Education

E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center

Class meets four Tuesdays, April 1-22, 2025; 10-11:30 a.m. at the Yorktown/Mt. Pleasant Twp. Historical Alliance, 9132 W Smith Street,  in Yorktown. Cost is free, but reservations are required (REGISTER ONLINE).

Tracing your roots is a meaningful way to document your family’s history and pass it on to future generations. With the wealth of online resources available today, genealogy has become more accessible than ever. 

This free, four-week class is designed for beginners with little or no experience in genealogy. 

You’ll learn:

• How to start building your family tree
• Essential forms and documents for research
• Tips for organizing and managing your findings
• Free online tools and genealogy software

This class has long been held at the E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center, but we decided to move it to the Alliance’s newly established genealogy center this semester. That way you'll have access to city directories, maps, periodicals, records, databases, and computers to support your research. And don't worry—you don’t have to be from Yorktown to take advantage of these resources!

Meet Your Instructor: Karen Good, president of the Yorktown/Mt. Pleasant Historical Alliance and county genealogist, brings a wealth of knowledge in genealogy and local history to the table. She presents monthly history programs and leads "Ancestor Hunters," a genealogy group that meets the last Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. The next meeting is Monday, March 31 and Karen will discuss "Women's History and Female Ancestor Resources."

You have your manuscript (or even a grouping of poems or a short story) ready to send out, but you’re not sure how to take the plunge into publication. Do you need an agent? How do you find one? Can you send it to more places than one? What if I get rejected…am I a failure? Where do you find places that will accept your manuscript? Do I pay big money to get published or do I get paid for my work? How do I get blurbs for my cover? Is self-publishing an option? We will cover these questions, your questions, and so much more in this two-hour workshop on how you can get published – by a big publishing house, smaller presses, or even online journals for a poem or a short story. You will walk away with a lot of ideas, inspiration, and places to get your manuscript or your shorter works published. 

E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center

Class meets three Tuesdays, June 3-17, 2025; 2:30-4 p.m.

Designed for those who have a desire to write down their memories to keep, for themselves, for family, or to publish. If you’ve started a memoir but need to get more chapters, this class is for you. If you’ve always wanted to write down pieces of your life, but had no idea where to start, this class is for you.

In this three-session class, you'll create a series of vignettes in either prose or poetry - the choice is yours. You will learn about Hermit Crab Essays, Braided Essays, and Lyric Essays. Guided by prompts designed to "capture your life," you'll bring your memories to the page while sharing your work, ideas, questions, and discoveries along the way. Open to beginning and intermediate writers.