I’m a little late to Elizabeth O’Neal’s 5th Annual Genealogy Blog Party Picnic, but I haven’t missed it! If the truth be told, I’ve been swamped! I’ve taken advantage of the explosion of the virtual genealogy webinars and conferences that are the silver lining during this pandemic.

I am on many email lists and I read a lot of blogs. However, I want to share my main “go-to” resource for learning about all these genealogical education opportunities.

Conference Keeper is an events calendar dedicated completely to genealogy!

There are 8 options, including calls for papers, where to apply for grants and scholarships and how to volunteer. For the good old days (pre-COVID19) and the future good days (post-COVID19), there are tabs for information about upcoming events by location.

I don’t think any conferences or societies are in-person at the moment, but if you want to check on the status of upcoming conferences, click on the blue button for Genealogy Conferences. There is a list of all upcoming conferences who have submitted details to Conference Keeper.

However, my first stop is always the Calendar button.

There are actually many days with way more than 3 webinars or meetings being presented. Look carefully in the bottom right corner of each day. There is a MORE option. Click that and a complete list of all sessions available that day will open.

Conference Keeper is free to use, so bookmark it in your favorites list. Next, check your calendar and get busy registering for a lot of great webinars.

Most are free (if you listen when they are broadcast live) and most societies restrict access to handouts to their members.

If the webinar is part of a conference series, expect to pay nominal fees (I’ve paid $20 for a conference consisting of 5 webinars and $35 for another that included 8 webinars), as societies still need to pay their speakers and the platform they are using to do the presentations.

Now do you see why I’ve been swamped? By the way, I just took a look at the September calendar and it doesn’t look like I will be any less swamped next month – swamped doing the Genealogy Happy Dance. 🙂