Weekly LIVE Updates at Projectkin

Barbara at Projectkin
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Archives of our weekly updates from Barbara, the Projectkin ringleader. Each week, she shares a short update about what's ahead for the coming week, inviting guests to share their perspectives or plans for special events. Though the program is live, recordings provide access to useful links and references discussed during the program. The live event is available only to subscribers and followers through the Substack app for web, desktop, or mobile. Subscriptions are free. projectkin.substack.com

  1. Sep 11

    Projectkin Live: Preview as Emma Explores: Stories, Mysteries & Fame

    Gosh, many thanks to our wonderful audience today, Jim the Historian, Linda Teather, Jason Stephenson, Diane Burley, Kathy Stone, Baley Champagne, The Wicked Sommelier, A Royal Australian, and so many more of you for joining Emma - Journeys into Genealogy and me today. It’s lovely to see you joining from the UK and the European continent, across the American states and Canadian provinces. Your thoughts, comments, and encouragement are the glue that holds this community together. The ❤️s you drop here keep us motivated and give this series a little more visibility. You’re always welcome to create clips from this post to share with fellow travelers on this journey into genealogy. Projectkin programming is offered free thanks to the kind support of our generous patrons around the world 🌎. The Fox Family of Falmouth This month, Emma’s journey takes us to the port city of Falmouth in Cornwall, so important to many of our family histories as an embarkation point for migration paths to the West and North. Her story explores the life and times of Nathaniel Fox, ironmonger and manufacturer who married into a daughter of the family of James Blatch Cox. You may remember that name from Emma’s program last year about the Blatch Cox family and the wider Cornish diaspora: We chatted briefly about Cornish miners, pasties, and the the 'married widows' of the larger Cornish diaspora that took families to America, Australia, and elsewhere around the world. This was a topic Emma covered in her 2023 interview with Lesley Trotter: If you’re not already familiar with Emma’s work on the nearly 150 episodes of the Journeys into Genealogy podcast, you won’t want to miss her publication here: For those of us exploring our Quaker ancestors, part of what makes this story so interesting is Nathaniel’s own history as a descendant of the Fox family and Emma’s insights about research tools to explore members of the Society of Friends in Britain. Join us on Thursday Like all of our Emma Explores programs, today’s preview takes us to the full presentation next week. We host these on Zoom so that we can get to know each other and discuss the implications of Emma’s presentation in our own research and history. Please visit the event page for more: Diasporas, Migration & Place Conversations about port cities like Falmouth quickly lead to discussions about Projectkin’s Migration Stories initiative and the special ten-day program organized by the Society of Genealogists, All About That Place. Projectkin is delighted to be supporting the AATP program again this year with a “Pacific Edition,” a ten-day series of short livestreams each day of the program from Oct 7 to 16 (or 8 to 17 in Asia/Pacific). See our growing schedule of AATP events for October. If you have your own event planned, drop me a message, I’d be happy to include your event on the calendar. As always if you have friends and family who may find this discussion interesting, feel free to share it. It is public and accessible, even without a login. Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe

    Projectkin Live: Preview as Emma Explores: Stories, Mysteries & Fame

  2. Sep 7

    Projectkin Live: Speakers’ Corner Preview as Jill Ball and Jenny MacKay Join Jennifer Jones

