Biography

Jordan Jones
Jor­dan Jones

Jor­dan Jones, founder and own­er of GenealogyMedia.com, is an expe­ri­enced geneal­o­gist, author, book design­er, pub­lish­er, web­mas­ter, and tech­nol­o­gist. He and has worked in sev­er­al tech­ni­cal roles includ­ing tech­ni­cal writer, doc­u­men­ta­tion pro­gram man­ag­er, doc­u­men­ta­tion man­ag­er, senior busi­ness archi­tect, and senior man­ag­er.

He received his BA in “Hon­ors in Eng­lish” with a minor in Phi­los­o­phy (magna cum laude) from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty (1987), North­ridge and his MA in Eng­lish from UC Davis (1991), where he received an hon­or­able men­tion in the Celeste Turn­er Wright / Acad­e­my of Amer­i­can Poets com­pe­ti­tion and a Grad­u­ate Human­i­ties Research Award, and served on the Eng­lish Grad­u­ate Stu­dent, Cre­ative Writ­ing, and Speak­ers Com­mit­tees.

He has pub­lished poet­ry, fic­tion, non-fic­tion, and works in trans­la­tion in numer­ous mag­a­zines and antholo­gies, and is the author of two books of poet­ry, Sand & Coal: Poems (Futharc Press, 1993) and The Wheel: Poems (Leap­ing Dog Press, 2005), both of which con­tain poems on fam­i­ly his­to­ry sub­jects.

Jor­dan has been a geneal­o­gist since 1973; has designed, edit­ed, and pub­lished books and mag­a­zines since 1986; and has designed and pub­lished web­sites since 1995. He is work­ing on becom­ing a cer­ti­fied geneal­o­gist.

Jor­dan has spo­ken at sev­er­al region­al, statewide, and nation­al con­fer­ences, includ­ing the 2009, 2011–2012, and 2014–2017 NGS Fam­i­ly His­to­ry Con­fer­ences and 2014–2016 FGS Con­fer­ences. For a detailed list of talks avail­able, and pre­vi­ous­ly giv­en, see the Talks page. He was pro­filed in the June 2010 Asso­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al Geneal­o­gists Quar­ter­ly mag­a­zine. He was the Birdie Monk Holsclaw Memo­r­i­al Lec­tur­er at the 2011 Nation­al Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety. He was a 2012 recip­i­ent of the Wal­ter Lee Shep­pard Jr. Prize, bestowed annu­al­ly upon geneal­o­gists who demon­strate sound prac­tices and excep­tion­al poten­tial. He received the 2013 award from the North Car­oli­na Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety for Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tions by a Mem­ber.

He served on the board of the North Car­oli­na Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety from 2010–2014 and on the board of the Nation­al Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety from 2010–2019, includ­ing ser­vice as Pres­i­dent (2012–2016), as rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the mul­ti-orga­ni­za­tion Records Preser­va­tion and Access Com­mit­tee, as the chair of the Tech­nol­o­gy Com­mit­tee (2010–2018), and as mem­ber of the gov­er­nance and pub­li­ca­tions com­mit­tees. He wrote the tech­nol­o­gy col­umn for NGS Mag­a­zine for more than ten years (2009–2019).

