New Netherland Institute Family History Day

Welcome to registration for our first Family History Day. Please read through all the details before proceeding to the next page.

Descendants of early Dutch and English colonists make up a large part of the inhabitants of today’s Mid-Atlantic Region. With the popularity of genealogy and family history at an all-time high, the New Netherland Institute is holding its first ever family history/genealogy workshop in Albany. The event—which will feature consultations with professional genealogists, group discussion sessions, and talks on using colonial Dutch and English records in your family research—promises to be an excellent opportunity to not only learn from the experts, but to meet and chat with fellow descendants of the region’s earliest European settlers.

The day will feature three components:
1) One-on-one consultations with a professional genealogist (limited availability)
2) Discussion/workshop sessions
3) A series of short talks

VENDOR/DISPLAY TABLES
Tables for you to sell/give away materials and promote your organization’s activities are available for rental in the common area. Table rentals are add-ons to individual registrations. If multiple registrants plan to run a single table, its cost need only be added to one registration. Questions? Send us an email.

FEES
General admission (includes lunch): $30
General admission with vendor table (includes lunch): $50
Consultation with Jane Wilcox: +$45
Consultation with Mary Collins: +$25

SCHEDULE
Registration: 9:00–9:45
Welcome: 9:45–10:10
Discussion session 1: 10:10–10:55
Break: 10:55–11:25
Discussion session 2: 11:25–12:10
Lunch: 12:10–1:10
Talks: 1:10–2:20
Break: 2:20–2:50
Discussion session 3: 2:50–3:35
END

CONSULTATIONS
Need help busting down a brick wall? Want to start researching your family but don’t quite know where to start? Try a one-on-one consultation with a professional genealogist.

15 minutes (Mary Collins): A brief conversation to tackle one or two very specific issues or research problems and provide ideas on resources and records to search. Please bring your family tree or details about your question with you. This is a good option for people unsure of where to begin with New Netherland research.

25 minutes (Jane Wilcox): Consultations will include a brief analysis of what information the researcher has on her person of interest and a discussion of research resources, records, and techniques to use. Come with one research goal (i.e. Who were the parents of John Smith?) and at most two to three 8-1/2" by 11" pages of information on what is known about the person of interest and his spouse, children, and siblings.

DISCUSSION/WORKSHOP SESSIONS

Session 1 (10:10–10:55)

A representative from the New York State Archives, NYSA resources
An expert from the NYSA will lead a discussion on the Archives' various resources on New Netherland and early New York and demonstrate how they can further your genealogical research.

Lisa Dougherty,  “Working with your DNA matches”
Autosomal DNA tests give you lists of other testers who share DNA with you. But how can these unrecognizable names and their DNA information help you with your family tree? Professional genealogist Lisa Dougherty will give you practical tips for understanding how DNA matching works, demystifying relationship calculations, and steps you can take to identify and contact your matches. In no time you will be maximizing the tools provided by your testing company and beyond to solve your genealogy brick walls!

Session 2 (11:25–12:10)

Mary Collins, “Organizing, Sharing, and Celebrating Your Genealogy”
This session will touch on several related topics: how we organize and save our research (on paper and digitally); what we can do to share our research and pass it on, including ideas about family notebooks and websites; why you should start writing articles; and strategies and ‘insider’ hints for completing lineage society applications, and why you might want to.

Skip Duett, “Those Other DNA Tests - Using Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA”
For many of us, our early New Netherland connections are 10 to 12 generations back, well beyond the reach of reliable autosomal DNA testing. But Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA easily extend to the beginning of the use of surnames and paper documentation. Professional genealogist Skip Duett will explain how these tests work and how you can add them to your genetic genealogy testing strategy to tackle your distant brick walls.

Session 3 (2:50–3:55)

Jane Wilcox, “General Genealogical Research Tips and Techniques”
Successful genealogical research requires strategies for analysis and documentation. We'll discuss techniques such as timelines, evaluating source reliability, and cluster research (also known as FAN club, a term coined by Elizabeth Shown Mills) to maximize the effectiveness of your research.

Open slot
This slot will remain open for audience suggestions (and a volunteer) on the day of the event.

TALKS

1) Jane Wilcox, Genealogically-Relevant Resources for Dutch Research in New York
Dutch research in New York spans from New Netherland into the English/British colonial period. Discover some resources that can aid your research on families who were in New York during the Dutch and early English/British periods as well as some tips on where to look for original and translated records.

2) Christopher White, Van Rensselaer family burial ground restoration
Genealogist, historian, and gravestone conservator, Christopher White, will present a flash program on the restoration of the long-abandoned van Rensselaer family burial ground in East Greenbush, New York. Before and after photographs will document the project.

