Description: Land records account for one–fourth of most family histories. Welcome to the Bureau of Land Management at glorecords.blm.gov. There are documents dealing with Cash Sales of land across the U.S. plus Military Bounty Land assignments and, after 1862, Homestead patents "to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain." Let's find your ancestors there.

BIO: Carol Darrow has been a professional genealogist for the past 25 years. She currently teaches free Beginning Genealogy classes on Zoom and facilitates a WriteNOW family writing group also on Zoom. Check cogensoc.us to register.

Description: This session will provide an overview of individual and organization membership with NGS, and explain the different purposes for each type and the benefits offered. There will be information on where to find various resources on the NGS website and opportunities to ask questions. If time allows, there may be highlights of the NGS 2025 Family History Conference and other NGS updates.

BIO: Kate Smith is the Organizations and Communities Manager at the National Genealogical Society (NGS). At NGS, she supports and champions organization members, primarily through work with the Delegate Council and Organization Administrators. Kate also helps with NGS's FORUM online communities platform, communications and marketing efforts, and events including FOCUS, the SLAM! Idea Showcase, and the NGS Family History Conference. Kate is in Kansas City, Missouri, and is involved with several professional and community organizations.

Description: Numerous interactions between your ancestors and the federal government generated records that have been preserved by the National Archives. The National Archives operates fifteen research centers and seventeen Presidential Libraries/Museums. This presentation provides information on the preservation of these records by the federal government. We will explore the types of information in these records along with how you can locate and access them.

BIO: Glenn York is an avid genealogist with decades of research experience at numerous facilities across the United States. Glenn began researching by pouring over microfilm at the National Archives and reading books at the Library of Congress in the 1980s while living in the Washington DC area. In 2024, Glenn attended the week-long Institute on Federal Records (Gen-Fed) held at the National Archives in Washington D.C.

Glenn is past President of the Larimer County Genealogical Society and serves as the delegate to the National Genealogical Society for the Colorado Council of Genealogical Societies. He is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, National Genealogical Society, Genealogical Speakers Guild, and many other genealogical and historical societies.

Description: A standard research plan helps you to focus your research in order to answer a specific question. But what if the search for the answer causes you to miss other information about your ancestors? The blitzkrieg approach allows you to search in a much wider way and what you stumble across can be just as exciting as answering a targeted research question. The blitzkrieg approach is not haphazard, though. It too focuses your research, although in a different way. Combining a standard research plan with a blitzkrieg approach can yield exciting ... and unexpected ... results.

BIO: Dina Carson has been involved in genealogy for more than three decades, and is currently the coordinator of the Boulder Pioneers Project, a comprehensive look at the original source documents for Boulder County during the Territorial period (1859-1876). She is the author of more than 100 annotated indexes of Boulder County source materials. She lectures frequently to genealogical societies throughout the state and is working with the Colorado State Archives on state-wide indexing projects. Dina is the author of 10 books about publishing and genealogy including, Publish Your Family History: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing the Stories of Your Ancestors, and two recent books, Map Your US Research: A Workbook for Genealogists and Colorado's Historical Assets: A Research Guide for Genealogists, Local Historians and History Buffs. Dina brings her experience with all phases of book publishing to help first-time self-publishers create quality family or local histories that are both believable and achievable. When she's not at a computer working on a publishing project, you can find her photographing the pioneer cemeteries of Colorado or deep in the bowels of an archive researching something.

Description: Recollections of the seeds of the book first conceived in 1975 and how it evolved into the book In Their Time: A Timeline Journal for Placing Family Events into Historical Context 1000-2076.

BIO: A Denver native with 50 years of genealogical experience as researcher, lecturer and writer. Librarian and archivist in the Western History and Genealogy Department of the Denver Public Library for 14 years until retiring in 2019. Member of NGS, Colorado Genealogical Society, BA in Speech Communication, University of Northern Colorado, MLS Masters in Library Science from Emporia State University.

Description: Have you ever considered what will happen to your years of genealogy research once you're gone? Learn how to ensure that your hard work carries on. Through a combination of planning, common sense, and new technologies, we'll review how to create an action plan for preserving your genealogy research.

BIO: Thomas MacEntee is a Baby Boomer guy with a love of punk rock music but also art history who somehow "fell" into the technology industry almost 40 years ago, and then left a lucrative IT career to pursue his love of family history and genealogy. Technology and historical research are opposites, but "tech people" like Thomas are needed to guide today's genealogists through the maze of options so they can deploy the best apps and devices to break down research brick walls. Thomas MacEntee: author, educator, advocate, entrepreneur, and that "genealogy guy" who helps you accomplish your family history goals.