    What a delight to see Jim the Historian, Diane Giles, Linda Teather, Frances Ford, Kyla Bayang, Diane Burley, Kathy Stone, Tamara Buzyna Adams, Judith Dianne Ely, Anne’s Family History, Susanne White, Carmel G, and many others for tuning into Jennifer Jones live video with Jill Ball aka GeniAus and Jenny MacKay! It means so much to see our community joining in from across the American states and the Canadian provinces to hear stories from your Australian history. Your thoughts, comments, and encouragement are the glue that holds this community together. The little ❤️s you drop keep us motivated and give this series a little more visibility. Feel free to create clips from this post to share with your friends. Projectkin programming is offered free thanks to the kind support of our generous patrons around the world. Joy in Convicts? Who Knew! Our joyful conversation today was the perfect preview of the full Speakers’ Corner program planned for Thursday across the Americas or Friday for all of you in Australia and the Asia/Pac region. Before we go further, take a moment to be sure you’ve registered for that program here 👇: Except for the program about Caroline Chisholm that launched the series last year, this was perhaps our most Australian program, and what a thrill for the rest of us. We learned a few things about our Aussie cousins and had a chance to fill in the blanks about what we thought we knew. As your beaver-in-chief, Barbara at Projectkin was running alongside, trying to keep up with the links and references. Here are the big ones: * As background for our program, let’s start with Jenny MacKay’s and Jill Ball’s websites: You can also find Jenny’s Jenealogy Scrapbook on WeAre.xyz Also, don’t miss Jill’s genea jargon site at GeneaDictionary on WordPress! Perhaps it’s just because we all share a generation, but everyone’s interest in genealogy seemed to find its way back to the first release of the Roots miniseries in 1977, which aired in Australia on Channel 10 and drew massive mainstream audiences. The conversation got serious as we dove into the strength and resilience these Convict Ancestors inspired in their descendants, and Jenny and Jill each had stories to tell about their discoveries about these now Royal Ancestors. Woven into each story are threads of Australian history, shortages of workers, and patterns not unlike the American and Canadian West. As an American, I was quickly sent to search for details about the 1988 Bicentenary, which celebrated the 11 ships of the First Fleet of convicts that arrived in Botany Bay and Sydney Cove. For context about the experience of Convicts brought to Australia, Jenny, Jill and Jennifer shared a few links: * An online exhibition at the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery from 2024: Unshackled: The True Convict Story. * The remarkable resources, newspapers, and even blogs archived through Trove from the National Library of Australia. * Finally, since it’s still free through September 9th, Jenny MacKay mentioned Shauna Hicks’ presentation for Legacy Family Tree Webinars on Free Websites for Western Australia Family History, including the State Library, State Records, Outback Australia (goldfields), Fremantle Prison (transported convicts), and BDM tips and tricks. Did we miss something? Drop it in the notes below, or feel free to share this with friends and have them join you at the program on later this week! Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe

  3. Aug 16

    Live "Capturing the Lives of the Stigmatised & Marginalised" with Dai Davies

    Thank you, Jude Rhodes, Noel Macdonald Peck, Jim the Historian, Shell Norman, Linda Teather, Diane Burley, Frances Ford, Dan at Genealogy Assistant, Katy Dalgleish, GrnEyedLdy, Jill Swenson, and all of you in the audience today. Truly, thank you for joining Dai Davies at The GenealCymru Newsletter and me today. Your added ❤️s and comments here help the algorithms appreciate the moment and put it in front of more people who might be interested. Thank you. Do you have family stories in you? Do you notice characteristics of your ancestors? Tell us about it in the comments below Projectkin programming is offered free with the kind support of our Patrons worldwide. Explore our story and join us 👇. Where the Facts Aren’t Useful Early on in anyone’s family history journey, we usually learn certain fundamental rules like… * The importance of being accurate in your reporting of the facts in a story. * Not publishing information about living people. Each seems sensible when you consider the risk of distorting the facts about history or the unintended consequences of publishing details about other people’s lives. In my conversation with Dai, we looked straight into the uncomfortable topic of how stories about people who died by suicide can have a direct impact on living people in times of crisis. Insights from their own research Dai was drawn into this area from their own research into “The Ancestors Lost by Suicide Commemoration Project” The project had them produce short biographies of the lives of all of their ancestors in England and Wales who died by suicide between the late 18th and early 20th century. The first key insight was that by collecting these ancestors together, there’s a temptation to talk about how they died by suicide, but in doing so, the person is immediately washed away. Dai didn’t want to do that. Instead, their research led to work on safe messaging by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (afsp.org) and to the realization that they could do so much more by understanding each individual as a person. These were remarkable individuals, each deserving of dignity and the depth of research needed to explore who they were as people. Sometimes the details help us understand the complex situation they were in. Other resources they shared include: * Wikipedia’s List of Suicide Crisis Lines * SuicideInfo.ca Dai’s key takeaway was something all of us can learn from in the insights about why we’re embarking on this kind of storytelling. Dai discovered that they wanted to make their research “useful” to living people today. Stories about success or failure can be interesting on their own, but what’s useful is understanding how change occurred. Dai shares several resources in each post in this series. During our conversation, they mentioned Rev. Daniel Evans (Daniel Ddu o Geredigion) of Maesnewydd, Llanwnen (1792–1846) Under headings like “Debunking Common Myths About Suicide” and “Talking and Writing About Suicide,” they’ve stepped up to be part of the solution, helping all of us as family historians better understand the stories behind the individuals in our research who also died by suicide. This series has made Dai a sought-after speaker on the topic. They welcome the opportunity to share what they’ve learned in public forums. * Learn more about their research services * See their speaking schedule * Reach Dai at GenealCymru Would your friends and followers appreciate this post as well? Kindly add a recommendation so they know how you feel. You’ll be doing us the favor of spreading our work. Thank you. I’m able to share these and all of our programs and posts for free, thanks to both the economics of modern platforms and the generous support of our wonderful Projectkin patrons. You’re more than welcome to share this post with friends and family to encourage them to take the time to consider their own stories. Thank you. Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe

