Our three featured speakers for NERGC 2021 were Angie Bush, DearMYRTLE, and John Grenham!
With formal degrees in molecular biology and biotechnology, Angie Bush understands DNA testing and its applications in genetic genealogy. Whether it’s a matter of helping family historians sort out the test results and information they receive from the various genetic genealogy testing companies, or designing and implementing a sophisticated DNA testing plan to answer difficult genealogical research questions, Angie gets the job done. She has been researching the history of her own family for over 20 years and has helped many individuals in identifying their ancestors and discovering details about their lives. She has significant experience in software and web-based technologies, is familiar with key websites relevant to family history research, and has spent hundreds of hours spent poring over records housed by the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.
DearMYRTLE is the nom de plume of Pat Richley-Erickson, author of the award-winning DearMYRTLE Genealogy Blog, consistently ranked among the top five family history blogs internationally, where her focus is on beginning genealogy topics. She is the National Genealogical Society’s 2015 President’s Citation recipient. Renowned for multiple live video hangouts weekly, including Mondays with Myrt and Wacky Wednesday, DearMYRTLE eschews the lecture format in favor of the “homework first with panelist moderation format” in her Mastering Genealogical Proof and Genealogy and the Law and other study group sessions. Over 400 videos are archived on DearMYRTLE’s YouTube Channel. A speaker at regional and national conferences including live videocasts at RootsTech 2011 and 2012, Myrt is co-founder of the Genea-Quilters group on Facebook, and founder of GeneaWebinars, a centralized calendar and blog for all known genealogy webinar hosts and virtual presenters. Pat is also an active member of the Second Life (SL) Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists, and coordinator of SL’s Just Genealogy including the Inferential Genealogy Study Group. Online since 1985 in membership development with Q-Link’s Your Family Tree and later on the leadership team of AOL’s Golden Gate Genealogy Forum, Pat is a retired post-secondary computer instructor. She and her husband live in South Jordan, Utah, happily combining their genealogy and history libraries following their marriage in 2009.
John Grenham is well-known to those researching Irish ancestors. He came to professional genealogy in 1981, as one of the panel of Irish Genealogical Office (GO) researchers, and later worked for Hibernian Research. As in-house researcher for the GO in 1990-91, he was instrumental in setting up the GO Consultation Service, the forerunner of the current Advisory Services in the National Library and National Archives. He joined the Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland (APGI), the forerunner to the Accredited Genealogists in Ireland (AGI), in 1988. He was Project Manager with the Irish Genealogical Project from 1991 to 1995 and later went on to develop and market his own genealogical software, Grenham’s Irish Recordfinder. He ran the Irish Times Irish Ancestors website from 1998 to 2016. It now runs on his own site. In 2005, he was the first Genealogist-in-Residence at Dublin City Library. He was awarded a fellowship of The Irish Genealogical Research Society in 2007 and of the Genealogical Society of Ireland in 2010. Among his publications are the standard guide to Irish genealogy, Tracing your Irish Ancestors (5th ed.2012), Clans and Families of Ireland (1995), Generations (1996), “The Genealogical Office and its Records” in The Genealogical Office, (1999), Grenham’s Irish Surnames (CD-ROM, 2003) and numerous articles and columns in the UK magazine Your Family Tree. He wrote the “Irish Roots” column and blog in The Irish Times between 2009 and 2016. The blog is now here at John’s website. In 2011, along with Irish Times Training, he developed and launched an online genealogical course. In 2011 and 2014, he was co-presenter of the RTE television program “The Genealogy Roadshow.” Between 2014 and 2018, he delivered six, ten-week Diploma in Family History courses at City Colleges in Dublin.