8:30 AM - 4:00 PM EST
Location: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 460 Kreag Rd, Pittsford, NY 14534
Registration ends on 4/30/2025
Registration for Genealogy in Bloom will open on Saturday, 1 March 2025
Rochester Genealogical Society's annual all day genealogical conference.
GIB 2025 will be hybrid and take place both in person and over Zoom.
Jane E. Wilcox
Professional genealogist Jane E. Wilcox serves on the NY State Archives and the NY Genealogical & Biographical Society’s Family History advisory committees. She authored the book, New York State Archives Guide: For Family Historians, Biographers, and Historical Researchers. With her company, Forget-Me-Not Ancestry, in Albany, Jane specializes in colonial and pre-Civil War NY research.
Session Descriptions
Uncharted Waters: Diving into the Holdings of the New York State Archives
The New York State Archives (NYSA) at the Cultural Education Center in Albany holds a diverse collection of state governmental records. Come learn about both familiar and obscure resources that will help you advance your New York research. A demonstration for using the Finding Aids on the NYSA website will be featured to assist researchers in locating records at NYSA that could be pertinent to your family history.
Finding American Women’s Voices through the Centuries: Letters, Journals, Newspapers, and Court Records
Women from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries are challenging to uncover, but we may hear their voices in the documents that recorded their lives. With many examples from the speaker’s own New England, New York and Wisconsin family history, learn where to look for womenfolk in letters, diaries and journals, newspapers and various court records.
Skip Duett
Skip Duett is a professional genealogist, speaker, and author specializing in New York land records. An instructor at SLIG and IGHR, he has been published in the National Genealogical Quarterly and the New York Researcher. He serves on the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society (NYG&B) Family History Advisory Committee. He is actively researching and writing about the full spectrum of land records in Upstate New York. Skip also conducts cutting-edge research in the application of advanced Y-DNA analysis for genealogy. He is the volunteer Project Administrator for the Howard Y-DNA Project serving over 400 members.
Putting Your Upstate New York Ancestor on the Map
Determining where your Upstate New York ancestors lived can provide valuable context to understanding their lives but figuring out that physical location can sometimes be tricky. Learn about map resources and various survey and lotting systems used in Upstate New York as well as some strategies that can help you put your ancestor on the map.
New York Land Records for Genealogists—Understanding the Basics (New for 2025!)
Land records can provide valuable evidence toward solving your difficult genealogical puzzles. But New York land records can be puzzling all on their own. Understanding the basics of these records from the British Colonial period through the 1900s will allow you to better utilize this
important record group.