(This message is being posted to numerous mailing lists. Please excuse the duplication if you receive it more than once.) The University of Wisconsin-Fond du Lac campus will be the site of the upcoming Wisconsin State Genealogical Society 2006 Fall Seminar, "Crossroads at the Foot of the Lake" on Saturday, October 14th. The hosts will be the Fond du Lac County Genealogical Society. Along with the usual array of great vendors offering genealogy-related items for sale, the featured speaker will be nationally-known genealogical speaker, educator, researcher and writer, Paula Stuart-Warren, CGSM. Paula is a former officer of the Association of Professional Genealogists and serves on its Professional Management Conference committee. She served for six years on the board of the Minnesota Genealogical Society, and has served on program committees for the Federation of Genealogical Societies and the National Genealogical Society. She is a member of the FGS Long Range Conference Planning Committee and was National Publicity Chair for the 2006 FGS Conference in Boston. Paula will be delivering four lectures: * Railroad Records and Railroad History: Methods for Tracking How many genealogists have heard that great-grandpa traversed this nation as he worked for the railroad? For which railroad did he work? Where did it run? Are there railroad records still extant which may tell us something about his ancestry or where he later went? This lecture addresses these questions. Visuals and references demonstrate the wealth of historical materials available all across the U.S. When this lecture is over you will know where to turn to find out more about the railroad, its records, and how to determine current day access to the records. * Twentieth & Twenty-First Century Research Are you stumped by missing or split families, unindexed censuses, city dwellers, lack of extended family, or often-mobile families? As we now move forward in the 21st century do you need information on the more recent generation? Do you have living relatives to find? Some researchers have neglected the more current relatives thinking there aren't as many resources to use. After this session you will be prepared to find some information on those who lived or were born in the 20th century. Sure, there are fewer censuses, but the many other records that are available will help you. As the years passed by some records became more standardized. More courthouses regularly created indexes. To these we add today's explosion of online catalogs, indexes, and finding aids. Research is research, no matter the time period. Some things remain constant and some records do contain more information and may be indexed. Whether you are researching in the 18th, 19th, 20th, or 21st century you still need to link the generations by proving relationships, checking out the relatives, putting people in specific places and verifying names, dates, and places. Finding a living relative with information to share or finding out more about a relative you knew is rewarding research. * Organizing Your Genealogical Materials How tall are the stacks of your genealogical materials and in how many rooms are your papers and books stored? Is it time you made sense of your materials, organized them so they can be found, and determined what is important to keep handy? How should you store your important materials? Just starting your research? Why not organize sensibly from the beginning? This session will help you deal with these questions, and also provide easy tips to help keep you on top of your organization. We'll even discuss some "lazy day" methods to keep you on top of your filing. * A Baker's Dozen of Simple Ways to Write Your Family History Any one can write! Learn ways to get your family history in print without a lot of strain. It's not as daunting a task as you might think. A "baker's dozen" of ways to work on this over time and ideas to get your greater family involved will be shared. You may find that you are already doing some of these but hadn't realized you were actually getting family history into print! Some of the ideas lend themselves to scrapbooking techniques. Including family health history information is an important part of the process; what you share in print may aid a family member some day. Sharing and preserving the family stories, both the joyous times and the tough times, can enhance your understanding of yourself and the greater family. Visuals will demonstrate the "Baker's Dozen" and a handout will point you to further ideas and help in both print and online formats. As a special pre-conference event, WSGS Past President and NGS Board Member, Jack Brissee, will present, Looking for Ourselves -- A Workshop for Beginning Genealogists, on Friday afternoon, October 13th, from 1:00-4:00 PM. Registration for this workshop will be limited to thirty attendees, so be sure to sign up early! The UW-Fond du Lac campus is located at 400 University Drive on the northeastern corner of the city of Fond du Lac. For campus maps and driving directions, see http://www.fdl.uwc.edu/campus_map.html. For further information about the Seminar and registration materials, please visit the WSGS Website at http://www.wsgs.org/semdetls.htm, or contact: Wisconsin State Genealogical Society P.O. Box 5106 Madison, WI 53705-0106 wsgs@chorus.net ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Mary Rieder East Central District Representative (Dodge, Fond du Lac, Green Lake, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, and Washington Counties) Wisconsin State Genealogical Society mrieder@wi.rr.com