Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

Dr Gill Draper, FRHist. Soc, FSA. will be speaking on - 

Beyond the Grave: Challenges of Family Reconstruction Before the 18^th Century

Session 4A, 15.15-16.15

This illustrated lecture explores the challenges of taking a family history back in time beyond the 18th century, perhaps even to the Middle Ages. Using the example of the Godfreys of Lydd, Kent, it considers material from church brasses, plaques, monuments, wills and antiquarian pedigrees. The lecture argues that two technological innovations make family reconstruction in the distant past seem ever more possible: the huge amount of material now available online and the use of relational databases like Access to bring together people with the same surname. It reviews both the pitfalls and the potential of this approach.

Dr Gill Draper is the Events and Development Officer of the British Association for Local History and an associate lecturer at the University of Kent. She speaks regularly at family and local history fairs including Who Do You Think You Are at Olympia.  She takes training sessions on using archives, and liaises with BBC Hands on History  in the production of online resources for the public such as its Norman Walks.

Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

Jeremy Goldsmith will be speaking on - 

Parish Registers: Problems and Progress

 Session 3A,  14.00-15.00

Parish registers have often been regarded as the primary source of vital statistics prior to civil registration (1538-1837), though this was not the purpose of their creation. Their effective use must also take into account the problems of migration, non-registration and non-conformity. Over the past century, public access to registers has been aided by the establishment of County Record Offices, while the transcription and publication of registers has enabled the wide distribution of much genealogical data. More recently, the searching of registers across parish boundaries has been facilitated by the development of electronic databases and digitization of the original records.

Jeremy Goldsmith is an historian and genealogist, and has been fascinated by family history since childhood. After studying at the University of London, he has worked as a professional genealogist since 2006, and became a Member of AGRA three years later. He has a particular interest in the sources of genealogy, and a number of articles in the Genealogists’ Magazine, Family Tree Magazine, and Your Family Tree, have aimed to explain the use and limitations of legal, military, and parochial records. He is a member of the Society of Genealogists, and is currently Programme Secretary of the Heraldry Society.

In the recent past he has given lectures to the Heraldry Society and the London Branch of the Yorkshire Family History Group. Later this year (2010) he will be addressing the Oxford University Heraldry Society and the Annual Meeting of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy.

Technorati Tags: Breaking the Barriers- Innovative Genealogy, Centenary Conference 2011, Family History Conference, Society of Genealogists

Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

Juliet Nicolson will be our key note speaker. She will be speaking at the final session of the day when the conference will come to together to hear her talk about - 

The Perfect Summer. Dancing into the Shadow in 1911

Session 6 (final), 17.45-18.30

The summer of 1911– the year the SoG was founded – is seen through the eyes of a series of exceptional individuals including a debutante, a choir boy, a politician, a trade unionist, a butler and the Queen. A new king was crowned and audiences swarmed to Covent Garden to see the Ballet Russes and Nijinsky’s gravity-defying leaps. The aristocracy was at play, bounding from house party to the next; the socialite Lady Michelham travelled with her nineteen yards of pearls while Rupert Brooke a 23-year-old poet spent the summer swimming in the river at Grantchester. But perfection was over-reaching itself. The rumble of thunder from the summer’s storms presaged not only the bloody war years ahead: the country was brought to near standstill by industrial strikes, and unrest, exposing the chasm between privileged and poor as if the heat was torturing those imprisoned in society’s straitjacket and stifled by the city smog. Children, seeking relief from the scorching sun, drowned in village ponds. What the protagonists could not have known is that they were playing out the backdrop to WWI; in a few years time the world, let alone Britain, would never be the same again. Juliet Nicolson illuminates a turning point in history.

Juliet Nicolson is the granddaughter of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West and the daughter of Nigel Nicolson. A journalist and writer, her books include The Perfect Summer: Dancing into Shadow in 1911 and The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War. She read English at Oxford University and has worked in publishing in the UK and the States. She has two daughters and lives in Kent and Sussex.

