Summit of Excellence Speaker Highlight: Michael L. Strauss

Did your ancestors participate in military service? If so, do you know how and where to find their military service records and draft records? Join us as military expert, Michael Strauss, leads a triumphant charge through time and place.

Michael will present the following at the Summit of Excellence held virtually, September 15-18, 2021:

Records of Military Service from the Colonial Era to Vietnam 

Vital to any military ancestor is their service records which define when an individual was mustered in and out of service. This lecture examines records from the colonial era to Vietnam. 

Full session description here.

The Draft and the Selective Service System 

Draft records are invaluable to genealogists as they provide documentary evidence of men of eligible military age who served during periods of war. These records also account for men who might not have been mustered into service. 

Full session description here.

Learn more about Michael Strauss and all of our amazing speakers here.

View the full schedule for the UGA Summit of Excellence here.

Join Us in September!

The 2021 UGA Summit of Excellence celebrates UGA's 50th year. This exciting virtual conference, held September 15-18, 2021, is a four-day event with multiple tracks offering a premier educational opportunity at an extremely reasonable price. Each track features a different record set or research area such as legal records, methodology, technology, or DNA. 

Learn more about the Summit of Excellence or register to attend. Questions may be directed to the registrar: registrar@ugagenealogy.org.

Summit of Excellence Track Highlight: Military Records

The UGA Summit of Excellence has officially opened for registration. This exciting conference, held virtually September 15-18, 2021, is a four-day event with multiple tracks that offers a premier educational opportunity. Each track features a different record set or research area such as legal records, methodology, technology, or DNA.

Let's take a deep dive into one of these exciting tracks: military records. Military records are an exciting area of genealogy rich in both vital data and enriching stories. From draft and service records to pension and land, the types of records available from our military are vast and varied. It is hard to know what you will find in these amazing documents.

Because military records can be such a rich and important tool for a genealogist, it is exciting to be able to listen to these engaging experts.

Here is even more detail on each of these classes:

Records of Military Service from the Colonial Era to Vietnam with Michael Strauss, AG

Vital to any military ancestor is their service records, which define when an individual was mustered in and out of service. This lecture examines records from the colonial era to Vietnam.

Michael L. Strauss, AG®, is a professional Accredited Genealogist® and a nationally recognized speaker. A native of Pennsylvania and a resident of Utah, he has been employed as a Forensic Investigator for nearly 30 years. Strauss has a BA in History and is a United States Coast Guard veteran. He is a qualified expert witness in the courts in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and is a faculty member at SLIG, GRIP, and IGHR where he is the Military Course Coordinator. Additionally, he is involved with both Civil War and Mexican War reenacting for more than 25 years.

The Smoking Bullet: Military Pension Records - Revolution through Civil War with Rebecca Whitman Koford, CG, CGL

The term "smoking gun" is a metaphor for an object that serves as conclusive evidence. Rarely in genealogy do we find a single document or file that lists an ancestor's birth, marriage, and death, but that is exactly what we may find in military pension records. This lecture will discuss how to dissect and understand pension records in their historical context, compared to pension laws, and the conflicts they served, pension records served to identify whole families and even communities in many instances.

Rebecca Whitman Koford holds credentials as a Certified Genealogist® and as a Certified Genealogical Lecturer. Her focuses are Maryland and military records at the National Archives, especially those of the War of 1812. Rebecca has been taking clients and lecturing since 2004. She has spoken for the National Genealogical Society Conference (NGS), Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference (FGS), Association of Professional Genealogists Conference (APG), RootsTech, webinars for Legacy and APG, and the Maryland State Archives. She has published articles in the NGS Magazine, APG Magazine, SAR Magazine, and the Maryland Genealogical Society Journal. Rebecca is also the Course I coordinator for The Institute of Genealogical and Historical Research (IGHR) and has been an instructor at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburg (GRIP) and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG). She is a graduate and former mentor of the ProGen Study Group, an online peer-led study program based on the book Professional Genealogy by Elizabeth Shown Mills; and served as the ProGen Administrator from 2015–2020. Rebecca currently works as Executive Director of the Board for Certification of Genealogists® and as Director of the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records (Gen-Fed) held annually at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Bounty Land Records - As good as a pension! with Rick Sayre, CG, CGL, FUGA

