2018 MAAGI Conference for Genealogists at the ACPL

For the third year in a row, the Allen County Public Library will host the three-day conference for the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute (MAAGI), July 10-12, 2018.

Nationally recognized instructors will teach the classes, 10 to 12 per day, held at the ACPL’s Genealogy Center. For 2018, MAAGI is organized into four tracks: (1) fundamental methods & strategies, (2a & 2b) beginning and intermediate DNA genealogy, (3) genealogy writing, from planning to publication, and (4) pre- and post-slavery era intermediate genealogy.

You can register for the 2018 MAAGI at www.MAAGIInstitute.org. But sign-up as early as possible because some of the classes assign homework and assignments to be completed before starting, including submitting DNA samples in some cases.

Classes for Tracks 2a and 2b are currently full. The MAAGI conference will take last minute registrations for single day sign-ups, but for single classes, according to Roberta (Robbie) Ridley, Genealogist and retiree from the ACPL.

Ridley, teaching under Track 3’s Intermediate Genealogy classification, will instruct a class on “how to dig” by using a case study of one of her clients who is adopted and recently unearthed her true bloodline, after meeting her biological mother and grandmother only once when she was three years old.

The exhaustive process yielded the discovery of a new family branch.  “You have to be cautious about the information you discover,” said Ridley, who is particularly careful when dealing with cases involving adoption.

Ridley joins other Fort Wayne instructors Dr. Alfred Brothers Jr., Lt. Col Air Force Retired and Ph.D., and Melissa Tennant, the Allen County Public Library Assistant Manager/Public Services.

MAAGI’s organizers, an all-star team of genealogists, “are deep and that’s all I’m going to say,” Ridley said.  The roster includes radio host and author Bernice Bennett, award-winning writer Janis Minor Forte, professor and scholar Shelley Murphy, and podcaster Angela Walton-Raji.  Juliana Szucs from Ancestry.com will also be teaching.

For more information about the conference, or to sign-up for the three-day event, visit www.MAAGIInstitute.org.