Presentation Topics
Whether in-person or virtual, you want a speaker who will engage and entertain as well as inform. That's what I do! I teach and inspire those who came to learn--but even their companions who are "just along for the ride" will have a good time and come away feeling their time was well spent.
Now booking for in-person and virtual presentations for 2026 and 2027.
Scroll down to choose your topics--then click below to contact me.
Gella Rothstein, Jewish Genealogical Society of Toronto
"Thank you so much for a terrific presentation. Your enthusiasm for the subject just sparkles. There was such a positive response from so many of the participants. I particularly appreciated how you integrated the webinar with the live session. There were several very seasoned genealogy members in attendance who are quite knowledgeable about City Directories. I’m sure even they gained insight into how the directories can tell a story and I know everyone was wowed by your use of Google Maps. Your handout is much appreciated and full of excellent guidance."
Ruth Perry,
African American Genealogical Society member
"I thoroughly enjoyed the Zoom meeting presented by Sunny Morton. Great handout,
which was easy to follow as she gave tips on researching our ancestor's stories
through many other kinds of available records. I have started looking at some of these
records in hopes of learning more about my family."
Rachael Hartman, Geauga County Public Library Branch Manager
" I just wanted to thank you again for your program on Saturday. The evaluations were overwhelmingly positive, with over 90% of attendees giving you 5/5 on your presentation and content. Some of the comments were Wonderful; Awesome; Great; Extremely knowledgeable and informative; Entertaining; Great case studies; Interesting; First class presentation!"
America at 250: Special 2026 Lecture Series
How to Share Your Family History in a 3-Minute Story
In this anniversary year, how can you share what your family's story means to America's larger story? Most of the time, family and friends only want the 3-minute version—so make it powerful. Learn how to choose the most meaningful moments, shape them into compelling stories, and deliver them with confidence. Whether you're speaking at a family gathering or a community commemoration, you'll discover how to make your family history resonate.
Discovering Grandparents’ Lives
Whether your grandparents are living or not, there is so much more to learn about them. Discovering their stories can help connect you to the past, while answering questions you didn’t even know you had. Learn tips for recording personal histories, discovering relatives in 20th-century records, and sharing personal memories, while potentially navigating sensitive topics. Get ideas for sharing and preserving stories for future generations, just in time for commemorating your family’s place in America's history during our 250th anniversary year.
Heroes, Scoundrels, and Everyday People: Learn to Discover Your Family Stories
As we commemorate 250 years of the American experience, we will follow one family’s experience in a uniquely American story: the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889 with its Appalachian setting, industrial origins, and international infamy. Attendees will see how history unfolded for one family (and who the heroes and scoundrels were!) while learning principles and practices that will help them start discovering their own family’s stories from the past 250 years of US history.
A Wild Ride: Ohio River Travel Stories, Songs and Scenes
Early migrants into the interior of the U.S. often traveled by river. This fun “live documentary” brings to life the gritty experiences of Ohio River travelers—including my ancestors—as they traveled into the Great Lakes and Mississippi River regions. Snippets from maps, travel guides, and songs add more depth and flavor to this fun historical storytelling adventure. Get inspired by how you might do something similar to tell your own family stories!
Genealogy Topics: Religious Records; Strategies and Sources; Writing and StoryTelling
Religious Records
Intro to U.S. Church Records: Why We Care Where Grandma Went to Church.
U.S. church records of many denominations can reveal ancestors’ vital events, family relationships, overseas birthplaces and other residences and religious lives. From the co-author of the acclaimed book How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records, learn what these records may look like, how to identify an ancestral church, locate extant records and access them.
NEW! Searching for Sisters? Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States
Catholic nuns and sisters ran some of the U.S.'s earliest schools, orphanages, and hospitals and served millions of Catholic immigrants and their families. Today, those sisters are mostly forgotten. Many changed their names and moved far from home, making it difficult to recognize them in records. But those who can trace a woman into religious life may discover a rich legacy and record trove. From the author of Searching for Sisters: Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States. Available after February 2026
NEW! Clergy Connections: Tracking Ministers, Pastors and the Records They Left Behind
Whether a minister was your ancestor or officiated at a family event, tracking down clergy members can unlock vital records and enrich your family story. Learn strategies for identifying a clergyman's denomination, locating ministerial records and directories, and accessing church archives. Discover how to use denominational newspapers and biographical resources to build a fuller picture of the person behind the collar. Available after March 2026
Using U.S. Church Records as a Brick Wall Strategy: Case Studies
Finding an overseas ancestral hometown. Tracking a family from one place to another. Researching in a place with record loss. Identifying all the children of an ancestral couple. Finding (or verifying) a birth, marriage or death. Researching extended families. Searching for ancestors who were poor, non-English speaking, ethnic minorities or enslaved. Got any of these brick-wall situations? Learn how church records may be your saving grace.