Bounty lands were awarded by the federal government from 1788 to 1855 to encourage and reward service in the military. Nine individual states (Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Caroline, and Virginia) also award land as part of Revolutionary War compensation, Eligibility for military bounty lands varied by the criteria in the authorizing legislative act. The award of bounty lands did, in fact, motivate some veterans to move west. The effect was considerably diluted because many individuals sold or assigned their bounty land warrants. often these warrants were purchased by land speculators. Regardless, the applications for bounty land are often as available as pensions as it relates to funding kinship information. Also, Many more veterans were eligible for bounty land benefits as opposed to pensions. The presentation will cover the application process, the location of records, and the best way to access the records. the expected kinship information will be identified. Also, related records such as the land entry file will be described.

Rick Sayre, CG, CGL, FUGA, a retired colonel who served 31 years in the U.S. Army, is a long-time researcher and instructor in genealogical topics. Rick is the current secretary and immediate past president of BCG. He coordinates the Advanced Land course and the Using Maps in Genealogy course offered by the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), and he instructs in several other courses at SLIG. Rick co-coordinates with Judy Russell, JD, CG, CGL, the Law School for Genealogists course at Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) and the Family History Law Library course at SLIG. He also lectures at national conferences and presents nationwide seminars. His areas of expertise encompass records of the National Archives, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Daughters of the American Revolution, including military records, land records, using maps in genealogy, urban research, and government documents. Rick specializes in the localities of western Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The Draft and Selective Service System with Michael Strauss, AG

Draft records are invaluable to genealogists as they provide documentary evidence of men of eligible military age who served during periods of war. These records also account for men required to fill out the registration forms, but who might not have been mustered into service. The first national conscription passed by Congress was in 1863. Since then, congressional legislation through the passage of several Selective Service Acts in 1917, 1940, 1948, and 1967 have accounted for men who would have served between the Civil War and the Vietnam War. Also, the class will examine the draft that affected the Confederates during the Civil War between 1862-1865.

see full bio above.

Learn more about the conference at conference.ugagenealogy.org or register to attend the UGA Summit of Excellence at registration.ugagenealogy.org.

Summit Highlight: "Women’s Suffrage: Their Rights, Roles, and Limitations" by Michael Strauss

The women's suffrage movement was a long and hard won battle to win the right to vote by women in the United States. The hard won effort took activists and reformers decades to achieve and the struggle nearly disbanded the movement more than once. Despite the difficulty on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, empowering all American women to vote and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of American citizenship.

To honor that struggle, the UGA Summit of Excellence will feature a keynote celebrating this movement and moment in history. "Women's Suffrage: Their Rights, Roles, and Limitations" will be presented on Saturday, September 12th at 9:00 am MDT by Michael Strauss, AG.

We are honored to invite Michael to speak on this subject and to celebrate this moment in history. The lecture focuses on the history of women and the Suffrage Movement from the colonial time to the middle of the twentieth century. Numerous genealogical records are examined in this lecture from the Anti-Slavery movement, to the Temperance Movement, military service, and later as woman gained the right to vote.

Michael L. Strauss, AG, is a professional Accredited Genealogist and a nationally recognized genealogical speaker. A native on Pennsylvania and a resident of Utah, he has been employed as a Forensic Genealogist for more than 25 years. Strauss has a BA in History and is a United States Coast Guard veteran. He is also a qualifies witness in court in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Strauss is an approved genealogist with the United States Army to locate DNA qualifies persons MIA from Korea, Vietnam, and World War II. Michael was the film historian for the 2014 film "Finding Vivian Maier" which was nominated for an Oscar for Documentaries in 2015. He has been involved in Civil War reenacting for more than 25 years, serving in two units, namely; the 99th New York Infantry and Battery A., 5th U.S. Artillery and most recently the Utah Living History Association.

The UGA Summit of Excellence is a virtual event that will be held September 11-12, 2020. To register or lean more please visit conference.UGAgenealogy.org.