No, that’s not a mistake
A matter of genearosity, huh?
The Legal Genealogist assures you, that’s not a typo.
It’s not misspelled.
It’s the title of a new quarterly webinar series offered by the Virtual Genealogical Association, and it’s one I’m delighted to be the lead-off speaker for, this Saturday, February 6, at noon Eastern time.
VGA wanted to do something a little different than the usual webinar series: it wanted to do a series that not only offered an educational component to attendees, but also a specific payback to the genealogical community. So the idea is that the speaker — me in this case — gets to choose a genealogical good work to receive all the profits from the webinar.
Instead of a speaker fee and all that, the funds will go to a specific genealogical purpose instead. And the minute VGA broached the idea, I was all in.
So this Saturday at noon Eastern, you can join me for Lost and Found: The Children in Our Family Histories, and the funds raised by the registration fees will go to my chosen charitable genealogical purpose: the Paul Edward Sluby, Sr. African American Scholarship of the Board for Certification of Genealogists.
Registration is $10 for members of the Virtual Genealogical Association and $15 for non-members — and every penny of the profit goes to the Sluby Scholarship.
In the webinar, we’ll cover the reasons why we want to study all these youngest members of our families, even those who didn’t survive to leave descendants. We’ll talk about ways to be sure we look for the children, especially those whose entire lives were lived between censuses. And we’ll talk about some of the record types we might find for all the children in our family trees.
I think you’ll find the topic as richly rewarding as I do… and I know the cause we’re supporting with the registration fees is a good one — helping to educate and train a new generation of researchers in an historically under-served population.
You can find more information about the Genearosity Series and this lecture here on the VGA website, and the links to register are on that page.
Hope to “see” you online, Saturday, February 6, at noon Eastern, for this inaugural Genearosity lecture — and check back each quarter for more!
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “A matter of genearosity,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 3 Feb 2021).
I found 4 lost children of my maternal great-great grandparents. I found their birth records in the probate court and 3 death records. The three died as children before 1880 and I presume the boy (Roland Strimple) died as well because because he didn’t appear in the 1880 census. Based on the new information, I restored them to the family. One died of whooping cough, another of diphtheria, and yet, another of rubella (I think, I’d have to take a look at the record; I’m trying to go off by memory)
Good for you! There’s so much of this loss in all of our families! We need to document those lives.
I am sorry I missed your talk! Anywhere to find out what was discussed?
I’m pretty sure the Virtual Genealogical Association will have it on their website soon.
Family lore was that my father was the eldest of eight children with a four year gap between him and his next born sibling, but I always wondered if there was another child born in between. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I stumbled across the death certificate (with a gross misspelling of the surname) of that in-between child, a boy, who died at the age of three months from pneumonia. In contacting the local historical society, I was told that the cemetery was used to bury stillborns and young children, and is overgrown and not maintained. Breaks my heart.
It’s EXACTLY that sort of clue — an odd gap in time — that we need to follow up on!
My grandfather was one of 13 children & we knew none of them & wanting to put his family back together was what started my genealogy journey in 1974. My mother spoke of an Aunt Jean, but I haven’t found her yet (I think she might be the youngest, Ann, who was in an orphanage after their parents died but can’t find proof yet). Their surname was McGuire so when I was at our state Archives, I just started going through birth & death microfilm reels and looking at names of parents & I found a daughter of his father’s brother. She was born in Feb 1920 and died in an accident in 1922. The Census in 1920 was taken in Jan, so no one would have found her that way. My cousin knew nothing about it.
And that’s exactly why we do this kind of research…
Coincidentally today I learned that I had lost 1 1/2 children from a particular family I am researching. I had found a double burial in 1866 of two children John Sullivan aged 6 and David Sullivan aged 2 years 9 months, and all the circumstances fitted ‘my’ Sullivan family who lived in right area. I knew that their son John had been born and baptised in 1857, so his place in the family was already established; David was new to me so I sent off for their death certificates just to confirm my strong belief that they were brothers, and also to find out what disease had taken them away. The certificates told me that the boys had died of scarlet fever, three days apart, and indeed they were brothers, although to parents who were a different family of the same name living in an adjacent street. So David’s pencilled-in entry in my notes was erased, and I have to continue the search for the death of ‘my’ John who probably didn’t live to see his fourteenth birthday.
For the brief time I have known of their existence, they have been real people whose lives (and deaths) mattered to me.
Oh so very real… whether blood kin or not.
As usual, this was another fantastic presentation. Spoilers alert: tissues needed. If you missed it, join VGA to see the recording. $ well talent! I’m off to look for the little ones. Thanks, Judy
Oops! $ well spent
I’m partial, too, to documenting the lives of the little ones who had tragically brief lives. I’m sorry to have missed your talk and will hope to be able to get to it on the VGA website. Good for you, for encouraging others to do this work.
Hi Judy, I’m proud to be in your family tree and have received information before that you helped me with. I’m still searching for my great grandmother, Mary E. Atteberry. I’ll be watching.
Hi, Pam! I’m not sure how much info might be found on that one. Remember that it’s the Shew side that you and I share, not the Williams-Winters side, so…