Trish Tolley, BA
Trish Tolley, B.A. (Family History – Genealogy) is a professional genealogist and lecturer living in Salt Lake City. Trish has been working professionally as a genealogist for nearly 10 years. She began her genealogy career after graduation working as a genealogist for the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation. There she worked with scientists, bioinformatics specialists, and those collecting DNA samples from volunteers to develop databases and technology for DNA interpretation.
Trish’s love for teaching others about genealogy and research was fueled by teaching beginning genealogy workshops to Brigham Young University (BYU) students, while completing her own undergraduate work. Upon graduation, her teaching background led to lecturing at genealogy conferences. Trish’s favorite lecture topic is using DNA for genealogy research, and has shared her knowledge of it with audiences from Las Vegas to Brussels, Belgium.
During one of her internships with BYU, Trish worked with the Historical Preservation Department at the Utah State Historical Society. Her work there included formatting and updating transcriptions from over 100 Utah cemeteries for the Historical Society's website. The transcriptions are now part of a searchable database, available at http://history.utah.gov/apps/burials/execute/searchburials [called the Utah Cemetery Inventory]. Trish also photographed many headstones from several Utah cemeteries, and they can be viewed at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tolleygenealogy/ [Utah cemeteries].
Her training at BYU was focused on the Mid-Atlantic United States. However, she has several research specialties. These include:
- U.S. - Mid-Atlantic States
- U.S. - New England
- U.S. - Southern States
- U.S. - Midwestern States
- U.S. - Western States
- Germany and German-speaking Europe
- LDS Ancestry
- DNA Testing and Results Interpretation
