For more than three centuries our ancestors have lived and created records in Pennsylvania. Learn the keys to finding those records, including the commonwealth history, boundary changes over the years, types of government offices, ethnic and religious groups, and research repositories.

Please note: After a brief lunch break Kay will be available to registrants from 12:30 – 1:30 PM for an informal discussion about researching your Pennsylvania ancestors. If you have a stubborn Pennsylvania research problem this could be the time – and the person – to help get the problem resolved.

Kay Haviland Freilich, Certified Genealogist^sm, Certified Genealogical Lecturer^sm, authored the National Genealogical Society publication Research in Pennsylvania and won the 2008 NGS Family History Writing Contest. She is a current trustee and former president of the Board for Certification of Genealogists and an instructor at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research at Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama. For the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, she has served as vice president, member of the publications and program committees and counselor for the Summer Camp program.

Her main research interests are Pennsylvania and the Quakers. Since 1995 she has lectured at local, regional, and national conferences on those subjects and on methodology and writing topics. She is the author of articles in National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, NGS Magazine, Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly and co-author of three family histories.