SL Virtual Genealogical Society

Join us for our October 2024 meeting, where we will meet artist, designer, and photographer Jonathan Gibson.

He will be sharing his innovative history and genealogy projects, LivingHistory.ai and TheAfterLife.ai, which allow you to “talk with” the dead.

If you like Second Life—or even if you don’t—you’ll love these projects!

Come see the future for experiencing the past!

WHEN: Sunday, 13 October 2024
TIME: 4:30 p.m. SLT (same as Pacific Time)
WHERE: The Barn  SLurl

A brief business meeting will be held before the speaker’s presentation.

Genealogists of all levels are welcome at our meetings. You do not need to be a member of the SLVGS to attend, but we’d love it if you’d join!

About The Speaker

Jonathan Gibson is an artist, designer, educator, and innovator. He received his BFA in Painting and Drawing from Brigham Young University and his MFA at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. His recent work revolves around digital AI projects that allow us to talk to dead people. He lives in Cincinnati, OH with his wife and 4 children.

Are you struggling to finish – or start – that genealogy writing project? Are your family history files a disorganized mess? Can’t make time to read that book or article?

The Genealogy Goal Getters can help!

The Genealogy Goal Getters is an accountability-type support group designed to help you find time to work on your genealogy projects.

How does it work? We will start each session by sharing our goals for what we plan to work on. Then we will all work individually on our stated projects. Finally, we will share how we did with our goals at the end of the work session.

You choose what you want to accomplish in a supportive environment with your fellow genealogists!

NEXT GOAL GETTERS SESSION

WHEN: Sunday, 26 May 2024
TIME: 4:30 p.m. SLT (same as Pacific Time)
WHERE: The SLVGS Barn  SLurl

Join us at the SLVGS Barn on the 4th Sunday of the month at 4:30 p.m. SLT for virtual coffee and snacks and some quiet, focused work time.

You do not need to be a member of the SLVGS to participate, but we’d love it if you’d join!

Join us for our May meeting, where we will meet author and “Genealogy Guy” Drew Smith, MA, MS. Drew will be talking about his newest book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy.

Description:

Drew Smith’s latest book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy, results from his own experience over 30 years in reading and attempting to use countless beginners’ books, but finding something lacking. Learn what prompted Drew to identify a new way to approach basic genealogical research and what sets his beginners’ book apart from others.

WHEN: Sunday, 5 May 2024 – NOTE DATE CHANGE
TIME: 4:30 p.m. SLT (same as Pacific Time)
WHERE: The SLVGS Barn  SLurl

NOTE: The date of this meeting was changed to avoid conflicting with Mother’s Day.

A brief business meeting will be held before the speaker’s presentation.

Genealogists of all levels are welcome at our meetings. You do not need to be a member of the SLVGS to attend, but we’d love it if you’d join!

About The Speaker

Drew Smith is an associate librarian emeritus at the University of South Florida Libraries in Tampa, specializing in genealogical research. He is the co-host of The Genealogy Guys Podcast and the host of the Genealogy Connection podcast. Drew is a founder and administrator of The Genealogy Squad Facebook Group, with over 46,000 active members. He writes a regular productivity column for the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly. Drew is co-author of the book Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques and author of the book Organize Your Genealogy: Strategies and Solutions for Every Researcher. His latest book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy, was published in February 2023 by Genealogical Publishing Co.

Join us for our April meeting, where we will meet Barbara Tien, the self-described Ringleader of Projectkin. Barbara will share a talk titled, “Projects to Milk the Purple Cow in Your Family.” What does that mean? Come to the meeting and find out!

Description:

For so many of us toiling in the rabbit holes of Family History, we want—more than anything—our immediate and extended family to care about what we’ve discovered.

Here’s the thing: You need to milk the Purple Cow. The concept borrows from the legendary marketing man Seth Godin.

The simple idea is that you can’t ignore a Purple Cow. In this talk, Barbara will explain how this simple idea has fueled the family historians flocking to Projectkin.org. It’s not a platform or tool; it’s just a club of family historians hooked on stories. Members of Projectkin explore and share the many ways they’ve come up with to share their family stories — creatively. From a few paragraphs to elaborate ancestor-themed scavenger hunts, Projectkin dig into their family stories in new and creative ways. If creativity is what it takes to engage your extended family, that’s what they’re up to. It seems a good fit for the world of Second Life.

WHEN: Sunday, 14 April 2024
TIME: 4:30 p.m. SLT (same as Pacific Time)
WHERE: The Barn  SLurl

A brief business meeting will be held before the speaker’s presentation.

Genealogists of all levels are welcome at our meetings. You do not need to be a member of the SLVGS to attend, but we’d love it if you’d join!

About The Speaker

Barbara Tien was one of the co-founders at Ponga.com, where she co-hosted events and webinars, wrote articles, and served as the product manager and customer champion. After a career in product development, she is now the ringleader for projectkin.org, a platform-agnostic community advocating for creative ways to share family history — as projects.

Join us for our February meeting, where we will hold an informal chat about what we hope to learn/see at the upcoming RootsTech Conference.

You will also have the opportunity to meet with two RootsTech speakers, Miles Meyer and Elizabeth Swanay O’Neal, who also happen to be SLVGS members and officers!

In addition, we may have time to talk about your genealogy brick walls and finds.

WHEN: Sunday, 18 February 2024
TIME: 4:30 p.m. SLT (same as Pacific Time)
WHERE: The Barn  SLurl

Note: this meeting was rescheduled from our usual second Sunday meeting day/time to avoid conflict with the Super Bowl.