3) Charles Gehring, Dutch Bible Project
The Dutch Bible Project is based on the premise that many Dutch families had a bible in their possession. Not only was it an edifying source of information for members of the Reformed Church but also the only paper available to write on for most people. In many cases, the blank pages in the front and back contain records of not only births, deaths, etc. but also record unusual events such as earthquakes and heavy snow falls. It’s the project’s intention to glean this information for posting online.

4) Tom Ruller (New York State Archivist)
This talk will focus on the website of the NYSA and touch on other NYSA resources pertinent to genealogical research.

5) Steve McErleane, The New Netherland Institute’s Resources
The title says it all.

PARTICIPANTS

Mary Collins is a genealogist with research experience in New York City and the Hudson Valley. She holds a Certified Genealogist credential from the Board for Certification of Genealogists. She also developed an online exhibition for the New Netherland Institute entitled "New Netherland Family History: Using New Netherland Documents to Explore Your Family History" and was a contributing author to The New York Family History Research Guide and Gazetteer published by The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society. Her work has appeared in The Researcher and the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. Mary was previously the librarian at the Holland Society of New York.

Jane E. Wilcox serves on the NYS Archives Advisory Committee and the NY Genealogical and Biographical Society’s NY Family History Advisory Committee. She is writing a book on the collections of the NY State Archives to be published by the NYG&B. A former editorial board member of the NY Genealogical & Biographical Record, Jane speaks at national genealogy conferences and institutes, as well as presenting webinars for national genealogy companies and speaking at the Women's Rights National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in New York City. With her company, Forget-Me-Not Ancestry, in Albany, NY, Jane specializes in colonial and early federal New York and area research. She hosted The Forget-Me-Not Hour podcast for 6+ years, with archives of the shows at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/JaneEWilcox. She received her master’s degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, and her bachelor’s degree in history and English literature from the University of Michigan, in addition to her teacher’s certification from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

Lisa Dougherty has been active in tracing the history of not only her own family, but many others for nearly 25 years. A native of the Glens Falls area, she became interested in genealogy as a teenager when her father began investigating the origins of his Irish great grandparents. A former volunteer at the National Archives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, she now devotes her time to lecturing around the area on family history, and assisting family researchers monthly at four area libraries, including the Irish-American Heritage Museum in Albany, where she is the genealogist-in-residence. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, as well as several other area genealogical groups. A long-time subscriber to Ancestry.com, she specializes in online research and the effective use of websites to investigate family history. She resides in Guilderland, New York with her husband and teenage son. For more information, visit her website at www.upstatenygenealogy.com.

Steve McErleane is director of the New Netherland Institute and a doctoral candidate in history at the State University of New York at Albany, where he is currently writing a dissertation on the seventeenth-century Dutch colony of New Netherland in history & memory. He also holds a master's in information science (archives) from SUNY Albany. He is from Stony Point, NY and currently lives in Troy, NY.

Christopher White is an Albany native, genealogist, historian, and gravestone conservator. He holds both a Bachelors and Masters degree in History from the University at Albany. His writings include a Masters Thesis; From Acceptance to Renunication: Das Ende von Albanys Deutschtum. Christopher is a member of numerous genealogical and historical societies. With over thirty years of research, his specialty is on local genealogical research and German-American history in the Capital District.

Charles T. Gehring was born in Fort Plain, an old Revolutionary War and Erie Canal village in New York State’s Mohawk Valley. After completing his undergraduate and graduate studies at Virginia Military Institute and West Virginia University he continued with post-graduate work at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg, Germany. There he began his study of the Dutch language and first realized that his future research lay much closer to home. He eventually received a Ph.D. in Germanic Linguistics from Indiana University with a concentration in Netherlandic Studies. His dissertation (1973) was a linguistic investigation of the survival of the Dutch language in colonial New York. He is currently director of the New Netherland Research Center, a component of the New York State Library responsible for translating the official records of the Dutch colony and promoting awareness of the Dutch role in American history. He has been a fellow of the Holland Society of New York since 1979. In 1994 Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands conferred on him the distinction of Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. In 1995 he received the gold medal of the Netherlands Society of Philadelphia. In 2004 he received gold medals from the Holland Society and the St. Nicholas Society of New York.

Skip Duett is a professional genealogist specializing in Upstate New York research and DNA analysis.  He is conducting cutting-edge research in the application of advanced Y-DNA analysis. The author of the Mohawk Valley Ehles and Allied Families, he serves on the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society (NYG&B) Family History Advisory Committee.  Until he relocated to the Capital Region two years ago, he was the lead presenter for the Central New York Genealogical Society (CNYGS) DNA Interest Group and has presented webinars for the NYG&B.  He has attended numerous genealogy institutes and conferences.  Skip has been researching his own family in New York for over 20 years and accepting clients since 2013. He holds a master’s degree from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree from the United States Naval Academy.