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Upcoming Events & Meetings

Our meetings are hybrid, combining in—person and Zoom participation.

In-person location: Freeport Memorial Library, Freeport, Long Island, N.Y.

Via Zoom: For members who prefer remote participation.

Meeting Schedule

10:00 a.m. Refreshments, Meet and Greet, Ask the Experts

10:45 a.m. Announcements/Webinar Begins

11:00 a.m. Lecture

COMING IN 2026

Saturday, January 17, 2026

Researching with Census Records

with KERRI TANNENBAUM

Unlock your family’s past by digging into census records. We’ll explore the fundamentals of using census records, including federal, state, and other censuses. You’ll learn how census records have evolved over time, how to locate and interpret the
records, and how to use the information to build your family tree and trace ancestors across multiple generations.

Forum member and professional genealogist Kerri Tannenbaum is a graduate of Boston University’s Certificate Program in Genealogical Research and the ProGen Peer Study Groups. A recipient of many awards from the National Genealogical Society, she serves as contributing editor of the Forum Newsletter. She also runs her own genealogy company, Family Dot Connector.

Saturday, February 14, 2026

NEW DATE!

The 1926 Irish Census

with NOEL CAROLAN
(via Zoom from Ireland)

On April 18, the 1926 Irish census, the first enumeration conducted by the Irish Free State, will be released by the National Archives of Ireland. To prepare us for this event, Dr. Noel Carolan will highlight the unique insights that the 1926 census will provide into Irish families and their neighbors, employers, and living conditions. The talk will outline the stark political and economic contexts of the census, the information it contains, how it was collected, and what we will discover, free of charge, when the census becomes available. Dr. Carolan will provide a set of digital handouts with selected online links and resources to help you kickstart your family history research in the eight weeks before the census release.

Dr. Carolan is a historian with a focus on national, local, and family history. His Ph.D. dissertation dealt with the political history of Ireland’s food supply from 1895 to 1923 and resulted in his delivery of conference papers in Ireland, Northern Ireland, the U.K., and the Czech Republic. For decades, he has been an active member of Raheny Heritage Society in Dublin, which divides its interest between local history and family history.

Saturday, March 21, 2026

The Orphan Trains

with FRANK McKENNA

The orphan train program was a welfare program that transported infants and children from crowded Eastern cities of the U.S. to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest and upstate New York. The program operated between 1854 and 1929 and relocated approximately 200,000 children. The co-founders of the movement claimed that these children were orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless; in fact, most were the children of new immigrants, many of them Irish, poor, and destitute. Although there were criticisms of the program—including ineffective screening of caretakers, insufficient follow-ups on placements, and the view that many of the children were used strictly as farm labor—some of the placed children grew up in loving homes.

Frank McKenna, a former president and current director of the Forum, is also one of its charter members. The director of the Seaford Public Library in Seaford, NY, he has worked in the public library field for over 30 years. His late great-aunt Margaret (McKenna) Loftus-Taylor was a rider on a baby train.

Saturday, April 18, 2026

Researching Catholic Nuns and Sisters

with SUNNY MORTON

Sunny Morton will discuss the topic of her book, Searching for Sisters: Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States. An estimated 350,000 Catholic nuns and sisters helped build the humanitarian and educational infrastructure of immigrant America. But because they left their families, changed their names, and produced no children, many are omitted from their own family tree. If someone in your family was a sister or nun –or was served by them in a school, orphanage, etc. — there should be information about her in the archive of her religious order.

Sunny Morton is editor of NGS Magazine; a contributing editor at Family Tree Magazine, and a past editor of Ohio Genealogy News. She is also coauthor of How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records, which received a book award from the National Genealogical Society.

Saturday, May 16, 2026

The Irish Workhouse and Finding Your Poor Irish Ancestors

with NATHALIE BODLE

The Poor Law Act of 1838 established workhouses in Ireland to provide relief to the destitute. The workhouse was designed to be harsh; inmates were separated from family members, forced to do hard labor, and fed scant rations. During the Famine, overcrowding, starvation, and disease led to a massive increase in deaths. Speaker Nathalie Bodle, joining us from Ireland, will discuss records produced by the workhouses, including those for inmates and for staff. She will also cover the 19th – century Poverty Relief Loans, which name both the lender and the guarantor.

Professional genealogist Nathalie Bodle is the author of Tracing Your Family History Using Irish Newspapers and Other Printed Material. Her company, Roots Revealed, is based in Ballymena, Co. Antrim.