I'm happy to announce that our Community Media Lab seminars are set to begin the week of March 7th, with confirmed presentations on tips for preparing your taxes and two nights focused on Irish genealogy just in time for St. Patrick's Day.

Here are the initial details:

March 8th - "Tax tips for individuals"

The deadline for filing your 2010 tax returns is fast approaching, and with new tax legislation passed late last year, you might be wondering what has and hasn’t changed. Kevin O’Leary, director with the accounting firm Marvin & Company, P.C. and blogger for The Record, will present a tax seminar for individuals looking for tips filing their 2010 tax returns in The Record’s Community Media Lab on March 8 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Those who attend the seminar will learn about what has and hasn’t changed since the Dec. 17 tax legislation, get answers to FAQs about filing your return, whether filing your return yourself is beneficial to you, planning tips for the future and more. Rest assured that the seminar won’t get too technical as Kevin explains tips he passes on to his own clients, and questions he’s often asked. Please note that you will not be filing your tax return at this seminar, Kevin will be advising attendees on filing their returns this year. 

March 10th - “Finding Your Irish Ancestors at the National Archives"

Rodney Aldrich, who writes the "Shamrock Road" blog on TroyRecord.com about his visits to Ireland and Irish culture in the Capital District will introduce and summarize his blog to the audience before introducing the speaker for the night.

Jean Nudd will talk for the rest of the night about what resources are available to find information on Irish ancestry at the National Archives facilities. She will also discuss what information people need to begin this research as well as what documents to look for and where to find them. Finally, she'll discuss not only what's available for people when they visit the National Archives but also what they can find on-line and what web sites they might want to use for their research.

March 14th - "Finding the origin of your Irish Ancestors"

Lisa Dougherty, a volunteer with the National Archives will talk about using resources in the United States, especially in Upstate New York to determine as specific a place as possible for the origins of ancestors. As a Castleton native, Dougherty uses quite a few examples from Troy in her presentation as her great great grandparents were immigrants from Queen’s County Ireland to South Troy in the 1860’s.

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In addition to growing our number of bloggers on TroyRecord.com, we plan to use our physical media lab space throughout the year to engage our readership on a regular basis. It is our hope that this will eventually result with readers associating us with interactive content and being ready and willing to help us crowdsource more content going forward.

Do you have any suggestions for how to best operate in this manner? Have suggestions for the types of programs we should host in the future? Leave a comment below!