NGS Mag­a­zine Tech­nol­o­gy Col­umn

  1. “Face­book for Geneal­o­gists,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 35, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2009 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2009), 63.
  2. “Where in the world?: Tech­nol­o­gy tools for locat­ing a place,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 35, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2009 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2009), 59.
  3. “Dig­i­tal archiv­ing: How to make and store dig­i­tal back­ups of your audio, video, and pho­tog­ra­phy,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 35, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2009 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2009), 59.
  4. “Pre­serv­ing your dig­i­tal lega­cy: Back­ing up your data,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 36, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2010 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2010), 59.
  5. “How trends in tech­nol­o­gy will affect geneal­o­gy,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 36, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2010 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2010), 59.
  6. “Cyber secu­ri­ty: How to pro­tect your­self in a con­nect­ed world,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 36, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2010 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2010), 59.
  7. “Orga­niz­ing, opti­miz­ing, and find­ing infor­ma­tion in PDFs,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 36, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2010 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2010), 59.
  8. “Keep­ing your com­put­er up to date,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 37, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2011 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2011), 59.
  9. “Using meta­da­ta,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 37, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2011 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2011), 59.
  10. “Open access, pub­lic domain, and bib­li­o­graph­ic tools” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 37, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2011 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2011), 58.
  11. “Dig­i­tal Cam­era Tech­nolo­gies: A Geneal­o­gist’s Guide” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 37, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2011 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2011), 58.
  12. “Cloud Com­put­ing” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 38, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2012 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2012), 59.
  13. “Geneal­o­gy in your pock­et” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 38, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2012 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2012), 58.
  14. “Browsers and plug-ins” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 38, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2012 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2012), 57.
  15. “Using tech­nol­o­gy to pre­pare for a research trip” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 38, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2012 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2012), 58.
  16. “Cloud com­put­ing update” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 39, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2013 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2013).
  17. “Records preser­va­tion and access,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 39, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2013 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia, 2013), 60.
  18. “Big data and geneal­o­gy,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 39, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2013 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2013), 61.
  19. “Tech­nol­o­gy roundup for the hol­i­days and the new year,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 39, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2013 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2013), 60.
  20. “Ever­note for geneal­o­gists,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 40, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2014 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2014).
  21. “Elec­tron­ic resources to enrich your under­stand­ing of his­to­ry,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 40, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2014 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2014), 61.
  22. “A genealogist’s guide to dig­i­tal estate plan­ning,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 40, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2014 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2014), 62.
  23. “Be less seden­tary,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 40, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2014 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2014), 62.
  24. “Orga­niz­ing your elec­tron­ic files,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 41, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2015 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2015), 62.
  25. “Cyber secu­ri­ty,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 41, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2015 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia, 2015), 62.
  26. “Pub­lish­ing your Fam­i­ly His­to­ry,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 41, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2015 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia, 2015), 62.
  27. “Elec­tron­ic resources to build con­text,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 42, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2016 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2016), 62–64.
  28. “Find­ing Your Way: Online Sources for Maps and Place Names,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 42, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2016 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2016), 62–64.
  29. “Cloud Com­put­ing Update,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 43, No. 1, Jan-Mar 2017 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2016), 62–65.
  30. “Record­ing Tools for Audio Fam­i­ly His­to­ry,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 43, No. 3, Jul-Sep 2017 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2017), 49–51.
  31. “Search method­olo­gies for geneal­o­gists,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 43, No. 4, Oct-Dec 2017 (Falls Church, Vir­ginia: 2017), 35–39.
  32. “Note-Tak­ing Soft­ware,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 44, No. 1, Jan-Mar 2018 (Falls Church, Vir­ginia, 2018), 61–63.
  33. “The Tech­nol­o­gy for Keep­ing Secrets,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 44, No. 3, Jul-Sep 2018 (Falls Church, Vir­ginia: 2019), 55–57.
  34. “Orga­niz­ing Geneal­o­gy Files and Notes,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 44, No. 4, Oct-Dec 2018 (Falls Church, Vir­ginia: 2018), 55–57.
  35. “Task Man­age­ment for Geneal­o­gists,” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 45, No. 1, Jan-Mar 2019 (Falls Church, Vir­ginia: 2019), 53–56.

