It's one of the most popular of the many genealogical education opportunities open to genealogists, and one of the highlights of my year! Registration opens today, Tuesday, January 17, for the 2012 Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research (IGHR) at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. A few of the courses sell out within minutes, and many are closed by the end of the first day of registration, so if you're interested at all in attending I strong suggest you register today. You will have the opportunity to cancel without penalty until May 1, 2012, for a $75 cancellation fee.

To prevent an overload of the online registration system, the opening of registration for courses will be staggered, with different courses opening at different times. Once open, registration for each course will remain open until the course is full. At that time you can request to be added to the waiting list by following the applicable link on the Courses page. All registration times listed below are in Central Standard Time. Read More...

Even though I had no idea what I wanted for Christmas, my husband managed to find a way straight to my heart by giving me several old albums and diaries that he had located and purchased through antique dealers and eBay. A yellowed newspaper clipping tucked behind the photograph of a woman identified as Dora Bowman immediately caught my eye. She's the only named photograph in an album filled with gorgeous old photos, which seems a bit too coincidental to me, but her story is definitely captivating...

"Oh! Dan, don't kill me and I will be yours." It was a woman imploring for mercy. Over her stood a man with a cocked revolver. "D___ you, I will kill you," and with that he fired, but fortunately the ball struck the woman's corset steel and fell to the ground. Twice more the villian fired, but the bullets went wide of their mark.

Dramatic it may seem, but this is the true tale of an engineer named William Schipp, and the much younger Dora Bowman set in 1890 Omaha, Nebraska. Dora apparently lived with William in adultery for almost two years after he solicited her away from "May Morgan's sporting house," before she tired of his attentions and tried to break off their arrangement. Read More...

It was a big week for announcements of new online learning opportunities for the genealogy community, including a variety of instructive webinars and videos. The majority of these are free to boot! Those which require a fee for participation are noted.

• The U.S. National Archives & Records Administration has launched online videos of its most popular genealogy "how to" workshops, covering topics such as census, military and immigration records. These "Know Your Records" videos are available on the National Archives YouTube Channel for free viewing, with hopefully more to come. They are asking for help prioritizing from a list of 60 videos which include a number of interest to genealogists, so voice your opinion!

• The Association of Professional Genealogists announced a move into the genealogy webinar space, hosting a free webinar for both members and non-members this week titled "Tax Considerations for Your Genealogy Business," presented by Jim Beidler, a genealogy business owner and senior tax adviser for H&R Block. The webinar is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, January 11, 2012. Pre-registration is recommended.

• Several U.S. state genealogical societies also have upcoming genealogy webinars, including free webinar series open to the public from the Illinois State Genealogical Society, the Utah Genealogical Society and the Southern California Genealogical Society. The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania will also be hosting two webinars - each featuring a well-known national speaker - for a nominal fee. Learn more in Angela Packer McGhie's blog Adventures in Genealogy Education.

Looking for even more genealogical education opportunities? Check out these Genealogy Webinars & Online Seminars and Online Genealogy Classes & Tutorials, plus 10 Educational Opportunities for Genealogists

I didn't initially notice the changes at 23andme.com that caused such an uproar in the genealogy community last month, primarily because I was one of the early adopters who had my DNA (and that of my family members) tested prior to their change to a subscription-based program. In other words, the changes didn't affect my account in an immediately noticeable way. However, once I started reading some of the blog posts on the topic, including CeCe Moore's 23andMe Changes Terms for Expired PGS Subscription Customers and DNA Access Policy Changes Bad for Genealogists by Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, I realized the changes would indeed affect me as well -- because they would affect many people who might be my future potential matches in Relative Finder. I also immediately downloaded my raw DNA data from their database so I won't risk losing it to future service changes.

It was good to see the announcement this week by23andMe co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcidki Read More...