The Society of Genealogists thanks the Halsted Trust for sponsoring this speaker

Technorati Tags: Breaking the Barriers- Innovative Genealogy, Centenary Conference 2011, Family History Conference, Society of Genealogists

Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

Dr Nick Barratt will be kicking off our confernce. His talk is entitled - 

From Memory to Digital Record: Personal Heritage, Family History and Archives in the 21st Century

Session 1A, 10.30-11.30

An examination of the rise of personal heritage and personal archiving, alongside changes to the way history is disseminated, researched and consumed – mainly driven by broadcast media and the Internet. The challenges to traditional archives are many and varied, and I examine the role of genealogy in expanding the use of non-traditional archives, and the growing influence of oral history and eye-witness accounts that are usually neglected by academic historians.

Nick is  a TV presenter and commentator (credits include WDYTYA, History Mysteries, So You Think You’re Royal, Hidden House History, Secrets from the Attic, Live the Dream: As Seen on Screen ) He is Editor in Chief of  Your Family History magazine and Chief Executive of Sticks Research Agency since 2000. He was the original genealogical consultant and lead researcher for BBC’s show Who Do You Think You Are?. He has writtten various books, including the Who Do You Think You Are Encyclopaedia of Family History, Tracing the History of Your House, and Guide to your Ancestors’ Lives. Nick is a former columnist for the Daily Telegraph.  He is also member of the Society of Genealogists Education Committee.

Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

Schelly Talalay Dardashti is joining us all the way from Israel.   Her talk is entitled - 

It’s In Our Genes: A DNA Project Case Study

Session 1B, 10.30-11.30

This session (by project co-founder/co-administrator) presents the structure of creating and organizing any DNA project, using an established project as a case study. It covers setting project goals and joining criteria; how to publicize the project; persuading participants to join; results and surprises, advertising results and communicating with participants.

The program focuses on IberianAshkenaz DNA Project at FamilyTreeDNA.com as a case study, but is equally applicable to a DNA project covering any ethnicity. This project attempts to proves the family stories of some Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews that their families were of Sephardic origin (with roots in Spain or Portugal).

A journalist, blogger, online instructor and international speaker and writer, Schelly Talalay Dardashti concentrates on genealogy. For more than 20 years, she has traced her families of interest across Spain, Belarus, Lithuania and Iran. She writes the award-winning Jewish genealogy blog, Tracing the Tribe (http://tracingthetribe.blogspot.com), as well as the general-topic MyHeritage Genealogy Blog  (http://genblog.myheritage.com) . She received the 2010 NGS Award for Excellence (“Ties that Bind,” Jewish research strategies, Family Tree Magazine, September 2009),  has credits in many newspapers and magazines; was the Jerusalem Post genealogy columnist (1999-2005, “It’s All Relative); and administers/ co-administers several DNA projects at FamilyTreeDNA.com.

Schelly appears with the support of the Halsted Trust

Technorati Tags: Breaking the Barriers- Innovative Genealogy, Centenary Conference 2011, Family History Conference, Society of Genealogists

Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

Sharon Hintze’s talk is called -

The past, present and future of records preservation and public access

Session 3B, 14.00-15.00

This talk will review the changes to preservation of and access to genealogical records d over the last 100 years and will then describe the current state-of-the-art tools and future developments. Included will be an assessment as to how genealogists have contributed to and adapted to these changes.

Sharon Hintze is Director of the London Family History Centre in South Kensington.  She is a frequent speaker at family history venues including Who Do You Think You Are Live, the Guild of One Name Studies, and The National Archives.  Sharon is a former Trustee of the Society of Genealogists.

Technorati Tags: Breaking the Barriers- Innovative Genealogy, Centenary Conference 2011, Family History Conference, Society of Genealogists

Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

Else Churchill’s talk will be called -

I’ve got a little list – sources for the “Long 18^th century” 1688-1837 

 Session 5B, 16.30-17.30

An overview of the sources that can supplement the deficiencies of parish registers using what are known in the Society of Genealogists’ Library as “local lists”. These were often generated for ad-hoc need or used as census substitutes. Lists  could be generated by the parish such as the duties on baptism and marriages 1695-1706 or for the provision for parish poor; lists generated for defense such as musters and militia; lists generated by the state for taxation and lists of voters and ratepayers. Some of these underused treasures of the SoG will be digitized for the forthcoming business index and other projects.