NGS Mag­a­zine Pres­i­den­t’s Let­ter

  1. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 38, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2012 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2012), 2.
  2. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 39, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2013 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2013), 2.
  3. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 39, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2013 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2013), 2
  4. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 39, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2013 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2013), 2
  5. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 39, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2013 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2013), 2.
  6. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 40, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2014 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2014), 2.
  7. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 40, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2014 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2014), 2.
  8. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 40, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2014 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2014), 2.
  9. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 40, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2014 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2014), 2.
  10. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 41, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2015 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2015), 2.
  11. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 41, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2015 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2015), 2.
  12. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 41, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2015 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2015), 2.
  13. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 41, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2015 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2015), 2.
  14. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 42, No. 1, Jan–Mar 2016 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2016), 2.
  15. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 42, No. 2, Apr–Jun 2016 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2016), 2.
  16. “Pres­i­den­t’s mes­sage” NGS Mag­a­zine, Vol. 42, No. 3, Jul–Sep 2016 (Arling­ton, Vir­ginia: 2016), 2.

Oth­er Pieces

  1. “A David­son Coun­ty Birth Record for Alexan­der Hill,” North Car­oli­na Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety Jour­nal, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Raleigh, North Car­oli­na: Feb­ru­ary 2010), 74.
  2. “Adobe InDe­sign CS4,”  APG Quar­ter­ly, Vol. 25, No. 2, June 2010, 67.
  3. “How to Use Ever­note for Geneal­o­gy Research,” Ever­note Blog, 19 Novem­ber 2012 (Red­wood City, Cal­i­for­nia: 2012; orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/11/19/how-to-use-ever­note-for-genealog­i­cal-research/ : accessed 30 May 2016; archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20121230002441/https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/11/19/how-to-use-evernote-for-genealogical-research/ : accessed 11 July 2020).

Attended

  • NGS Fam­i­ly His­to­ry Con­fer­ence
    • 2007 — Rich­mond, VA
    • 2008 — Kansas City, MO
    • 2009 — Raleigh, NC (speak­er)
    • 2010 — Salt Lake City, UT
    • 2011 — Charleston, SC (speak­er; Birdie Monk Holsclaw Memo­r­i­al Lec­tur­er)
    • 2012 — Cincin­nati, OH (speak­er)
    • 2013 — Las Vegas, NV (host)
    • 2014 — Rich­mond, VA (host and speak­er)
    • 2015 — St. Charles, MO (host and speak­er)
    • 2016 — Ft. Laud­erdale, FL (host and speak­er)
    • 2017 — Raleigh, NC (speak­er)
    • 2018 — Grand Rapids, MI
    • 2020 — Vir­tu­al
    • 2021 — Vir­tu­al
    • 2022 — Sacra­men­to, CA (speak­er)
  • IGHR — Sam­ford — Sam­ford University’s Insti­tute of Geneal­o­gy and His­tor­i­cal Research:
    • 2008 — “Advanced Mil­i­tary Research III: From the Mex­i­can War through the Civ­il War” (Craig R. Scott, coor­di­na­tor; Rick Sayre; Pamela Sayre)
    • 2009 — “Vir­ginia: Her Records and Her Laws” (Bar­bara Vines Lit­tle, coor­di­na­tor; Vic Dunn; Lloyd Bock­struck)
    • 2010 — “Vir­gini­a’s Land and Mil­i­tary Con­flicts & Their Effect on Migra­tion” (Bar­bara Vines Lit­tle, coor­di­na­tor; Vic Dunn)
    • 2011 — “Advanced Method­ol­o­gy” (Eliz­a­beth Shown Mills, coor­di­na­tor; with Craig Roberts Scott, Rick Sayre, and Tom Jones)
    • 2013 — “Writ­ing and Pub­lish­ing for Geneal­o­gists” (Tom Jones, coor­di­na­tor)
  • Gen-Fed — For­mer­ly, The Nation­al Insti­tute on Genealog­i­cal Research (NIGR)
    • 2009 — Wash­ing­ton, DC and Col­lege Park, MD
  • SLIG
    • 2020 — “Vir­ginia” (Bar­bara Vines Lit­tle, coor­di­na­tor; Vic Dunn)
    • Fall 2020 — “In-Depth Swedish & Finnish Research” (Jeff Svare, coor­di­na­tor)
    • 2021 — “Intro­duc­tion to Genet­ic Geneal­o­gy” (Paul Wood­bury, coor­di­na­tor; with Ang­ie Bush, Melis­sa A. John­son, Gretchen Jor­gensen, Leah Larkin, Dana Leeds, and Karen Stan­bary)
  • FGS Con­fer­ence & APG PMC— Fed­er­a­tion of Genealog­i­cal Soci­eties Con­fer­ence and Asso­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al Geneal­o­gists Pro­fes­sion­al Man­age­ment Con­fer­ence
    • 2009 — Lit­tle Rock, AR
    • 2010 — Knoxville, TN
    • 2012 — Birm­ing­ham, AL
    • 2013 — Ft. Wayne, IN
    • 2014 — San Anto­nio, TX (speak­er)
    • 2015 — Salt Lake City, UT (speak­er)
    • 2016 — Spring­field, IL (speak­er)
  • Root­sTech— Fam­il­y­Search Geneal­o­gy and Tech­nol­o­gy Con­fer­ence
    • 2011 — Salt Lake City, UT
    • 2012 — Salt Lake City, UT
    • 2013 — Salt Lake City, UT
    • 2014 — Salt Lake City, UT
    • 2015 — Salt Lake City, UT

