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

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

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

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

Beverley Rowe will be talking on -  Beyond Soundex 

Session 5A, 16.30-17.30

Name matching systems, such as Soundex, have been seen as a tool for social and local historians but lacking the accuracy needed for family research. But as available datasets get larger and larger, search automation seems more attractive.

This paper compares many different methods of name matching and suggests how a family historian might proceed.

Beverley worked in social research but then (in 1962) switched to computing. Until 1985 I was mainly with educational / research organisations (e.g. London University, North London Polytechnic, International Statistical Institute). He was primarily concerned with software for social surveys and with computer centre management.

After that  he was an independent consultant and worked for a very wide range of clients on many types of application.

Beverley was a vice-president of the British Computer Society and founded the Association for Survey Computing.

HIs main computer work now is connected with a prosopographic study of a small area of Camden, London.

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 20^th and 21st  Centuries

Royal Overseas League , London . 7 May 2011 

Alec Tritton will be talking on -

Family History Communication in the 21^st Century – Blogging, Social Networking and Ezines 

 Session 4B, 15.15-16.15

The digital world is changing; no longer is it sufficient to just put up a static website as there are more people using YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other Social Networking sites than search the Internet daily. The search engines today prefer blogs with regular fresh new content. This creates a challenge to the average family historian wishing to make their genealogies available to the widest audience on the World Wide Web. This lecture will help to explain how these new uses of the Internet can be used for family history.

A family historian for over 25 years specialising in burial grounds, graveyards, grave robbery and obscure nonconformist sects. From 2002 to 2006 Alec was Chairman of the Federation of Family History Societies and for the previous 3 years, the Chairman of the Guild of One-Name Studies. He has also been Vice-Chairman of the Society of Genealogists and is currently on the Lectures Working Group and Chairman of the Halsted Trust. Alec maintains the Society’s three blogging websites as well as their mailing list and professional research directory.

Having sold his business in 2002, he works selling investment property in Florida and as a Professional Blogger and SEO Specialist.

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