By Glenn Avolio

Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society

D. Joshua Taylor, host of the PBS series “Genealogy Roadshow,” will speak Saturday, April 14, at the annual Genealogy Seminar in Santa Barbara.

Registration is open for seminar, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 21 E. Constance St.

Doors open at 7:45 a.m. Cost is $40 for members, $50 for others. An optional boxed lunch is available for $12. Space is limited and early registration encouraged.

For more than 20 years, Taylor has been discovering and sharing the connections that can be made through genealogy and family history.

As host of “Genealogy Roadshow,” Taylor crisscrosses the United States, solving longstanding family-history mysteries and uncovering genealogical treasures.

Since February 2016, he has been president of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, America’s second-oldest genealogical organization, headquartered in New York City.

An avid genealogist, Taylor has traced his own roots from Boston, Mass., to Bombay, India, and nearly everywhere in-between.

He also is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and serves as president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, an organization dedicated to supporting the needs of genealogical organizations throughout the United States.

As a speaker and author, Taylor shares insights relating to family history and genealogy with audiences worldwide.

He believes family history and genealogy should be about more than just names, dates and documents, but should instead tell the stories of our ancestors and the extraordinary lives they led.

Those who attend can follow a family from the early 1800s to the early 1900s as they migrated from Pennsylvania to Idaho and watch as records from the home (family Bibles and letters) are combined with newspapers, tax records, census records, cemetery records, family files, and other records to compile the family story.

Seminar topics will include: