Jari C. Honora and Jenny Rizzo Irwin who hold the Certified Genealogist credential will share their personal journeys to certification on 8 February 2024 (8:00 - 9:00 pm Eastern)

There is no cost for this event but registration is required. 

Jari C. Honora, a Certified Genealogist®, is a New Orleans native & resident and proud Louisiana Creole with roots dating back more than two centuries along Bayou Lafourche and the German-Acadian Coast. He has two decades of experience researching families and institutions in south Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.

As one of four contributors to the CreoleGen blog, he regularly shares research findings on Louisiana Creole people and institutions. He also has a strong interest in the history of fraternal orders and benevolent societies and in the Black Catholic experience. He loves his homeland of Louisiana and is enthralled by her good people, good food, good music, and unique Creole heritage.

He also does historical and genealogical research professionally, including work for the TV programs Finding Your Roots and We’ll Meet Again, and the Georgetown Memory Project. He has presented at numerous historical and genealogical conferences including the International Black Genealogy Summit; American Educational Research Association; Southern Historical Association; Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society (AAHGS); and the Canadian Society for Eighteenth Century Studies.

Jenny Rizzo Irwin, Certified Genealogist®, is the owner of Generations Revealed, L.L.C., where she specializes in United States research with a geographic focus on New York State, New York City, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut. An experienced forensic genealogist, Jenny also conducts kinship research for the U.S. military to assist in the accounting of missing service members from World War II.

In addition to her client work, Jenny serves as Editorial Assistant for the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. She was the recipient of the 2021 Donna Hansen Peterson Memorial Scholarship and the 2022 Ancestry ProGenealogists Scholarship. Her work appears in the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly, the National Genealogical Society Quarterly (accepted for publication), and the Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey (accepted for publication).

Jenny’s leadership positions within the genealogy community include serving as incoming January 2024 President of the New England Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), as a Trustee on the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) Education Fund, as an at-large board member of the APG Forensic Genealogy Special Interest Group (SIG), and as a committee member for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG). When not working on client projects or with colleagues within the genealogy field, Jenny enjoys researching her own family’s roots in New York, New England, and Italy.