ROOTS & BRANCHES

What’s a “Hep Cat?” That was the questions posed in comments on my Facebook feed after the Ohio Genealogical Society conference dubbed as such in promoting its upcoming annual event, which has been a consistent spring gathering for decades. Truthfully, I was a little late to the party, only becoming a speaker for the first …

I’ve spent the last couple of “Roots & Branches” columns talking about an open records lawsuit and I understand that some probably have been left with the impression that I’m a curmudgeon who’s in favor of keeping records from genealogists. Well, I won’t dispute the curmudgeon part. But, no, I’m not “in favor” of closed …

I’m from a generation that doesn’t think “move fast and break things” is the coolest slogan ever created. Last week’s “Roots & Branches” gave some of my thoughts about a suit involving New York professional genealogist Alec Ferretti, a director at “Reclaim the Records,” a group that specializes in suing government entities to force access …

It’s rare that genealogy makes newspaper headlines but the second half of December is usually a “slow news cycle” so I guess it’s not surprising that an article appeared on Christmas Day with a blaring click-bait title of “Ancestry.com says it owns copies of PA historical records.” That misstated the issue a bit—copies of the …