A brief business meeting will be held before the speaker’s presentation.

Come and see the newly redecorated Barn, have some calorie-free (virtual) snacks, and chat with your fellow genealogists!

All levels of family history researchers are welcome at our meetings. You do not need to be a member of the SLVGS to attend, but we’d love it if you’d join!

Join us for our January meeting, where we will meet Willie Williams, founder of MORI/Supergenealogy, who will share a talk titled, “The Future of the Past.”

Description:

A discussion on where several current exponential curves meet, and what it means for how we experience history.

WHEN: Sunday, 14 January 2024
TIME: 4:30 p.m. SLT (same as Pacific Time)
WHERE: The Barn  SLurl

A brief business meeting will be held before the speaker’s presentation.

Genealogists of all levels are welcome at our meetings. You do not need to be a member of the SLVGS to attend, but we’d love it if you’d join!

About The Speaker

As the founder of MORI/Supergenealogy, Willie Williams is at the forefront of revolutionizing family history through technology.

In a previous life, he was a staff engineer and product lead for Lyft’s machine learning infrastructure. He is also an alumnus of the MIT math department and a former Founder Fellow at South Park Commons.

The 2023 Dickens Project in Second Life is open, and we have planned a field trip to check it out!

WHEN: Sunday, 17 December 2023
TIME: 4:30 p.m. SLT (same as Pacific Time)
WHERE: The Barn  SLurl

We will meet at The Barn and head to the Dickens Project as a group. You are welcome to explore the sim on your own or to hang out with the group.

The Dickens Project is a Second Life winter holiday tradition that invites guests to walk in the steps of Ebenezer Scrooge in an environment inspired, in part, by Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella “A Christmas Carol.”

An invited community of Second Life residents, groups, and organizations will present a variety of music events, performances, tours, and story presentations. Other features include skating, sledding, a balloon ride, a horse cart tour, plenty of photo opportunities, and several new features this year.

The 2023 Dickens Project will include:

• A themed experience featuring Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and the world of the story.
• Two scenic regions to explore and enjoy.
• Live music, DJ sets, spoken word, dance events and performances.
• Dozens of performers, and presenters.
• Both Invitational and Open Art Shows
• Educational and interpretive content featuring different aspects of Victorian life.
• Horse rambler tour, a hot air balloon ride, and more entertainment.

NOTE: If you would like to dress your avatar in Victorian-period clothing, you are welcome to do so, but it is not a requirement.

If you are unable to join us for the field trip on Sunday, please feel free to pop over to visit the Dickens Project whenever you are able. There are many fun and interesting events happening throughout the month.

The last day to visit the Dickens Project will be Sunday, 7 January 2024.

For more information, please visit the Dickens Project website.

Genealogists of all levels are welcome at our meetings. You do not need to be a member of the SLVGS to attend, but we’d love it if you’d join!

Join us at The Barn for our casual Holiday “Member Share” Party!

WHEN: Sunday, 10 December 2023
TIME: 4:30 p.m. SLT (same as Pacific Time)
WHERE: The Barn  SLurl

Come sit by the fireplace where you can grab some virtual hot cocoa and delicious snacks… all calorie-free, of course!

We will be sharing our favorite genealogy success stories, websites, and resources from the past year. If we have time, we might even crowd-source a few brick walls!

Feel free to dress up or come as you are. Ugly sweaters are welcome.

A brief business meeting will be held before we start sharing.

Genealogists of all levels are welcome at our meetings. You do not need to be a member of the SLVGS in order to attend, but we’d love it if you’d join!

Join us for our November meeting, where we will meet author Anne Hanson and learn about her book, Buried Secrets: Looking for Frank and Ida.

About the Book:

Ida Hanson hated when her sons left her sight. It was almost as if this fiercely protective mother, who sacrificed everything to nurture her four young boys during the economic ruin of the 1930s Great Depression, feared she might never see them again.

What happened in her earlier life to make this devoted mom, Anne’s grandmother, so afraid of losing her boys?

Anne Hanson’s book Buried Secrets: Looking for Frank and Ida is a real-life mystery about her quest to discover the hidden past that her grandparents Frank and Ida took to their graves. When she finally unearthed their real identities, she learned that their tales were lies invented to conceal disturbing facts. Buried Secrets is both a suspenseful drama and a true story about love, sacrifice, and family relationships. Its target audience is readers of suspense, memoir, and social history.

As well as being a tale of suspense, Buried Secrets celebrates love and family. Anne’s discoveries gave her dad the answers he had longed for his entire life. She helped to heal families that had been deeply wounded by Frank and Ida’s actions eighty years earlier. Buried Secrets explores a not-so-distant era when a young couple, thwarted by social conventions, could simply disappear and create new lives.

WHEN: Sunday, 12 November 2023
TIME: 4:30 p.m. SLT (same as Pacific Time)
WHERE: The Barn  SLurl

A brief business meeting will be held prior to the speaker’s presentation.

Genealogists of all levels are welcome at our meetings. You do not need to be a member of the SLVGS in order to attend, but we’d love it if you’d join!

About The Author

Anne Hanson, an inveterate explorer of the unknown, has always followed when her curiosity beckoned. She crossed the ocean for her African Studies degree, and as a reporter would drive endless miles across town to get the story. Finally, when investigating her grandparents’ secrets, she journeyed into a bygone century, her vehicle painstaking and detailed research. Anne has written for the Boston Globe and numerous newspapers, as well as for corporate publications and the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s American Ancestors magazine. She lives with her husband in Brookline, Massachusetts.