Great chance to learn about immigration & naturalization
Ordinarily, when The Legal Genealogist finds out about a great new opportunity to learn about genealogy, passing it on to readers is the first priority.
But when space is limited on a fabulous upcoming set of webinars, it’s awfully hard to tell others who might get there first and leave me without a seat in the webinar room…
Still, with all the opportunities I’ve had, I can’t be too selfish so… here goes.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Historical Research Branch1 is offering a new series of free webinars covering research in immigration and naturalization records starting this coming week. And it promises to be terrific.
There will be four sets of presentations set up to be “an easy and free way to learn about the USCIS History, Library, and Genealogy programs and services from agency historians, librarians, and program representatives.”2 And the webinar series has something for everybody, beginner to advanced.
The schedule so far for the four webinars — outlined on the History and Genealogy Webinars page of the website — is:
History Library Catalog and Services
This webinar introduces the USCIS History Library Program and online catalog, and familiarizes attendees with the collection of public historical materials, catalog content and search interface, services for the public, and how/where to get help/more information. General public genealogists (beginner to advanced).
• Thursday, March 6, 2014 1:00 PM EST
• Thursday, April 3, 2014 1:00 PM EDT
• Thursday, May, 1 2014 1:00 PM EDT
Genealogy Program Introduction
This webinar introduces the USCIS Genealogy Program and familiarizes attendees with the services, fees, website, request processes, and how/where to get help/more information. General public genealogists (beginner to advanced).
• Thursday, March 13, 2014 1:00 PM EDT
• Thursday, April 10, 2014 1:00 PM EDT
• Thursday, May 8, 2014 1:00 PM EDT
Guide to I&N History Research
A bi-monthly webinar delivered by the USCIS Historian covering available historical records, useful finding aids, and procedures for requesting records at the National Archives or from USCIS via FOIA/PA. Occasional webinars in this series may address issues or problems in researching specific historical topics. Scholars and other advanced researchers.
• Thursday, April 24, 2014 1:00 PM EDT
“Records Found” Case Studies
A bi-monthly “teaching with documents” webinar presenting selected documents from among those processed by the USCIS Genealogy Program or found among agency records at the National Archives or online. Professional genealogists, genealogical writers and educators.
• Thursday, March 27, 2014 1:00 PM EDT
• Thursday, May 22, 2014 1:00 PM EDT
The webinars will be using AT&T Connect — which differs in some respects from the GoToWebinar software you might be more familiar with. So you might want to click over to the “Getting ready for an AT&T Connect Event!” page and make sure your computer is set up well in advance.
And — sigh — space is limited. Each webinar can handle 125 people, so if you want in, you’re going to need to get there early. At the webinars page, you can set up a reminder for yourself about the webinar, and it’s that page you should bookmark so you can click through to attend at the right time.
And if you can’t make it, well, hey… that leaves a seat open for me, right?
Thanks to USCIS for beginning this new program! Can’t wait to see how this develops…
SOURCES
- If you’re not familiar with these folks, you really want to check out the website: History and Genealogy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (http://www.uscis.gov : accessed 27 Feb 2014). It has amazing resources. ↩
- “History and Genealogy Webinars,” History and Genealogy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (http://www.uscis.gov : accessed 27 Feb 2014). ↩
It appears that these will not be available for watching at a later date. Is this correct?
For the time being, that’s true. I think the USCIS genealogical staff would like them to be recorded but it’s likely that they will need public support for that effort. Making sure every session is full up is a good start!