Presenter Profile: Kory Meyerink

Kory Meyerink has been involved in nearly every aspect of genealogy and family history for the past 20 years, beginning as a record searcher while attending Brigham Young University where he received an Associate in Family and Local History, as well as a B.S. in Psychology. He later completed a Masters of Library and Information Science. Spending two years in Germany gave him a fluency that has served him well in his professional research. He became accredited in four areas (Germany, Midwest, Eastern and New England U.S.), specializing in tracing the origins of German and Dutch immigrants, before joining the staff of the Family History Library as a reference consultant.

Later, as the library’s publication coordinator, he developed instructional and reference material for the thousands of Family History Centers supported by the library. He also served as the primary content consultant for the PBS Ancestors television series. In his recent work developing electronic products, Kory’s tasks included serving as product manager for the LDS Family History Suite and also developed the largest genealogical gazetteer and largest genealogical bibliography available on CD-ROM.

As a teacher, Kory has spoken at many local, state, and national genealogical conferences throughout the U.S. and Canada, including NGS, FGS, GENTECH, and, since 1991, the annual BYU Family History Conference. Since 1991, he has also served as adjunct history faculty for that university’s Salt Lake Center. As the founding director of the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, he developed one of the nation’s largest such institutes. He has written extensively, including chapters in The Library, both editions of The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy, as well as numerous articles and book reviews for the Genealogical Journal, Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly, Genealogical Computing, New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, and The Genealogist.

He also writes for both Ancestry and Heritage Quest magazines. He is the author/presenter of Doing Genealogy: Foundations for Successful Research, an audio presentation with workbook. For his most recent book, Printed Sources: A Guide to Published Genealogical Records (Ancestry: Salt Lake City, 1998), he served as overall editor as well as primary author.

Kory is teaching "Documenting the Overland Journey with Diaries" Wednesday at 2:30 pm, "Has It Already Been Done? German Compiled Records" Friday at 8 am, and "City Directories: More than Just Census Substitutes" Saturday at 2:30 pm.