Holy Headlines! Finding Family in Religious Newspapers
See the kinds of coverage about everyday people that appeared in denominational newspapers: obituaries, marriages, correspondence, migrations, job-related notices, local events and more. Learn finding strategies specific to religious newspapers, online and offline. Get a handy cheat sheet with denominational newspapers for major U.S. faiths.
Find Your Family in U.S. Catholic Church Records
Roman Catholic sacramental records often contain vital events, relationships, and overseas hometowns. They’re also confidential, so they can be tricky to access. Learn about Catholicism in the U.S., what’s in sacramental records and what they look like, how to identify an ancestral parish, and tips for accessing Catholic records.
Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians—Oh My!
These 3 faiths dominated the 1800s religious scene in the United States. Learn a little of their intertwined history; explore a variety of sample records; and learn strategies for finding church records for Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians.
More Sources and Strategies
Finding And Using Obituaries More Effectively: 10 Strategies
Obituaries can help you reconstruct families and find missing relatives, whether you’re doing genealogy or building trees for DNA matches. Learn from actual case studies a full range of strategies for finding obituaries from different time periods. (This includes today: we’ll talk about finding online-only obituary content and understanding differences between original postings and aggregator websites.) Learn a trick for finding citations for unidentified news clippings. You’ve never seen obituary-finding treated with this kind of depth and detail!
Meet PERSI, and Discover Treasures in Genealogy Periodicals
(For intermediate to advanced researchers.) You may be missing out on 30% of genealogy discoveries if you’re not digging into history and genealogy newsletters, journals and magazines. Biographical profiles, stories about ancestral churches or schools, how-to tips for researching a locale, indexes and transcripts of local records are all among those treasures. Learn to find and access this content using PERSI, the Periodical Source Index. See how to navigate PERSI on the FREE Allen County Public Library website portal, and success stories that can inspire your own foray into periodical research.
Born to be Filed: A Story of Civil Birth Registration in the United States
Ever wonder why you can’t find infant birth records for relatives even when they should exist? Or what delayed birth records are and whether they are worth finding? Follow with me the fascinating story of how infant and adult civil birth records came about in the United States. We’ll look at the who, what and whys through the lenses of local newspapers and the larger social conversation. We’ll focus especially on little-known adult delayed birth records: what they look like, how to find them, and what they might reveal.
Directory Assistance: Finding Your Family History in City Directories
Looking for records in-between U.S. censuses that may reveal your family’s relationships, movements, occupations and other stories? Directories may help you build year-by-year narratives about their lives. You’ll learn what’s in city directories, how to explore them in major online collections and elsewhere, and how to use them in conjunction with other resources to reconstruct more detailed, nuanced narratives about your family’s history.
Writing, Storybuilding and Storytelling
From Documents to Sentences to Stories: Rebuilding Family Stories, Step by Step
Turning your genealogy research discoveries into meaningful stories can be challenging. Follow the re-creation of one family’s story using hands-on, step-by-step, try-this-now story-building strategies. Turn a single record discovery into a simple paragraph, then a paragraph into a story by looking for the “plot” and other interesting elements that make up the most interesting stories. Teaser: in the story you’ll follow, one of the heroes is a dog, my son’s favorite “ancestor.”
Fable or Fact? Verifying Old Family Stories
Don’t you wish you knew just HOW true certain family stories are? Though you may never be able to fully prove (or disprove) some stories, this lecture demonstrates an approach for “de-mythifying” handed-down tales into truer ones that may be even more compelling. See the results for case studies from my own family tree: that of an unlikely hero and an immigrant scoundrel. The audience has a chance to weigh in on each and consider how to talk about even less-proven aspects of family stories with greater accuracy and compassion. Inspiring and entertaining even for general audiences, this can be delivered in a regular lecture format, a 90-minute discussion-driven format, or as a banquet/keynote talk.
Tell Your Stories More Powerfully in PowerPoint
Learn how PowerPoint software can help you create mini-documentaries of your family stories, with appealing visuals, images, video clips, transitions and text. The visually-rich presentation focuses on demonstrating what’s possible: an instruction-rich handout links to lots of resources for how to do it.
Plan Your Next Family History Writing Project: Hands-on Workshop
Deciding what to write and how to write it can be a big barrier for many people wanting to write up their family history discoveries. That’s why this presentation comes with a hands-on worksheet you can begin to complete DURING the presentation, which will walk you through all the big, interrelated questions: prioritizing your writing projects; choosing your audience; addressing privacy concerns and family secrets; and selecting the best writing and citation styles for your audience and topic. This class is available in both one-hour and two-hour formats.
I look forward to connecting
Let me know whether you're planning a virtual or in-person event; what topics you're interested in; and possible date(s). I'll get back to you with pricing and availability.