Carol Cooke Darrow presents:
Breathing Life Into Your Ancestors

After you’ve quoted birth, marriage and death dates, what else can you say about an ancestor you’ve never known? How can you put them into historical context? Using sources such as newspapers, county histories, geographic location, ethnicity, occupation, photographs, letters and diaries (of your ancestors or their neighbors) can help you breathe life into your ancestor’s narrative.

Carol Cooke Darrow is a professional genealogist and the co-author of The Genealogist’s Guide to Researching Tax Records. She volunteers on Thursdays at the National Archives branch in Broomfield and facilitates the WriteNOW! writing group at the Denver Public Library (DPL). /td>

Basic Canadian history begins to set the stage for this talk about Canadian Records and how to access them. Many of our ancestors came through Canada for a variety of reasons. Many remained in Canada and many came to the United States. This talk includes a discussion of the basic record groups and the websites that will help you to follow your Canadian ancestors.

Diane has been doing genealogy for about 20 years. In June 2012, she graduated from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies at the University of Toronto to earn her credentials of PLCGS or Professional Learning Certificate in Genealogical Studies. She attends Advanced Institutes yearly and has taught genealogy locally and nationally. Her first love is teaching. She is currently President of the Anthem Ranch Genealogical Society and is Vice- President of Boulder Genealogy. She is also is education coordinator for both groups. Diane volunteers for many jobs with other organizations. She has volunteered at the Denver Public Library and National Archives in Broomfield.

Successful Jewish Genealogy hinges on two essential facts: what are the original Ancestral surnames and towns for each branch in your family. But the same principals apply, regardless of your ethnic heritage, to anyone you have trouble tracing (especially back to the country where they emigrated). What if you don’t know an original name or town of one of your immigrant ancestors? What do you do? Where do you start? Is it even possible to re-capture that crucial information if you cannot be certain of either? Using many examples and strategies, I will walk you through each showing examples of how original names and towns can be confirmed many decades after they were forgotten or obscured.

Debbie Schwartz is past president and programing VP for JGSCO (Jewish Genealogical Society of Colorado). Her career in Rights Licensing required her to find creative ways to locate people that didn't always want to be found. That experience helped her discover creative ways to find and confirm original ancestral last names and towns using clues left by our ancestors. She launched a company (oriGen) in 2018 to accomplish similar results for others. Debbie will share practical and focused ways to find and verify original family names and locations in step-by-step presentations.

Jon Chandler will entertain with a program of A Colorado Christmas composed of songs dealing with the holidays, Colorado and Longmont.

A seventh-generation Coloradan, Jon Chandler is a nationally lauded singer/songwriter and author whose songs and books are reflections of his western heritage. Chandler has travelled throughout the country performing at concert venues, honky-tonks, nightclubs, cowboy poetry gatherings and music festivals, and has appeared everywhere from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville to the Congressional Earth Day Reception in Washington D.C. He was named Best Living Western Musician by True West Magazine, is the recipient of three Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America and was most recently honored with the Branding Iron Award by the William S. Hart Museum in Newhall, California.