Lisa Medina

The Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society invites the community to hear a presentation titled Mexican Genealogy Research: Civil & Church Records and Beyond, 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 18.

The talk, which is free to attend, will be given by Lisa Medina, a professional genealogist and lecturer, at the Genealogical Society meeting,

Participants will discover the essentials of Mexican genealogy research including language resources, naming conventions, and key civil and church records, while exploring lesser-used sources, such as newspapers, immigration files, and colonial records, according to the Genealogical Society.

Examples from early Santa Barbara families will illustrate how these resources bring family history to life.

Medina is a professional genealogist, who applies her background in teaching to all of her presentations. She is an alum of several genealogical institutes and education programs (ProGen, SLIG, Gen-Fed); her research expertise is in Mexican genealogy.

Medina is the director of admissions and university registrar at a California State University.

Doors open at 9:30 a.m. for refreshments and informal discussions with the society’s special interest groups, covering a variety of topics from getting started in genealogy to writing family histories.

A short business meeting begins at 10:30 a.m., followed by Medina’s presentation.

The Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society helps people discover, document, share, and preserve their family histories. An all-volunteer organization, the society operates a research library with 16,000+ books and a computer lab offering access subscription genealogy websites.

Annual memberships start at $40. Learn more and join at SBGen.org.