ROOTS & BRANCHES

People have been quoting, misquoting and taking out of context the saying, “There are no second acts in American life,” ever since it was first used by F. Scott Fitzgerald in his essay called “My Lost City” about his beloved New York.

But despite the caution contained in those words, I’m about to embark on my own “second act.”

After three years in which my main gig was editing research reports for Legacy Tree Genealogists, I have taken a contract position as interim executive director for the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania.

What makes this a “second act” is that I was executive director for the society from 1999 to 2003, in what was my first job after a career as a newspaper copy editor.

Why am I willing to defy the conventional interpretation of Fitzgerald’s words (there’s some dispute about that interpretation, but let’s lay that aside, since it’s, well, an aside)?

Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania has a storied and somewhat uneven heritage as an organization. It began in the nineteenth century as a committee of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and, in fact, remained headquartered in the HSP building for a century, then moved to several sites around Philadelphia.

I’m coming back to the society because I see an organization that has some passionate board members who have started projects such as becoming a FamilySearch Affiliate Library and acquiring the collection of noted Kensington historian Kenneth W. Milano.

I also know I’m not the same person I was 20 years ago. Then I was just taking my first steps out into the larger genealogical community; now I’ve been around the block a few times and am ready to tackle the challenges faced by any 21^st century genealogy organization.

I asked to be called “interim” because at going on age 62, I’m not looking for a long-term hitch plus I don’t think that’s what GSP really needs from me, either. I’m looking to take the skills I’ve honed over the last 20 years and give the society a boost over the next year or two in every direction, including restarting programming and publications, and then set the table for future staff.

GSP at its best can serve the genealogy needs—in terms of assistance, research aids, programming, and publications—of the one out of four people nationally who have at least one ancestor who stepped foot in Pennsylvania.

Getting the society to its best is what I’ve now started tackling full time!

GSP’s website URL is https://genpa.org and is located at 2100 Byberry Road, Suite 111, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19116.