Some time ago (or what feels like an eternity ago) I had the pleasure of presenting for the first time about Puerto Rican research and genealogy. The first presentation was to a society in Texas (over Zoom) which I was asked by a fellow Boston University Genealogical Research classmate if I could present in one of their evening meetings. This was a great way to initially get some experience with talking about Puerto Rican genealogy. Though it was a small group, it was a great way to gauge if I spoke about too many things, if it came across as complicated or easy to understand, or in general how my speaking style was on Zoom in regards to genealogy (there can be a lot of terminology and archives that are new and confusing to people). Luckily, the presentation went well and there was interest in what I had to say.
The second presentation was thanks to a cousin who recommended me to the Plainfield Library in New Jersey who was looking for a Hispanic genealogist that could talk about Puerto Rican genealogy. Having given a presentation in spring 2021, I was ready to do it again and hopefully for a larger crowd. The library’s head of local history, genealogy, and special collections reached out to me and we discussed what I could talk about, the date, and type of audience that would be present (online), and the general course of the presentation. This time I would present in the fall 2021 and I was excited to do it all over again. Below, I hyperlinked the presentation that can be watched on YouTube, I spoke for about 50 minutes and really packed in a lot of information about how genealogy can be done for starters and providing examples of my family tree so that people could see exactly what I meant about certain documents, etc. It seems that overall my presentation was appreciated and people learned either something new or quite a bit in my presentation. I know for some I probably spoke quickly (a combination of my nerves and making sure I left time at the end for questions). I also knew that it would be recorded and so you could go back and watch it again calmly and take notes if you needed to on what you heard/saw.
If you are new to genealogy or even a seasoned genealogist, hopefully my presentation can shine some light onto new techniques, archives, etc that can be used for Puerto Rican genealogical research. Enjoy!