Kent Cutkomp

Description:
With billions of records at your disposal, where do you even begin? The MyHeritage Search Engine is a state-of-the-art tool that can help you search for information about your relatives online. In a matter of seconds, it can search across billions of German historical records to pinpoint the ones most relevant to your research. Its advanced algorithms can identify spelling and phonetic variations, understand nicknames, and handle synonyms and ethnic variations. Daniel will show you how to use the MyHeritage Search Engine to find information about your relatives quickly and efficiently.
 

Bio:
Dedicated to Genealogy since 1986, Daniel was the teacher and the study guide editor of the family history project "Searching for My Roots" in Venezuela for 15 years. He is involved in several crowdsource digitization and transcription projects, and holds a board-level position at The Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA). Since 2006 Daniel has been working at MyHeritage liaising with genealogy societies, bloggers, and media, as well as lecturing, and attending conferences around the world.

 

Dan Munson will present the “Fascinating Kochendorfer Family Story: Minnesota History Comes Alive”.

 

This is the story of the German immigrant Kochendorfer family and the U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862.  It describes their travel to Minnesota, the Homestead Act, what happened to the family and an update about their many descendants.

 

The story is the subject of Dan Munson’s book Malice Towards None, a Minnesota history during and after the civil war.  Dan also wrote “The Dramatic and Historic Kochendorfer Family Story” article which appeared in the 2026 Spring-Summer issue of the Germanic Genealogy Journal.