(Media release from the Georgia Archives):
Join the Georgia Genealogical Society and the Georgia Archives on Saturday, June 3, for the Annual Genealogy Picnic beginning at 9:00 am. The event will be held onsite at the Georgia Archives. No pre-registration is required.
Bring your own or have lunch at one of our local restaurants. For more information about our presentations and directions to the Georgia Archives, please see our website, www.georgiaarchives.org.
9:00 am – 9:30 am: Registration
9:30 am – 10:30 am: Breaking Down Brick Walls using FamilySearch
Lynn Schlick, Alabama Genealogical Society
Schlick will discuss how to use the free resources found in FamilySearch.org to research your ancestors and the many ways available to break down the frustrating brick wall to discover those hard-to-find ancestors. FamilySearch offers a variety of ways to learn more about your family story, with millions of records uploaded each month and billions of records searchable by name.
10:30 am – 10:45 am: Break
10:45 am – 11:45 am: Taking a Second Look: Reviewing Existing Records for More Genealogical Clues
Tamika Strong, Reference Archivist, Georgia Archives
All researchers will encounter a brick wall during their genealogical research journey. Some of those brick walls come as a result of not fully reviewing the records collected. This session will share tips and methodology on how to glean more genealogical information from records.
11:45 am – 1:00 pm: Lunch (Archives Reference Library will be closed from 12 pm to 1 pm)
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm: Finding Francis: One Family’s Journey from Slavery to Freedom
Dr. Elizabeth West, Academic Director, Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora;
Professor & Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters, Georgia State University
Finding Francis is a biohistoriography that narrates the journey of enslaved matriarch Francis Sistrunk and her family from pre-Civil War Georgia to post-WWI Mississippi. The story is told through the prism of geography as much as biography and history, revealing how the economies of slaving and Jim Crow dictated forced movements and migrations of African Americans across the US South. Integral to unearthing this story was a range of sources that included DNA reports, oral and community histories, and more conventional archives, such as census reports, wills, court records, tax records, deeds, and newspapers. Online digital archives and genealogical resources became invaluable to the progress of this project during the interruption of travel caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing to light how these online digital resources can contribute significantly to academic research and the need to explore ways to build out online database resources for public and academic research.
2:00 pm – 2:15 pm: Break
2:15 pm – 3:15 pm: Ask an Archivist Panel Discussion: Georgia Archives Resources and Search Strategies
Georgia Archives staff
To submit a question, go to https://forms.office.com/r/1m4fYFT1i1
The Georgia Archives is a unit of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. The Georgia Archives identifies, collects, manages, preserves, provides access to, and publicizes records and information of Georgia and its people, and assists state and local government agencies with their records management.