Alex Cowan

Crista Cowan has been involved in family history research for over 25 years and actively engaged in client research since 2002. Her specialties include descendancy research, Jewish immigration, and sharing family history with the genealogically challenged.

Genealogy education (at all levels) is something Crista is very passionate about, this passion leading her to present at over 30 local, regional, national and international genealogy conferences since 2006. She volunteers at her local LDS Family History Center and has taught seven, 12-week courses in Beginning Genealogy. She prefers the concept of teaching to lecturing and believes we should focus more on teaching people not lessons. She also believes that much more can be done to educate the public about family history and is actively exploring (and creating) those opportunities. As such, her business is quickly morphing from a family history research firm into a genealogy coaching service.

Crista is an active member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, currently serving a second term as president of the Utah Valley chapter (of which she is a founding member). She has been employed at Ancestry.com since 2004. Past positions there include European Content Acquisition Manager and Document Preservation Indexing Manager. Her current role is Community Alliance Manager for the Ancestry World Archives Project. These roles have provided her with a unique view into the need for increased efforts in record preservation and access, networked contacts within archives and repositories around the world, and an understanding of some of the challenges facing those institutions.