ROOTS & BRANCHES

The many faithful readers of “Roots & Branches” have may tire of the fact that I never tire of writing about German genealogy. But with a pedigree that’s overwhelmingly German … I can’t help but get excited about this specific ethnicity. And that’s also probably why my two favorite conferences in the two decades I’ve …

FamilySearch.org, the genealogy mega-website owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has a mega-conference upcoming in a couple of weeks. The Mormon organization has sponsored a large in-person wintertime conference in Salt Lake City called RootsTech for a decade with celebrity keynote speakers, hundreds of live genealogy presenters, and a vibrant exhibit …

Last week’s “Roots & Branches” column reviewed the late Corinne P. Earnest’s third edition of Papers for Birth Dayes: Guide to the Fraktur Artists and Scriveners. It’s a massive four-volume compilation of Earnest’s life work, again amply securing her reputation as the “Queen of Fraktur.” As I noted last week, Earnest helped me on many …

Fraktur, the Pennsylvania German folk art often in the form of baptismal certificates, has been a fascination of mine for a long time. There’s the practical aspect to it: Such certificates—which also exist for marriages and sometimes other life events—are sometimes the only extant recording that exists for that birth, baptism or marriage. And there’s …