  4. Aug 14

    Projectkin Live: Preview as Emma Explores the Influential Women in Her Family Tree

    Many thanks to all of you, Jim the Historian, Linda Teather, Jason Stephenson Jill Swenson, MamaCarole, Anthony Atkins, Retire(ish), Diane Burley, Kathy Stone, DeeDee D, Cynthia Boatright Raleigh and so many more of you for joining Emma - Journeys into Genealogy and me today. Apologies again for a rather rocky start as we had trouble completing the livestream connection. I can’t tell you how much it means to me here on the American Pacific coast to see all of you joining from the UK continent, across the American states and Canadian provinces. Your thoughts, comments, and encouragement are the glue that holds this community together. The little ❤️s you drop keep us motivated and give this series a little more visibility. Feel free to create clips from this post to share with your friends. Projectkin programming is offered free thanks to the kind support of our generous patrons around the world 🌎. Emma Returns Today’s program welcomes Emma back after a brief hiatus. We’re delighted to welcome her back and look forward to the program next week, picking up on a theme started during our May 2nd anniversary episode: During that program, Emma focused on themes of second cousins among the branches of her family tree. (You won’t want to miss the program itself, either.) A viewer comment following the program noted that “all of the ancestors discussed were men, what about the women?” In this month’s episodes, Emma steps up to the challenge to explore the influential women in her family tree with three extraordinary examples, including the first woman civil engineer Today’s Wandering One of the fun things about these previews is that they quickly turn into a conversation about the larger stories in Genealogy as a field. Soon, we were talking about that common question among new acquaintances, “Where are you from?” Emma asked the very logical question of how long you have to have lived in a place to be from that place. What’s your answer? Though we tried to stay out of the political implications of this kind of question, it’s a reminder of how DNA doesn’t come with date stamps or travel itineraries. It’s a fun conversation! Join us on Thursday Like all of our Emma Explores programs, today’s preview takes us to the full presentation next week. We host these on Zoom so that we can get to know each other and discuss the implications of Emma’s presentation in our own research and history. Please visit the event page for more: Other Relevant Programs In our conversation, we also talked briefly about Projectkin’s Migration Stories and the special ten-day program organized by the Society of Genealogists, All About That Place. Projectkin is delighted to be supporting the AATP program again this year with a “Pacific Edition,” a ten-day series of short livestreams each day of the program from Oct 7 to 16 (or 8 to 17 in Asia/Pacific). To see these livestream posts on the go and keep up with the latest stories and conversations in the community, join us in the Substack app. If it gives you any trouble, just ask. You’re among friends and fellow travelers in the world of family history storytelling. If you have friends and family who may find this discussion interesting, feel free to share it. It is public and accessible, even without a login. Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe

