The Havana Public Library is hosting a series of classes entitled “Free online sources for Genealogy” from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. on Monday nights.
The course, which is open to the public and free of charge, is divided into three parts, the first was on February 20, the second on February 27, and the last will take place next Monday, March 6.
Taught by technical training specialist Deanna Ramsey, the class aims to help students discover a number of free online resources that will help them learn about their ancestry without having to pay the expensive fees charged by popular sites like Ancestry.com.
“I’m hoping people will get interested in their genealogy, and they’ll put forth the effort to find different sources online for their family history, and maybe they’ll do a family tree, maybe they’ll do a DNA test,” said Ramsey of her goals for the course.
Ramsey has been fascinated with genealogy since she was 15 years old, and has been teaching it for 12 years in Gadsden County.
“I was very involved in the Tallahassee Genealogical Society, as well as the Florida Genealogical Society, and because I taught technology classes, I just started teaching genealogy as well, because there were a lot of people who, when everything went online, not only were they learning genealogy, they were learning how to operate the computer and find things on the internet,” explained Ramsey.
Ramsey also asked that community members not be shy about requesting new programs.
“Any class that we have enough interest in, we’ll offer it. We are reaching out trying to find out what the community is interested in,” Ramsey said.
For those who missed the genealogy course this time around, it is offered every year in spring and fall, and upcoming classes and events are posted in advance on the library’s Facebook page.
Stephen Klein – Gadsden County News Service
