Recently I gave a lecture on Podcasts in my local family history group. I suggested to the Family History Director that I talk to the members about Genealogy Podcasts and the benefit that I have received from listening to them and the benefit that the other members can have as well.

As I was giving the presentation I could tell that most of them had the assumption that Podcasts were only for the “younger generation” as most of them are in their later years, but as I explained to them that no matter their age, they could listen to them just as easy as most of their grandchildren.

I have been listening to a number of Podcasts for about three months now and I have learned so much! Every episode I learn something new and exciting that I can use to find my ancestors and to help others with their genealogy. I am continually amazed at how many resources there are out there to help us find where are roots come from and how we connect to each other.

Since I have only listened to Genealogy Podcasts for a few months now I have not been able to listen to every episode of every Podcast, but I have been able to listen to a great deal of the episodes of a couple different Podcasts. I am very fortunate that I have a job where I am able to put in my headphones and listen to these episodes while I work with not much interruption, so over the past few months I have been able to tackle quite a few episodes a day. Here are the Podcasts that I focused on in my presentation.

Genealogy Gems - Genealogy Gems was the first Podcast I started to listen to. I was searching in iTunes one day and typed in the search box “genealogy” wondering what I would find. Genealogy Gems was one of the first things that pulled up, and at that point I had never listened to any Podcasts, and didn’t even quite know what it was. I downloaded a couple of episodes and quickly got hooked. The host of this Podcast is Lisa Louise Cooke. She is extremely knowledgeable in genealogy and experienced in many different topics. I enjoy listening to her because she is so up-beat, gives great information and resources, and is fun to listen to. In my opinion Genealogy Gems is focused towards some of the more advanced genealogists. After about a month of listening to her Podcast(all 70+ episodes) I finally started listening to her other Podcast.

Family History: Genealogy Made Easy - This is Lisa’s second Podcast. This Podcast’s title is very self explanatory. Like Lisa says: “In each episode I’m going to give you the tools you need to uncover your family tree in QUICK and EASY ways.”. This Podcast is great for those who are beginning their family history or are, like me, always interested in learning more ways to help build my family tree. I enjoy this Podcast because Lisa gives great tips on the procedures that you need to take in order to properly search, organize, create, and source all of the many things that you find to put into your database. Anyone who is a beginner in genealogy should definitely start off with this Podcast.

Genealogy Guys Podcast - The Genealogy Guys Podcast is great.  They have weekly episodes and provide fun, interesting, and very useful information. They are always doing great interviews with people all across the country and are continually finding out what’s new in the genealogy world. Their Podcast is always fun and exciting to listen to. Their shows range from beginners to advanced depending on the topic and how in-depth they go.

Family Tree Magazine Podcast - The Family Tree Magazine Podcast is a great way to find out what is going on at Family Tree Magazine and hear about what is going to be in upcoming editions. Lisa Louise Cooke is also the host on this Podcast. She takes us into the magazine and what the editor, bloggers, and other journalists are doing to help produce an amazing magazine to help us find our ancestors. If you are not already a subscriber of the magazine, I would highly suggest subscribing to that as well as the Podcast.

All of these Podcasts can be listened to directly from their websites, as well as subscribing to them from iTunes. Subscribing is a great way to automatically download the latest episodes so you are always up-to-date with the latest and greatest in the genealogy world.