8 October 2020 starting at 12:00 noon Eastern Time
Joy Reisinger
BCG will present three webinars free to the public on Thursday, 8 October 2020, at noon, 1:15 p.m., and 2:30 p.m. Eastern time as this year’s Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series. The lectures are traditionally given live at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, in conjunction with BCG’s fall board of trustees meeting and simultaneously live-streamed by BCG’s webinar partner, Legacy Family Tree Webinars. This year, the board is meeting virtually, and the Family History Library is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
To register for the Reisinger Memorial Lecture series, use this link: https://familytreewebinars.com/bcg20. For those who have schedule conflicts, the lectures will be available to view for free on the Legacy site for a week after the event, and then will go behind the paywall. BCG receives a small compensation when anyone purchases one of these—or any other BCG webinar—after the free period. This year’s speakers and topics will be:
At noon—Judy G. Russell, J.D., CG®, CGL®, will present From Generation to Generation: An Updated Look at Kinship Determination. Proving relationships between generations is an essential skill for genealogists, and one that has to be demonstrated for certification in the Kinship Determination Project. Get an updated review of this three-generation narrative linking family members from generation to generation.
At 1:15 p.m.—J. H. “Jay” Fonkert, CG®, will present Geo-Genealogy as a Problem-Solving Tool: The Case of a 19th-Century Female Teenage Immigrant. Evidence for the home-country origins of 19th-century immigrants can be hard to find. This lecture illustrates how 3-D genealogy (associations, geography, and time), including an expansive geographical search in American records can produce a tight geographical focus in home-county records, leading to the birth family of a single, teenage girl who landed at New Orleans in 1845. Enjoy a research cruise up and down the Mississippi to gather clues leading to Dena’s German birthplace.
At 2:30 p.m.—Jill K. Morelli, CG®, will present Spanning 150 Years of Record Loss: A Methodological Approach to Identifying Parents in Sweden. Swedish records are rarely lost to fire. Churches built of brick and a lack of conflict within the country have made most records available and continuous back to the late 1600s. Elna Johansdotter married Troed Pehrsson, but not in the parish where she raised her children and died. Swedish women usually marry in their home parish, but live in the parish of their husband. Where was Elna born and who were her parents? Available record sets consisted of 1 book of parish records which ended in 1716; the gap-ridden mantals tax records, an annual recording of the heads of household and their taxable obligations; and the probate documents, the latter available only if the court ordered an inventory to occur. Squeezing all information out of the limited record sets available resulted in a successful identification of the parents of Elna. The records sets available may differ but the methodologies used to identify the parents of Elna are transferable, whether in Sweden, the United States or elsewhere.
BCG’s fall lecture series began years ago as informal training by BCG associates for Family History Library staff. It was soon opened to the public, and several years ago the organization began live-streaming the lectures as webinars so interested individuals who are not able to be in Salt Lake City for the event may enjoy the talks. A few years ago, BCG honored our late colleague Joy Reisinger—who was instrumental in starting the lecture series—by giving it her name.
About Joy Reisinger
Joy Reisinger first received a certified credential in 1980. She was a Wisconsin resident and a national lecturer across the country. Joy had a fondness for Canadian research, and published a newsletter, Lost in Canada. Her service to the community was extensive. She was co-chair of several National Genealogical Society conferences in St. Paul and Milwaukee. Joy advocated for record access and was responsible for keeping records from being closed in Wisconsin. She has received recognition by the National Genealogical Society and the Federation of Genealogical Societies with distinction for her service. Particularly of note was Joy’s service to the Board for Certification of Genealogists. She was a Certified Genealogical Record Searcher (CGRS) beginning in 1980, and received her Certified Genealogist® (CG®) credential in 1998. Joy was the architect of BCG’s first policy manual and, as noted, she was the instigator of this series of lectures that now bears her name. Joy was elected a BCG Trustee in 1995 and served in that capacity until 2007. She was the board’s vice president from 1995 to 2005. Joy was awarded BCG’s Emeritus designation in 2007. She passed away in 2013.
The words Certified Genealogist and letters CG are registered certification marks, and the designations CGL and Certified Genealogical Lecturer are service marks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists®, used under license by board certificants after periodic evaluation.