An amazing crowd of just over 50 individuals attended The Record's community-driven forum on Irish Genealogy in our newly-opened Community Media Lab, showcasing what is possible for these types of events in the future.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we kicked our promotion for the Irish forum into high gear after the poor results we had with our initial attempt at a tax forum Tuesday evening.

Using updates on The Record's website, social media accounts, blog posts, and the online event-planning website, Eventbrite, we were able to attract a fantastic crowd of interested individuals for last night's presentation.

Rodney Aldrich, a blogger for TroyRecord.com, opened the night with an introduction about his blog, Shamrock Road, and why he was interested in the subject of Irish genealogy to begin with.

Jean Nudd, an archivist with the National Archives, used the rest of the night to provide great amounts of information on how individuals can use the National Archives offices, along with online resources, to find their Irish ancestors, or ancestors of any nationality for that matter.

You can view the entire presentation (which runs about 1 hour and 15 minutes) in the recorded live-stream below. I will also soon update this blog with a scan of Nudd's PowerPoint presentation printout for anyone who would like to follow along.

This is a great milestone for The Record's community engagement efforts and really displays what being a part of the new Journal Register Company, which owns the newspaper, is all about.

Irish Geneology