ROOTS & BRANCHES

There was a time—a time that doesn’t seem like it was too awfully long ago, reality to the contrary!—when I inevitably was the youngest person in a roomful of genealogists in a meeting or at a conference. Starting hardcore family history at age 24 will do that to you. Because while I’m far from the …

Let me get this out of the way: I am not anti-Find A Grave. True, I’ve had my differences with some of the more competitive aspects displayed by people who create memorials for the recently deceased with whom they have no relationship. But it’s also true that this database of “final dispositions” accompanied by a …

It’s a committee of the National Genealogical Society that decides on nominees for the National Genealogy Hall of Fame. I’ve been somewhat acquainted with their process for a couple of decades because during my four years as executive director of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania we helped make the case for two people who had …