish Internet Resources,” while those with St. Louis-based research may want to take in StLGS co-webmaster Jim Ross’s talk on “Hidden Treasures on the St. Louis Genealogical Society Website.”

It is definitely not too late to register to attend in person at the Maryland Heights Community Center or via Zoom.  All the details are on our Family History Conference page, including a link to our secure online store. It's going to be a fantastic conference, and we hope you will join us!