ROOTS & BRANCHES

An occasional research and lecture topic of mine for the last couple of years has been what I call “The riddle of the Pennsylvania Germans as enslavers.” It started with hearing and reading vastly different assessments that tried to quantify the involvement of Pennsylvania Germans in enslavement, and gained momentum when I gave a webinar …

My friend and fervent “Roots & Branches” reader Eric “Rick” Bender of New Mexico often has some words to say about the column. When I noted a couple of months ago that one of my New Year’s resolutions was to learn more about what ethical uses of artificial intelligence there are to help with my …

It was about three decades ago that Elisa Scalise Powell, a Certified Genealogist of some note from the Pittsburgh area, passed the good word on to me at what a great annual conference the Ohio Genealogical Society put on. She also enthused about how many folks who came to the conference had Pennsylvania ancestors. Since …

If there’s one genealogy conference that I consider to be a “can’t miss,” it’s the biennial event that was started by the International German Genealogy Partnership in 2017 and has survived and thrived through the COVID-19 pandemic and the changing world that has wrought. This year’s edition is under the auspices of the IGGP Partner …