Who: Mary K. Risseeuw
What: SCGS Wednesday Webinar, the third Wednesday of each month
When: Wednesday, October 18, 2023, 6 p.m. PST Topic: "Nellie Was A Rebel: Using Unusual Sources to Find Her Child’s Father"
Why: This intriguing case study reveals how to discover unusual and little-used sources to unlock the stories of your ancestors
Register: Go to Webinar
Genealogist Marry K. Risseeuw shows how unusual and rarely used sources can reveal more information about your ancestors. Risseeuw examines the use of County Board Proceedings as a vastly underutilized source that can uncover fascinating details about our ancestors. Her examples show how a 5-cent discarded book provided clues that helped solve a mystery and provided more context to a family tragedy. Serendipity can happen to anyone!
You may remember Risseeuw from her 2021 SCGS webinar, "The Genealogy of a Neighborhood: Urban and Rural." She is a genealogist, historian, writer, and lecturer emphasizing 19th- and 20th-century Dutch emigration and Wisconsin history. Risseeuw has been a family history researcher for several decades and serves on the Board of the Association for the Advancement of Dutch American Studies.
Risseeuw organized the 2008 Dutch in Wisconsin Conference, the first conference about Dutch immigration to Wisconsin. She has a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and an M.A. and M.F.A. from Northern Illinois University. Mary has taken numerous trips to the Netherlands and has traveled extensively in the Achterhoek and Zeeland.
"I think genealogy always provides you with stories you never knew about your family," says Risseeuw. "After 30 years of doing this kind of research, I discover new stories all the time—not just about other people's families but about my own."
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