In the June episode of the “This month at the IGSI” podcast (episode 12 of season 3), genealogist Dave Miller talks about the June webinar featuring, Chelley Brekke McClear. Her topic: “The same name – everywhere in Ireland. Sifting and separating family groups.” This presentation, to be held on June 28, is both a live and webinar event. Have you ever found a source record that seemed to be your ancestor, only to discover four other men with the same name in the same place at the same time? Chelley will take you through a process she devised using spreadsheets to untangle a Northern Irish case using 19th century records... and how this helped to advance her research.

In this presentation, we want to ascertain which James Taylor was our James Taylor for each branch of a tree created to solve a non-parental event (NPE) case for a living person. We compile BMD records to identify different branches of the Taylor families in County Antrim in mid to late 1800s. Chelley explains locating the source records, compiling and analyzing them to group these families and tease out the branches – without tripping over mistakes posted in the trees of other matches.

The webinar will begin at 10:30 am and will last until noon Central Daylight Time. The cost of the webinar is $15 for members with a coupon and $20 for non-members. The live event is limited to 40 attendees. You can register for the webinar on our activities page.

Dave also talks about the art and skill of sheep shearing--a huge industry in Ireland but also in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. In fact, it is still in practice today in the United States. Dave interviews both the sheep shearer and the sheep owner and the products she makes from the sheep’s wool.

June 2025 IGSI podcast