Events

Presenter Jill Morelli  Author of Journeys of the Forgotten The Orphans of Hamilton County, Iowa.

In the fall of 1890, 46 orphans from New York City arrived in Webster City, Iowa. The newspapers never revealed their names. Jill Morelli spent 2.5 years trying to identify them, and their biological parents with mixed results. The children were rarely adopted, rarely included in the family’s generational wealth and most carried their childhood trauma into their adult years.  In spite of limited access to information a total of 36 orphans were initially identified. The Orphan Train Movement, as it is now called, is often described as a program that rescued children from the despair of the big city, but was it as successful as the stories would imply?. Jill will share the development of the book, the research techniques used to accomplish the goals. Journeys of the Forgotten is available at lulu.com, Amazon and from your favorite independent bookstore.

Jill Morelli, CG, CGL, writes and lectures nationally, and is the founder of the award-winning Certification Discussion Group, an online class which demystifies BCG certification. She self-publishes and is working on her third book. Jill is program chair of the Puget Sound-Association of Professional Genealogists and a past president of the Seattle Genealogical Society.

Presenter Megan Klein-Hewett

Presenter Kathy Meade Using ArkivDigital ArkivDigital revolutionizes Swedish genealogy by offering millions of high-resolution color images of historical records. While the platform hosts everything from military rolls and passenger manifests to aerial maps, this presentation dives deep into its most valuable resource: Swedish church books. Discover how to navigate these rich archives with ease, and learn how ArkivDigital’s powerful, modern search indexes can help you break through genealogical brick walls faster than ever before.

Kathy Meade is the North American representative for ArkivDigital, a company that offers online access to newly photographed color images of Swedish church books and other historical records. She has been working with Swedish genealogy for over twenty years. Ms. Meade serves on the advisory board for the Swedish American Genealogy Research Center at the Swedish American Museum in Chicago. She volunteers at the Swedish American Museum in Chicago and the Arlington Heights Memorial Library in Arlington Heights, IL, helping patrons with their Swedish genealogical research.