Learning That Inspires

I wanted to add a photo of an engaging learning experience and found several 
at the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog collection at the Library of Congress.
Pictured are women attending a Normal School studying birds. 

Today, I had the pleasure of showing my 92-year-old mother how to access a news podcast on her iPhone—a reminder of how fortunate we are to have so many ways to engage with information. Podcasts about genealogy are a favorite of mine, whether I’m driving or working outside, they provide a steady stream of knowledge and inspiration.

This past weekend, I spent some time watching webinars from RootsTech, gaining fresh insights and ideas. Last night, I read a blog post about upcoming innovations in genealogical research. The sheer volume of learning opportunities available today is incredible, and I find myself continually inspired by the wealth of knowledge at our fingertips.

Here are a few items I read, watched, or listened to recently:

It was nice to find Nicole Elder Dyer's blog post New Features and Apps Announced at RootsTech 2025 at Family Locket. It's not all of the announcements from RootsTech, but I had missed seeing most of them and appreciated finding some of the most exciting in one place. 

At RootsTech Robyn N. Smith reminded us to look beyond the names and places on the census records in her webinars Mining the Census, Are You Finding Every Clue? Part 1 and Mining the Census, Are You Finding Every Clue? Part 2.  Nice overview of the non-population schedules as well. 

Also at RootsTech—I enjoyed seeing Alice Childs' step by step process to identify a client's distant ancestor using both traditional genealogical methods and DNA in her webinar, Intersecting Lines: Pedigree Collapse Helps Identify an Ancestor’s Parents.

At the Family Tree Podcast by Family Tree Magazine, host Lisa Louise Cooke and author Sunny Morton compared the top three genealogy websites: Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and MyHeritage.com. I found the discussion very interesting and followed up by also reading the article in FamilyTree Magazine—I read mine on the Libby app courtesy of my local public library.

This morning I read, Linda Stufflebean's GeneaGem: National Museum of Ireland. I visited the museum in Dublin at the Collins Barracks in 2016, but there are things to see online that are not on display at the museum. The highlight was Linda's link to the Irish Community Archive Network. Through it, I found my husband's grandfather, William Quinn, who participated in the Uprising in County Galway, along with additional details about that time.

If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page, where you will see each post and other genealogical finds. 

Diana

© 2025

Library of Congress, Young women in Washington, D.C. Normal School classroom studying birds, photograph, 1890-1899, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95500487/ : accessed 11 March 2025). 

Friday's Photo: Seymour School 1911 - See Details When Color is Added

Students and teachers at the school in Seymour, Texas 1911. 

I have been spending time these last two days taking advantage of some of the great educational opportunities at RootsTech 2022. I enjoyed trying some of the photo editing apps and programs introduced in the sessions. However, I like what I was already using at My Heritage for colorizing. 

I am not particularly fond of colorizing as I like the old photos as they are, but when I want to enlarge and study an image, sometimes adding color helps me find details not previously seen. 

When comparing colorizing programs, I used this photo posted about five years ago, Friday's Photo: Seymour, Texas 1911. It originally belonged to Eunice Ellis. Click on the link to see the original version and learn how I acquired the photo. 

Colorizing darkened some of the faces with marks on the photo and distorted a few faces. I was looking for two aunts but was no more successful than before I colorized it. However, I did notice details not noted previously and enjoyed the process. 

If you are at all interested in family history, check out RootsTech. There are tons of free webinars - literally thousands. And, most will be available at least for the remainder of the year. 

If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page, where you will see each post and other genealogical finds. 

.

Diana

© 2022 

"Seymour, Texas 1911," photograph; scanned images, original photograph from the privately-held collection of Diana Bryan Quinn, Virginia Beach, VA, 2022.