  5. Aug 9

    Speakers' Corner Preview Live with Jennifer Jones, Lynda Heines and Barbara at Projectkin

    Thank you Sam Brown, Genera Genealogical Services,Kyla Bayang, Sylvia Jacobs Books & More1818, David Hames, Kathy Stone, Tamara Buzyna Adams, Linda Teather, Judy Sall and many others for tuning into my live video with Lynda Heines and Jennifer Jones. I can’t tell you how much it means to me here on the American Pacific coast to see all of you joining from across the American states and Canadian provinces. Your thoughts, comments, and encouragement are the glue that holds this community together. The little ❤️s you drop keep us motivated and give this series a little more visibility. Feel free to create clips from this post to share with your friends. Projectkin programming is offered free thanks to the kind support of our generous patrons around the world. What better way to reconnect with your siblings, parents, and ancestors than through the foods we eat and the stories we tell while eating? Today’s conversation with Lynda Heines of Heines Sight turned out to be the one-year anniversary of Jennifer’s Speakers’ Corner series for Projectkin. Though I can’t say we anticipated this at the beginning, the series creates an opportunity for family historians to share their stories to an appreciative audience — something we don’t always see (if we’re honest) at home. Here you’re among fellow travelers. Even better, our travelers sometimes bring snacks. Today gave us a preview of the food-centered conversation Jennifer will have with Lynda and Lorinda Brandon of Name on the Recipe Card on Thursday. If you haven’t already, be sure to grab your personal Zoom link here. 👇 Families & Food in our Stories Though they may not get an explicit mention, the foods we eat with our families are always at the heart of our stories. Jennifer delighted us with a preview of Thursday’s conversation, featuring fun regional, historic, and cultural food traditions Lynda collected from her family. She started with a pumpkin chiffon pie that she grew up thinking everyone knew, only to discover it was a less-sweet variation specific to her family. (Whiskey is apparently key, though Lynda was careful not to share the pie magic in today’s program.) Read more about her work on her mother’s recipes in her publication: Talk of pies sent us on a flood of memories that would frighten Marcel Proust. Among the perfectly circular treats were: * Mock Apple Pie (neither mocking birds nor apples are involved!) Mock Peach Pie (a topic for therapy 👀) and other surprises in a box of Ritz. * Flapper Pie, a Canadian prairie treat made with graham cracker crust and vanilla filling with a meringue topping. * Both of which led to discussions of * Economic factors such as the 1930s depression sparking creativity for home cooks to work with ingredients on hand. * Technology innovations that made specialized techniques accessible to home cooks: stand mixers (e.g. Kitchen Aide) for whipping meringues. * And specialty foods from other regions that get their own local treatment, such as the Texas Kolaches, a “Texas-sized debate,” as Kyla Bayang, our voice of Texas, added. I drop these examples here to whip up your enthusiasm and examples (ideally with recipe links) below in the comments. I just know you have a few 👇. As Projectkin, we’re here to help families tell their stories in any form. I feel strongly that our collections of recipes, like photos and other artifacts, are keys that unlock our memories and, in turn, our stories. It’s time to bring them out and give them some air. I hope you’ll join us in the Speakers’ Corner. Do you think your friends might find this interesting? Let them know about it with a recommendation. The button below takes you to your own recommendations dashboard. Naturally, I’d love a recommendation, but I also encourage you to be generous in sharing recommendations for the publications you enjoy. It helps us find each other as family history buffs in the nicest possible way. 🥰 TIP 👉 Create a custom button of your own like that with the URL: your.substack.com/publish/recommendations Oh, one more thing — if you think this post might interest a friend or colleague, why not just pass it along? These are public posts, and our events are free because sharing your stories is that important. Let’s get this started! Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe

