Speaker Profile: Melinda Kashuba

It's a pleasure to welcome Melinda Kashuba as a speaker at Family History Day at the California State Archives.

Melinda Kashuba holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Los Angeles.  She is a popular lecturer and author of Walking with Your Ancestors: a Genealogist’s Guide to Using Maps and Geography (Family Tree Books, 2005) plus numerous articles in genealogical magazines and other publications. Her specialties include nineteenth and twentieth century American records and maps.  She performs genealogical research for clients and is a member of the National Genealogical Society, the Association of Professional Genealogists, California State Genealogical Alliance, and the Shasta County Genealogical Society.

Melinda possesses archival, library and courthouse research experience throughout California, Nevada, and Hawaii as well as at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress, the Daughters of the American Revolution Library, and The Newberry Library in Chicago.  Her expertise is in nineteenth and twentieth century American genealogical sources including, of course, maps.  She lives with her family in Northern California.

Melinda Kashuba will be presenting two classes.

(1) Using Genealogical Forms, or How to Keep My Genealogy Out of the Dumpster After I Die!  Keeping track of your genealogical information is the single most important thing you can do as a genealogist. Knowing what records you have searched, what records you have, and what records you need to find will pay big benefits in time and money because you will not have to repeat work that you have already completed.  This class introduces you to a wide variety of useful genealogical forms available to you for free on the web as well as simple forms you can make for yourself that fit the way you use your information and will make it useful for future generations.

(2) Introduction to Using Maps for Genealogical Research.  Maps are tools that can help a genealogist trace their ancestors’ migrations or depict where ancestors lived.  Maps can also help us study the location of land parcels, trace a census takers’ route through a neighborhood, and bring a battle to life by showing the movements of troops across the landscape. This class will introduce you to the wide variety of maps available for genealogical research both in paper and on the Internet.

posted by Denise H. Richmond