Memberships

  • Geneal­o­gy
    • Life Mem­ber­ships
      • CGS — Cal­i­for­nia Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety and Library
      • NGS — Nation­al Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety
        • Tech­nol­o­gy Colum­nist and Edi­tor, NGS Mag­a­zine (2009–2019)
        • Chair, Tech­nol­o­gy Com­mit­tee (2010–2018)
        • Direc­tor (2010–2012)
        • Pres­i­dent  (2012–2016)
        • Past Pres­i­dent (2016–Jan. 2019)
        • Chair, Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (2019–2020)
      • VGS — Vir­ginia Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety — for­mer Web­mas­ter
      • UGA — Utah Genealog­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion
    • Cur­rent Annu­al Mem­ber­ships
      • APG — Assn of Pro­fes­sion­al Geneal­o­gists
      • Gen-Fed Alum­ni Assn — For­mer­ly, NIGR Alum­ni Asso­ci­a­tion
      • NSGS — Nebras­ka State Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety
      • NMGS — New Mex­i­co Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety
        • Vice Pres­i­dent
        • Tech­nol­o­gy Chair
        • Con­fer­ence Co-Chair
    • Past Mem­ber­ships
      • GSG (Genealog­i­cal Speak­ers Guild)
      • ISFHWE (Inter­na­tion­al Soci­ety of Fam­i­ly His­to­ry Writ­ers and Edi­tors)
      • NCAPG (North Car­oli­na Chap­ter of the Assn of Pro­fes­sion­al Geneal­o­gists) — for­mer Web­mas­ter
      • NCGS (North Car­oli­na Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety) — for­mer Direc­tor (2010–2014) and for­mer web­mas­ter
      • NEHGS (New Eng­land His­toric Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety)
      • SNCA (Soci­ety of North Car­oli­na Archivists)
      • WCGS (Wake Coun­ty (NC) Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety)
      • WVGS (West Vir­ginia Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety)
  • Engi­neer­ing
    • AIIM (The Assn for Infor­ma­tion and Image Man­age­ment — Direc­tor (2015–2017)
    • IEEE (Insti­tute of Elec­tri­cal and Elec­tron­ics Engi­neers) — For­mer mem­ber
    • PMI (Project Man­age­ment Insti­tute)
    • ISACA (Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems Audit and Con­trol Asso­ci­a­tion, although it gen­er­al­ly only goes by the acronym)
    • Scrum Alliance
  • Alum­ni / Aca­d­e­m­ic
  • Envi­ron­men­tal­ism
    • Sier­ra Club — Life Mem­ber
    • NRDC (Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil) — Coun­cil of 1000
    • PATC (Potomac Appalachi­an Trail Club) — Life Mem­ber

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