As promised I’m sharing key learning from my recent attendance at the National Genealogical Society Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. While there, I learned of a site that I have found intriguing and interesting.
I mentioned in past blogs the importance of understand more about the places and events that occurred during your ancestors’ time. This knowledge is valuable when you try to figure out everything from where to look next for family records to understanding the motivation behind a family’s move. Imagine if you had digital access to local histories, historical data as well as a plethora of topics at your fingertips. The HathiTrust provides just that. According to their website, HathiTrust Digital Library is “a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.” You can access the site here. Do you have royal fever today as we watch the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle? I had another blog planned this week but thought I’d talk a bit about royalty and genealogy. We’ve all seen charts where someone has “traced their roots” back to Charlemagne. While I imagine that there are some who may fall into that category, there are very few of us with a genealogical line that we can trace back to royalty.
While we may not have such an illustrious heritage, our ancestors were instrumental in the daily lives of these kingdoms. The Rulers of Kingdoms relied on countless servants, advisors, soldiers and staff for the day-to-day running of their kingdom. Imagine an entire conference dedicated to genealogy with a focus on helping fellow researching by sharing nuggets of wisdom and great stories!
Last week I attended the National Genealogical Society (NGS) Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This was the first opportunity that I’ve had to attend a national conference and it did not disappoint. The caliber of the speakers, the great organization and planning, the plethora of exhibit vendors and the fellowship of the participants was outstanding. As I regroup and review materials I’ll continue to share key learnings and helpful links with you. When I started doing genealogy, the wealth of data online that we have today didn’t exist. Often the key to finding more information about my family was to visit or write letters to far away locations, hoping to contact the right people who might know our relatives or who knew someone who did. Today we have a plethora of information online through some wonderful sites. This certainly makes genealogy more fun with almost instant gratification of finding a missing record. Despite all this data at our fingertips, something that hasn’t changed is the importance of local genealogical societies.
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AuthorWith a lifelong passion for genealogy and history, the author enjoys the opportunity to share genealogy tidbits, inspiring others to research and write their family story. Archives
July 2024
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