Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Mysterious Codes: Passenger Manifests Letters and Numbers
Does your ancestor have the letter "D" or "X" next to their name on their passenger manifest ? Do you know what V/L, # 404, USB, Transit, CL, N.O.B, C/A, LPC, SI, NQIV, BSI, PV or C-232423 mean? We will learn when to contact the US National Archives or USCIS to get more details based on these codes. And what insight we can learn about your ancestor's immigration experience based on these notations.
Wednesday, October 25
WAGS Writers Group (Life Story Writing Group)
1:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Parnell Park Community & Senior Center, 15390 Lambert Rd, Whittier CA 90604
WAGS members and the public are invited to attend the Life Story Writing Group.
This meeting is held in person on the fourth Wednesdays of the month* at the Parnell Park Community Center at 15390 Lambert Road, Whittier CA 90604.
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Newspapers: Above the Fold, Your Ancestors in the News
Newspapers are a fantastic source of research leads, information, and historical context for your family history. The stories of our ancestor’s lives can be found in the pages of archived newspapers. This presentation will help teach you how to better search for your ancestors in the news and how they can help lead you towards answering your genealogy research questions.
Wednesday, December 13
WAGS Writers Group (Life Story Writing Group)
1:00 pm to 3:00 pm
WAGS members and the public are invited to attend the Life Story Writing Group.
WAGS Annual Holiday Show & Tell (General Meeting and Speaker)
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Join us for our WAGS Annual Holiday Tradition!
We are encouraging WAGS members and friends to join us in our December Show & Tell and Holiday Party.
Member participation is what makes this event successful.
Share information you found out about your family tree this past year, a brick wall breakthrough, a family story, or a family treasure. Presentations should be about five minutes long. To sign up, contact our Program Chair,Christine Cohen, atprogram@wagswhittier.org.
Saturday, January 20, 2024
Cheri Mello (General Meeting and Speaker)
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Overcoming Brick Wlls with DNA
Cheri Mello will be presenting this talk in person at the Sorensen Library in Whittier and virtually on Zoom.
Learn from 4 case studies how DNA was used to overcome a brick wall that stood since the 1950s using Y-DNA, solved the mystery of the mother of two sisters using mtDNA, a surprise revealing step-grandpa was really dad using autosomal DNA, and lastly, one that solved a case of an unknown father by using the X match. Also included is an overview of the 4 types of DNA used in genealogy: Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), autosomal DNA (Family Finder) and X Match and how to decode the confusing terms of DNA.
Saturday, February 17, 2024
Mary Ann Vincent (General Meeting and Speaker)
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Forget GPS - You Need Maps
Mary Anne Vincent will be joining us in person at the Sorensen Library to present this talk.
If your ancestors arrived in North America in the 1600's or 1700's, you need old maps. Where did they settle when they got there? You need maps. Did their children and grandchildren move? Where? You need maps. Why did they move? That's a different story. The presentation will deal with various kinds of maps and how to use them to trace the first three generations of your family in North America.
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Brian Rhinehart (General Meeting and Speaker)
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
I Have a Civil War Ancestor . . . Now What?
Civil War soldiers often left a rich genealogical paper trail. Many of these records are tucked away at the National Archives in Washington DC. Learn what records are available for your ancestors only at the National Archives, what records are online already, and how to access all of them. These records may unlock some of the family stories that have been forgotten over time, as well as break down a brick wall or two!
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Heritage Travel: How to Walk in the Footsteps of Your Ancestors' Footsteps
You don’t have to be a celebrity on “Who Do You Think You Are?” to travel in your ancestor’s footsteps. Speaker Lisa Vogele shares her tops tips for planning a heritage trip.
Whether you’re interested in planning a trip to visit U.S. battlefields of your patriotic ancestors, walking the streets of an ancestral village, or meeting distant relatives, heritage travel offers a rich and rewarding experience.
Learn Lisa's top tips for researching, planning, and connecting on your personal journey. Find out how to avoid common pitfalls, what DNA tests reveal, and how they can be used for heritage travel when your paper trail ends. Setting goals & expectations for your trip.
Come hear inspirational stories from real-life heritage travel experiences!
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Practicing Safe Computing in the Age of AI
Genealogists depend on reliable computing, data storage, and access across the Internet. Cybercrime and cyberterrorism have resulted in service disruptions, personal data being exposed, and millions of dollars in ransom being paid. As the sophistication of cybercriminals grows, this will likely get worse. Scams can also challenge us, and Artificial Intelligence will make current scams more dangerous and will introduce new ones. Even in the absence of bad actors, computers become corrupt and storage devices fail resulting in the potential loss of years of genealogical research. This talk discusses the risks, the myths, ways to reduce the likelihood of being hacked, and how to minimize the impact of data breaches, network and computing failures that do occur. See and search all of Hal’s articles at www.tinyurl.com/SafeComputingArticles (published monthly in the JGSCV Newsletter since 2015)
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Beth Swartz (General Meeting and Speaker)
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Centi What, Morgan Who.. Working with Your DNA Results
Beth Swartz will be joining us in person at the Sorensen Library in Whittier.
This presentation covers the basics of using Ancestry DNA results to understand your ethnicity, create a DNA tree, sort and triangulate matches to identify unknown relatives. Also provides updated information on new features as they come out.
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Dana Palmer CG®, CGL(SM) (General Meeting and Speaker)
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Finding Records Using the Resources on FamilySearch
Many records exists online and in repositories. Learn how to use the resources on FamilySearch to find them.
Orange County FamilySearch Center Road Trip (General Meeting and Speaker)
Road Trip! Orange FamilySearch Center
We will be going on the road on August 17th to visit the Orange County FamilySearch in the City of Orange.
We will have more details closer to the time of the event.
Saturday, September 21, 2024
Christine Cohen (General Meeting and Speaker)
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Sorenson Library, 6934 Broadway Ave, Whittier CA 90606 + Zoom
Naturalization and Citizenship
Naturalization is the process by which an alien becomes an American citizen. These records can provide a researcher with valuable information such as an ancestor’s person's birth date, birth location in the old country, occupation , immigration year, marital status, spouse information, witnesses' names and addresses. Naturalization and the individual steps to citizenship could be done at any “court of record” of which there were 5,000 in the United States.
