Mary Roddy, a Certified Public Accountant, earned a certificate from the Genealogy and Family History program at the University of Washington. She is an active member of the Seattle Genealogical Society and speaks frequently in the Seattle area.

Mary is a regular contributor to YourGenealogyToday and Internet Genealogy magazines and a frequent webinar presenter with Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

Her background in accounting has influenced the way she uses spreadsheets and forensic research in her genealogy. She is working on a novel which incorporates stories of ancestors she has discovered in her research.

One may visit Mary’s website is at http://www.mkrgenealogy.com/

Educators Forum*: “Crafting History” (Sun-109), 11:30 A.M. – 12:30 P.M.

When you start talking about genealogy, how long is it before your sister’s eyes glaze over and your brother runs from the room? About 27 seconds? Join the club. But this talk will give you ideas to display your family history knowledge in unusual and compelling ways and soon have your friends and relatives asking you questions about your family.

I will present more than a dozen projects which crafters can create at home with easy-to-find supplies using ancestral photos and artifacts. Projects include jewelry (bracelets and necklaces), household and holiday decorations, quilts, shadow boxes, calendars and more.

Each of these projects invites questions or comments and gives us an easy way to talk about our ancestors. And when we say our ancestor’s names, they will live on. Presentation is suitable for educator portion of conference – I can provide how-to instructions for projects.

Topics: Organization and preservation

*The combined fee for attendance at the full conference and the Educators’ Forum is just $365 during early on-line registration through April 30. If one wishes to attend the Educator’s Forum only,  registration fee is $50 per person.  See http://www.iajgs2016.org/educators/

“Where There’s a Will – (There’s a Way to Find New Genealogical Information)” (Sun-108), 1:30-2:45 P.M.

This presentation covers some basic terms used in probate research. I distinguish between abstracts and the actual documents. I discuss how and why to transcribe a will.

We will cover several case-study type examples including how a will can help to prove a theory of relationship, how a probate file might provide clues to an ancestor’s personality, lead to discovery of parents names which are not specifically mentioned in the will, demonstrate some issues regarding lack of a will and a contentious probate, and additional information when probates wind up in appellate courts.

Topics: General genealogical research

“Read ‘Em or Weep – Promise and Pitfalls in Newspaper OCR” (Mon-104), 4:30-5:45 P.M.

As an attendee I’ve seen too much emphasis on finding newspapers and not enough on how to search within them. My presentation balances those two concepts.

I’ll cover free newspaper sites including Chronicling America, California Digital Newspaper Collection, Fulton History, and lesser-known sites including the Wikipedia page of online newspapers and others.

I’ll talk about paid sites including GenealogyBank, Newspapers.com, and Fold3.com and demonstrate resources that are free using a library card, including America’sGenealogyBank, NewspaperArchives and 19thCenturyUSNewspapers.

Presentation covers reasons for spelling mistakes in newspapers. We’ll talk about putting Soundex (a concept genealogists once employed to find census records, but don’t use much anymore) to use in coming up with potential alternate spellings for surnames. After people understand the “intentional” ways a name might appear differently than expected, I’ll talk about unintentional mistakes that creep in due to OCR technology and how to allow for these (Roddy = Rocldv).

Topics: Technology in support of genealogical research

Computer Lab:* “Spreadsheets in Genealogy – A Hands-On Workshop” (Tues-107), 9-10:30 A.M.

In this workshop I will guide users through setting up an Excel worksheet. I will demonstrate several of the functions within Excel including copy and paste, wrapping text, sorting, finding, inserting rows and columns and using color in worksheets to bring out patterns in the data. I will discuss date and the limitations of Excel regarding pre-1900 dates and workarounds.

Depending on the participants’ facility with Excel, time-permitting I will cover text-to-columns, inputting data directly from searches at Ancestry.com and FamilySearch and filtering.

Each participant will receive a USB flash drive containing some basic genealogical spreadsheets including a research log and census tracking sheet. The flash drive will also contain detailed handouts with screen-shots covering how to perform various tasks in Excel.

Topics: Workshop, Technology

* NOTE: One must reserve one’s place in this computer workshop and pay a separate fee of $35 (in additional to the conference registration fee).

You may enjoy a more personal look at Mary Kircher Roddy, blogger, featured in an interview at Geneabloggers.