15 December 2026
8:00 pm – 9:30 pm (Eastern)
When our ancestors packed their bags and crossed an ocean or state line, someone always stayed behind—and those people may hold the keys to a family's story. It may be FAM Club members such as a sister who never left the old country, a grandfather buried in the hometown cemetery, or descendants of relatives still living in an ancestral community. Or it could be FAN Club members such as witnesses, sponsors, and neighbors. Those "left behind" create a rich paper trail of records, relationships, and perhaps even memories.
In this webinar, we will explore how to leverage:
- Records– death, probate, deed, cemetery, church, newspaper, and more
- The FAM Club– direct and collateral relatives
- Locations and Mapping– cluster research, plotting family movements, identifying ancestral neighborhoods to understand migration patterns and find remnant communities
- The FAN Club – squeezing the most out of every remaining friend, associate, and neighbor left behind whether dead or alive
Learn to flip your research strategy by looking at who did not move—because sometimes the best way forward is to look back at those who stayed put.
Read about presenter Jan Joyce, CG, CGL
Jan Joyce is a board-certified genealogist whose journey began in 1998 while managing the marketing initiatives at Genealogy.com. Her personal research delves into ancestral roots across Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, tracing lineages back to England, Germany, Ireland, and Norway. She holds the CG and CGL certifications from the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) and the AG accreditation from ICAPGen.
Specializing in research methodology, Jan divides her time between personal research, writing, and education. She developed the comprehensive “Assemblage” course for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), which guides students through preparing, writing, and revising case studies and includes Artificial Intelligence. Her innovative Document Work Workshop helps aspiring genealogists prepare for BCG certification. And she pioneered the new institute course “Merging & Separating Identities: Strategies and Tactics to Solve” to advance the field’s understanding of this common phenomenon.
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