ROOTS & BRANCHES

For some 40 years, possibly the annual biggest spring date on the Central Pennsylvania genealogy calendar was the Lancaster Family History Conference.

This year, that event has been rebooted as “Family History Heyday” from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. May 16, sponsored by and to be held at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster PA 17602.

And, best of all for people out of the area—or simply busy!—is that you can register to see the presentations through “livestreaming” on the Internet.

The event will feature three presentations. First will be well-known genealogy DNA expert Darvin Martin who will present “Using Ancestry.com’s Newest Feature—DNA ThruLines™ to Enhance Family History.”

Longtime York-area researcher Neicy DeShields-Moulton will talk about “The Ancestors I Met on My Genealogy Journey.” DeShields-Moulton is a member of the African-American Historical Society in Lancaster, learned about a University of Maryland project to put together the history of the former Ridgely Plantation, now called the Hampton House, a museum and national historical site in Towson, where some of DeShields-Moulton’s ancestors were enslaved.

The final session of the “Heyday” will feature John Brown revealing “Little Known Facts About Colonial Lancaster County.” Brown is a motivational and informational speaker, railroad historian, who has been active in Toastmasters clubs and Speaker Bureaus.

Several registration plans are available: $60 for the day, which also includes the opportunity to research in the society’s library; individual sessions cost $25 each to attend in person and $15 per session to Livestream.

For more information, readers may call the society at (717) 393-9745. You can register online at the URL, bit.ly/FamilyHistoryHeyday.

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Also coming up this spring is the Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society’s Spring Workshop and Conference, April 24-25 in Laurel, Maryland.

The Friday afternoon workshop will feature Andy Hochreiter on the topic “Using DNA Tools at AncestryDNA to Exploit Genetic Test Results in Family Research.”

Saturday’s all day conference will have four presentations on “German Family Research” presented by the legendary Roger P. Minert, who “Roots & Branches” readers hopefully recall from the column on Minert’s many books and series that have added so many resources for family historians with German-speaking ancestors.

Minert’s topics will be:

• “Status in German Society 1500 to 1800: Where Did Your Ancestors Fit In?” Thanks to a great extent to the very well-developed and rather inflexible feudal system in Germanic territories in Europe, our ancestors were quite stable in their social and economic status.
• “Census Records in Germany, 1816–1916,” are in many ways unlike their counterparts in the U.S.
• “Residential Registration in Germany” looks at the ways, from the 16th century on, local authorities monitored the comings and goings of strangers and foreigners.
•  “Which Hessen is Which?” talks about the many political entities with the Hessen name.

For further information, see the MAGS website at www.magsgen.com