  6. Aug 2

    Livestream with Annette Gendler, “Explore the stories in family history”

    Many thanks to all of you in the audience today. Through a strange glitch in Substack’s livestreaming software this morning, I couldn’t see any of you in the chatstream, but we both appreciated knowing you were there. Truly, thank you for joining Annette Gendler and me today. Your added ❤️s and comments here help the algorithms appreciate the moment and put it in front of more people who might be interested. Thank you. Do you have family stories in you? Do you notice characteristics of your ancestors? Tell us about it in the comments below. Projectkin programming is offered free with the kind support of our Patrons worldwide. Explore our story and join us 👇. Many of you will recognize Annette from her presence here on Substack at The Past and the Present, from her many insightful notes and comments, or possibly from her involvement in Kathy Stone’s recent panel on privacy for Kathy’s Corner: In each program she’s brought the calm voice of an experienced teacher and talented writer. As she shared in our conversation, her writing career started with her first memoir, Jumping Over Shadows, the memoir of a German-Jewish love that overcame the legacy of the Holocaust. In our conversation, she shared the complex story that started with her grandparents’ tale and a mentor’s guidance to pull it together with her own love story. Annette’s gift of empathy for her readers extends to the writers she taught for so many years at StoryStudio in Chicago. The workshops ultimately led to her hit book, How to Write Compelling Stories from Family History. I loved how our conversation wandered into both the responsibility to preserve and the permission not to publish. Family history is a team sport. And sometimes, your collaborators are people you’ll never know. Listen for Annette’s story of her grandfather, whose typed “memoir” of preserved memories was a gold mine of research material for her book, Jumping Over Shadows. In this part of the conversation, Annette references a story that fascinated her, but wouldn’t fit into the narrative. Sadly, it ended on the cutting room floor. She later shared the piece as she added it to a post for her WordPress blog: “What Happened When Hitler Visited My Grandparents’ Hometown.” It’s a breathtaking scene, and yet… a narrative demands a story. There’s the challenge. The third book we talked about was Annette’s award-winning children’s book, Natalie and the Nazi Soldiers. It’s a story for early readers based on her mother-in-law’s life as a hidden child in France during the Holocaust. It’s also referenced on her author’s site, but Annette pulled me in with her post about the process of designing the illustration: Children’s stories aren’t lite versions of adult stories. This wonderful post works you through why and the mindset shift that takes you into your audience of children. Would your friends and followers appreciate this post as well? Kindly add a recommendation so they know how you feel. You’ll be doing us the favor of spreading our work. Thank you. I’m able to share these and all of our programs and posts for free thanks to both the economics of modern platforms and the generous support of our wonderful Projectkin patrons. You’re more than welcome to share this post with friends and family to encourage them to take the time to consider their own stories. Thank you. Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Jul 19

