TPCGS 2026 Spring Seminar
Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society
2026 Virtual Spring Seminar
Saturday, 2 May 2026    9:00 am to 12:00 noon

Our speaker will be Jill Morelli.

This will be a half-day seminar held virtually on Zoom in the morning.
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FREE for members!  membership $22 single $25 joint
NO Registration required.
Join TPCGS and attend for FREE!
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Jill Morelli, CG, CGL, is a writer, lecturer, and founder of the Certification Discussion Group (strategies for a successful portfolio). She lectures and has written articles for National Genealogical Society Quarterly, The Sept, Crossroads, and others. She is past president of Seattle Genealogical Society. Jill lives in Seattle and travels regularly to Boston to visit her most darling grandchildren.

Jill is the author of Journeys of the Forgotten: The Orphans of Hamilton County, Iowa, a collection of biographies of the identified orphan train riders.

She blogs at https://genealogycertification.wordpress.com.

Jill’s Presentations:
The Nordic Passage:  Scandinavian Migration to the Pacific NorthWest
Scandinavian migration to the American Northwest forms a distinctive chapter in the region’s settlement story, but has similarities to the settlement patterns of other settlers. Between the 1870s and early twentieth century, thousands of Scandinavians, composed of Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, were drawn to America by letters from relatives and the promise of fertile land, timber, and opportunity. While many initially moved to established Midwestern colonies, many made a second move to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. They brought with them habits of hard work, thrift, and cooperation forged in their rural villages of origin. Though each nationality maintained its own traditions and dialects, they shared much more than they differed. Understanding these common experiences helps explain how the Scandinavian presence left an unnaturally large cultural imprint on the region.

Push and Pull: Decision-Making of a 19th Century Emigrant
With the notable exception of Native Americans and African Americans, we are a nation of immigrants. In fact, between the years of 1816 and 1930 over 54 million people emigrated from Europe with most immigrating to the United States, Canada and Australia. Do you wonder why your ancestors emigrated?  Why did they leave their ancestral home of perhaps hundreds of years to travel further than they could have even imagined to a country where they probably did not know the language or the customs? It is also likely that they did not leave a record of why they left and why they chose to immigrate to the location they decided upon. We will parse out the reasons behind one family’s reasons by looking at a letter written shortly after immigration to the writer’s brother. Documents and manuscripts can often give us clues as to the motivations of our ancestors to leave and make their decision-making about the destination.


________________________________________
FREE for members!
NO Registration required.
Join TPCGS and attend for FREE!
________________________________________

Cyndi Ingle of Cyndi’s List will serve as emcee!  ________________________________________
Seminar Schedule
8:45 am: Virtual Doors Open
9:00 am: Opening Remarks by Cyndi Ingle
9:15 am: First Presentation by Jill Morelli
10:15 am: Break
10:30 am: Second Presentation by Jill Morelli
11:30 am: Questions and Wrap-Up