Your Audience

The most important part of choosing a topic is understanding your audience!

Audiences typically fall into one of three categories:

  1. All Audiences – these talks are appropriate for general and research audiences
  2. General Audience – is typical for libraries, senior centers, senior living communities and brown bag lunches
  3. Research Audience – is already familiar with genealogy, house history, or historical research and most commonly found at genealogy clubs and genealogy societies

Presentation Topics

House History, Genealogy and DNA are all popular topics right now.

  • Does your audience want to learn about DNA? Are they having trouble interpreting the results?
  • Genealogy is always in fashion! Some people are just starting their family history journey and others have been searching for many years.
  • House history research is not just for people in the suburbs who live in 200 year old houses! Multi-family houses have great histories as do condos in old mill buildings.

Appropriate for All Audiences

House History Talks

  • Discover the History of your House
  • 10 Steps to Researching the History of Your House

DNA Talks

  • DNA Testing: What Can it Do for Me?
  • Your DNA Test Results are In! But what do they mean?

Genealogy Topics

General Audience

  • 5 Steps For Starting Your Family History
  • Genealogy from Home: Making the Most of Online Sources
  • Discover Your Family in Census Records
  • Finding Your Family in Newspaper Stories
  • Building Family History through Vital Records

Research Audience

  • Pilgrims and Patriots: Discovering Your Massachusetts Ancestors
  • New Clues from Old Headstones
  • 5 Steps to Becoming a Good Ancestor
  • Understanding Massachusetts Vital Records
  • Verifying Information You Find Online