🎤 Who's in Your Neighborhood? Meeting the Diverse Research Needs of Your Community, by Linda Harms Okazaki

Presenter: Linda Harms Okazaki

This talk will focus on examining the different cultures within our community of San Mateo County reaching back through historical events, laws, immigration patterns, and primary source documents. Many examples from local ethnic groups including Japanese Americans, Chinese, Filipino, and Pacific Islanders will be presented.

In order for genealogical societies to become more diverse, we need to examine and embrace the different cultures within our communities. Is your genealogical society inclusive? Does your membership reflect the diversity of your community? What immigrant populations have historically lived in your county? Who currently lives there? Does your genealogical society reach out to the surrounding community? What records are specific to certain ethnic groups?

Linda Harms Okazaki is a fourth generation San Franciscan and has been researching her husband’s ancestry for the past several years, documenting his family in the internment camps and in Japan. She is passionate about researching, documenting, teaching, and sharing the stores of Japanese Americans. Her other areas of research include California, upstate New York, England and Australia. Linda is a member of APG, the Genealogical Speakers Guild, and the DAR. She is a graduate of GenFed, ProGen and several genealogy institutes. She recently served as the president of the California Genealogical Society.  She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Development and a Master of Arts degree in Education. You may find her blog at LindasOrchard.com