ROOTS & BRANCHES

If you’ve been reading “Roots & Branches” for any length of time or know me personally, you understand that I’ve been “on both sides of the desk” when it comes to genealogy conferences.

I went as an attendee to my first conference closing in on 40 years ago.

I’ve been a national speaker frequently for the last quarter century.

I’ve been a vendor around the country selling my books for more than a decade.

And I’ve been the chair of conferences ranging from that of the former Federation of Genealogical Societies (2008 in Philadelphia) and of the well-received virtual events sponsored by the International German Genealogy Partnership (2021) and Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania (the first PaGE in 2023).

So when I learned a year ago that the Palatines to America group was bringing its national conference to Lancaster, I immediately wanted to be supportive of its chair Janet Rupert, who’s president of the Pennsylvania chapter of Pal Am.

The conference was held earlier this month and turned out to be a wonderful event for the 120 or so registrants.

And that number was the first thing great about the conference; it was a huge increase from the last several biennial national Pal Am conferences (through no fault of any of the previous organizers, the group has been fading since its salad days a couple of decades). People just plain had a wonderful time trading stories and networking with each other.

I normally make myself scarce for the banquets at genealogy conferences (often they seem to feature accordion players as entertainment—not my style!) but this one had Douglas Madenford, who performed his “Ask a PA Dutchman” routine with sidekick Chris LaRose, filled with both corny jokes and some serious insights!   

Of the speakers, the conference had two powerhouse presentations from Michael L. Strauss, who is a military historian and has been published in books, peer-reviewed journals, history, blogs, and book reviews. Strauss lectured on “Divided Loyalties: Pennsylvania Germans in the Revolutionary War” and “The German Forty-Eighters’ Fight for Freedom.”

One of the best received presentations was from Christopher Malone, curator at Historic Trappe (the home to the Center for Pennsylvania German Studies in Montgomery County), who gave the audience a tantalizing preview of Historic Trappe’s new exhibition, “Window to Revolution: PA Germans and the War for Independence.”

The venerable Lois Ann Mast, owner and publisher of Masthof Press and Bookstore as well as editor of Mennonite Family History, presented “Mennonite and Amish Genealogy Research,” and professional genealogist Lori Leininger Samuelson had two sessions.

Your “Roots & Branches” columnist co-lectured with Katy Bodenhorn, the former genealogy director at Historical Society of Pennsylvania and now owner of her own research firm, on “Doing the Work: Occupations of PA Germans.”

An interesting wrinkle to the conference was that most of the exhibitors—ranging from the Lutheran Archives to the York History Center—took advantage of the opportunity to present 15-minute mini-sessions to acquaint the attendees with their organizations or businesses.