The Immigration Saga with John Philip Colletta, PhD, FUGA

The immigration saga—leaving a homeland for a new life in America—tends to be the most dramatic and momentous chapter of American family history. This course explores sources and methods for reconstructing the lives of ancestors who came from foreign lands.

John Colletta, along with Deborah S. Gurtler and D. Joshua Taylor will explore the sources and methods for reconstructing the lives of ancestors who came from foreign lands.

From the 1590s, when Europeans first settled in territory that would become the Southwest and Florida, through the British colonial period of the 17th and 18th centuries, to the newcomers of every nationality, hue and creed who made the United States their home in the 19th century, this course embraces the panorama of immigration history up to about 1900.

Topics covered include: 

• Discovering and locating the town of origin overseas;
• Leaving home, crossing an ocean, and reaching the place of settlement; 
• Putting down roots;
• Ferreting out biographical detail that personalizes each immigrant’s experience; and 
• Preparing for research in European records to trace family lines back in the Old Country. 

Registration for SLIG 2020 opens July 13, 2019 at 9:00 am MDT. For more information, go here.