    Projectkin Live: The View from Kathy’s Corner

    Thank you Ann Larkham, Tamara Buzyna Adams, Linda Teather, Rita McConnell, Bill Moore, Lisa Maguire, Linda Stufflebean, Jim the Historian, The Wicked Sommelier, and many others for tuning into my live video with Kathy Stone! I can’t tell you how much it means to me here on the American Pacific coast to see all of you joining from the UK, the continent, across the American states and Canadian provinces. Your thoughts, comments, and encouragement are the glue that holds this community together. The little ❤️s you drop keep us motivated and give this series a little more visibility. Feel free to create clips from this post to share with your friends. Projectkin can offer these and all of our programs around the world for free, thanks to the generous support of our patrons. Learn more about us and join the fun! Privacy & Family Stories This month, Barbara is back from last month’s undisclosed location in the Sierra Foothills and ready for Kathy’s deep dive into Privacy for Family Historians and Genealogists. This is the kind of topic that, like backups, is basic to “adulting” today. However, as family historians and genealogists, we have to take special precautions around privacy. It’s also a field in constant flux. In an age of AI, bad actors have access to intelligence accelerants that they could only have imagined before. Kathy will use Thursday’s episode to share some of the learnings from her specialized training in privacy as a photo manager. Like accountants and attorneys, photo managers often handle very personal information for their clients. That experience gives Kathy a framework all of us can benefit from. Like the brass tacks and sticky tape Kathy usually has for us, you know you can count on her for a nifty collection of resources to share in Thursday’s program. Do you have friends or family members who may benefit from this? Please share our work and invite friends and family to join us: If you can’t make it on Thursday, you can always catch up by watching the recording. As always, you’ll find the full archive at Kathy’s Corner: Projectkin.org/kathys-corner. About Kathy Stone Kathy has been the “cornerstone” of Projectkin from the beginning, when we started on another platform more than three years ago. Kathy’s commitment to the physical artifacts of family history now inspires our whole community. Learn more about what Kathy is doing today at her own publication, where she supports families with the physical legacy of the past: As Projectkin, we’re here to help families tell their stories in any form. I feel strongly that our collections of photos and other artifacts are key to our memories and, in turn, our stories. Is this the kind of thing your friends and followers might appreciate as well? Kindly add a recommendation so they know how you feel. You’ll be doing us the favor of spreading our work. Thank you. Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe

  8. Jul 12

    Live Preview of “Story Braids” with Diane Burley

    Gosh, thank you Lisa Maguire, Mica, professor emerita, Marian Beaman, Kathy Stone, David Shaw, Judith Dianne Ely, The Family Histories Podcast, MamaCarole, Bruce L Porter and so many more of you for joining Diane Burley and me today. I can’t tell you how much it means to us to see you join us from around the continent. Thank you for your added ❤️s to help others see this conversation, too. Thank you. Did I miss you? Add your thoughts in the comments below. Projectkin programming is offered free with the kind support of our Patrons worldwide. Explore our story and join us 👇. You may already know Diane for her incredible storytelling contributions, most recently in Projectkin’s Stories250 series and at the special Stories250 event last week. Through all of these projects, Diane has honed in on the work of women in these historical periods. Her distinct point of view has led to her work on her ancestor and 19th-century labor activist, Leonora Kearny Berry. You can read more about these stories in Diane’s publication, Our conversation today and on Thursday will focus less on Leonora’s story and more on the process of selecting, describing, and — in Diane’s words — “braiding” that story into a compelling narrative of historical non-fiction. In the recording, you’ll hear as some of our community’s most prominent voices pop in with tips, references, and suggestions. Among them: * Marian Beaman, who suggested the word “perhapsing” offered an example in this post of hers, “A Glorious Fourth, 1909 Style and a Memoir Tip” * Lisa Maguire, who was our guest for one of the most popular Projectkin events on Micro History, added this insight in the context of fabulating based on facts: “I think this approach works best for older people who have a wealth of personal experiences and experience in the world to be able to fill in gaps, make inferences, to pull this off. I think a very young writer with less to draw upon would find it challenging.” * David Shaw, a generous contributor in so many conversations, added a quote from novelist Ernest Hemingway… “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.” This active discussion with several more delicious additions from our audience will continue in the Zoom meeting format on Thursday in Diane’s program, “Storyteller Tips: Braiding the strands of archive, history, and family into your story.” Is this the kind of post you think your friends and followers might appreciate as well? Kindly add a recommendation so they know how you feel. You’ll be doing us the favor of spreading our work. Thank you. I’m able to share these, along with all of our programs and posts, for free thanks to both the economics of modern platforms and the generous support of our wonderful Projectkin patrons. You’re more than welcome to share this post with friends and family to encourage them to take the time to consider their own stories. Thank you. Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe

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Archives of our weekly updates from Barbara, the Projectkin ringleader. Each week, she shares a short update about what's ahead for the coming week, inviting guests to share their perspectives or plans for special events. Though the program is live, recordings provide access to useful links and references discussed during the program. The live event is available only to subscribers and followers through the Substack app for web, desktop, or mobile. Subscriptions are free. projectkin.substack.com

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