Else Churchill is the Genealogist at the Society of Genealogists. She has nearly 30 years of experience as a professional genealogical librarian, researcher and teacher and has for many years been responsible for the external liaison and campaigns of the SoG. She also leads the Society’s education and publishing programmes as well as being the Society’s subject specialist. She has contributed to articles to for the British Genealogical Press, National Media and of course the Society’s own Genealogists Magazine. She has written modules on advanced genealogy techniques and sources for the BBC History Family History website and has acted as a genealogical consultant for the BBC. She lectures regularly for the Society of Genealogists, The National Archives and for local groups around the United Kingdom. She has lectured extensively in Canada, New Zealand and the USA. Else is one of the Society of Genealogists lecture team and a tutor for the joint SoG/Pharos Family History Skills and Strategies (Intermediate) Distance Learning Course.

Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

David Fletcher’s after dinner talk will be called -

1942 ….. in afternoon went to Soc of Genealogists, cost £3.3.0, a fine place.” 

time – Conference Banquet.

A fascinating glimpse into the diarised accounts of genealogical research undertaken by two members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England, the first in 1889 and the second in the 1940’s.

David George Fletcher BSc(Hons) CEng FIStructE MIFE is a Chartered Structural Engineer by profession and is a Senior Engineer for the National House-building Council [NHBC]. He is a Past-Chairman of the East Midlands Branch of the Institution of Structural Engineers and regularly gives presentations, in-house and to his Branch, on topics associated with structural engineering. In his free time he is an avid amateur genealogist researching personal lines in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire and assisting others with research in Scotland, Wales and England. He has been a member of the Society of Genealogists since 2004. He serves as the Family History Director of the Lincoln Family History and in the bi-monthly Family History Fireside has given presentations on topics such as: “Family Records”, “Parish Registers”, “Family History – getting started and going backward”, and “On-line Family History – how we got our English BMD’s”; these were 60 minutes presentations. He instigated the first “Fletcher Gathering” held in Luton, Beds. in 2009.

Technorati Tags: Breaking the Barriers- Innovative Genealogy, Centenary Conference 2011, Family History Conference, Society of Genealogists

Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

Dr Colin R Chapman will be speaking on -

The Progress of Our Profile – 100 years of the Society of Genealogists 

 Session 2A, 11.45-12.45

An illustrated account of the Society’s development from 1911 to 2011 and its impact on international genealogical research. Born in borrowed premises, the Society embraced interests across the United Kingdom, British Empire and then worldwide, collecting unique and transcribed materials into its ever-expanding prestigious library. Public access to Government historical papers and archives throughout the past 100 years has been championed by the Society voicing forceful arguments to national committees and consultation groups. With a century of expertise from paper-based notes to electronic storage and delivery of data and documentation, the SoG continues to advance with the times

Colin is a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists, and former member of its Executive Committee.  An international lecturer and author of 14 genealogically-related books he was Founder of six county-based family history societies, the President of three and Patron of another. A Freeman of the City of London and formerly a professional industrial chemist and engineer with international experience, Colin has has spoken regularly in the Society’s lecture programme in recent years and lectures weekly somewhere in the world on social, local and family history

Technorati Tags: Breaking the Barriers- Innovative Genealogy, Centenary Conference 2011, Family History Conference, Society of Genealogists

Speakers at the Society of Genealogists’ Conference

Breaking the Barriers – Innovative Genealogy in the 20th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011

Dr Bruce Durie  FLS, FSAScot, FHEA  will be talking on -

The Future of Genealogy Education 

Session 2B, 11.45-12.45

Genealogy is at a cusp – increasing professionalism requires more formal educational provision, and the public is coming to expect educational and professional credentials.

At the same time, Genealogical Studies is becoming a recognised academic discipline. How will this be delivered, and what are the implications for existing and intending professional genealogists.

Dr Bruce Durie is Course Director, Genealogical Studies at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, where he is responsible for the postgraduate professional Genealogical Studies programme (up to MSc) as well as a cluster of lower-level courses.

Author of over 16 books on historical, IT and genealogical subjects plus crime fiction, and many magazine and newspaper articles, he is best known for weekly appearances on “Digging Up Your Roots” and “A House with a Past” for the BBC.

His latest book is Scottish Genealogy (The History Press, 2010)

Dr Bruce Durie appears with the support of the Halsted Trust

Technorati Tags: Breaking the Barriers- Innovative Genealogy, Centenary Conference 2011, Family History Conference, Society of Genealogists