New “Member Friday” Webinar – Searching for a Pennsylvania German Ancestor by James Beidler

Geoff Rasmussen

17 Nov 2017

Every Friday we're pleased to offer Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscribers a new bonus webinar just for them! This Friday enjoy "Searching for a Pennsylvania German Ancestor" by James M. Beidler. If you're not a member, remember the webinar previews are always free.

Searching for a Pennsylvania German Ancestor

Applying genealogical basics to the peculiarity of searching for the rich records relating to America’s first large ethnic minority population – Germans.

About the Presenter

James M. Beidler is the author of The Family Tree German Genealogy Book, Trace Your German Roots Online, as well as writes Roots & Branches, an award-winning weekly newspaper column on genealogy that is the only syndicated feature on that topic in Pennsylvania. He is also a columnist for German Life magazine and is editor of Der Kurier, the quarterly journal of the Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society.

He was the President of the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors from 2010 to 2012, and is the former Executive Director for the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. He served as national co-chairman for the 2008 Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Philadelphia.

Beidler is also frequent contributor to other periodicals ranging from scholarly journals such as The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine to popular-interest magazines such as Ancestry Magazine and Family Tree Magazine. He also wrote the chapter on genealogy for Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth, published jointly by the Penn State Press and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

As a lecturer, he was a part of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council's acclaimed Commonwealth Speakers program from 2002 to 2009, and has been a presenter at numerous conferences. In addition to being a member of numerous genealogical, historical, and lineage societies, Beidler also sits on Pennsylvania's State Historic Records Advisory Board as well as the selection committee for the Pennsylvania Digital Newspaper Project.

He is a Senior Tax Advisor for an H&R Block franchise and previously was a copy editor for 15 years for The Patriot-News newspaper in Harrisburg, PA.

Beidler was born in Reading, PA, and raised in nearby Berks County, where he currently resides and is an eighth-generation member of Bern Reformed United Church of Christ. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Hofstra University in Long Island, NY, with a BA in Political Science in 1982.

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Legacy Family Tree Webinars provides genealogy education where-you-are through live and recorded online webinars and videos. Learn from the best instructors in genealogy including Thomas MacEntee, Judy Russell, J. Mark Lowe, Lisa Louise Cooke, Megan Smolenyak, Tom Jones, and many more. Learn at your convenience. On-demand classes are available 24 hours a day! All you need is a computer or mobile device with an Internet connection.

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