About the Navigator

Judy Sheppard Huber started Prairie Family Publishers in 1985. She authors and publishes books of interest to genealogists doing research in North Dakota and South Dakota. She has traveled extensively in these two states to bring readers insight into what records are available and what needs to be documented. She has become very interested in homesteading and is developing a first person account of a woman homesteader.
Judy Sheppard Huber is a wife of a South Dakota farmer. She is the mother of four children. She became interested in genealogy after the death of her father in 1981 and began contacting relatives. Each contact grew into more relatives and eventually she collected enough information for a book on her Sheppard family.

    Through her research she found three branches of her family came to Dakota Territory in the early 1880's and another one in 1900. History of Dakota Territory came as a natural outgrowth of wanting to know what was going on in her ancestor's lives that prompted their move to the area and wanting to know what their lives were like at that time.
Her genealogical interest lead to being editor of the South Dakota Genealogical Society Quarterly for over eight years.
In 1996 she became involved in the USGENWEB project, an online organization that assists people in finding their roots. Each county in each state has a coordinator that hosts a page for that county. Judy has three counties, Jerauld in South Dakota and Sargent and Dickey in North Dakota, the counties where her ancestors homesteaded.
     Involement in family history has lead Huber to write a book called Keys to Unlocking Family History, in which she outlines steps to take to locate your family. Huber has taught genealogy in her local school and uses these lessons with sixth graders in their local or state history series.
    The Family Compass was started to help other get into family history and to answer their questions by pointing them in the right direction.
    She is currently research her Sheppard, Cooper, Parke, Severson, Morgan, Wylie, Holden, and Garvin family roots. She also has information on her husband's Huber, Schlaht and Eisenbeisz families.

Speaker Services

Huber is available for talks on Prairie Rose: A Homesteader in Petticoats, Teaching Genealogy to Kids, Genealogy and Your Medical History, Researching in North Dakota, Researching in South Dakota, A Case Study in Norwegian Genealogy, Homesteaders in Petticoats and Recording Cemetery Information. Contact Huber by calling (605) 285-6337. Or e-mail TheFamilyCompass@yahoo.com