If you’ve always wanted a guided tour of Ancestry.com and learn more about your family’s history, this weekend you have the opportunity to get it. The Indiana Historical Society is hosting the Midwestern Roots 2014 Conference in Indianapolis.
The conference will be held August 1 and 2 at the Marriott East. Pre-conference activities begin on July 31.
With a title ‘Exploring Frontiers: What Would Your Pioneers Have Tweeted?’, you know its going to offer the latest in genealogy techniques and tips in family history research, resources and methodology. I was told that this conference is only offered every other year in this locale so now’s your chance!
One workshop I think sounds intriguing is ‘How to Use Google Earth for Genealogy.’ You could discover locations from old photographs and exact plotting of homesteads! If they could only tell me who the people are in some of those same photos.
Librarian Delia Bourne helps people at the Genealogy Center desk at Allen County Public Library.
One of the 30 speakers scheduled to appear at the conference includes Curt B. Witcher, Genealogy Center Manager of the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center (http://www.genealogycenter.org/community/Librarians.aspx).
If you’re interested in genealogy and you’ve yet to visit this amazing resource in Fort Wayne, you’re denying yourself a golden opportunity.
Begun in 1960, the ACPL Genealogy Center contains more than 55,000 family histories from all over the world. It has 332,000 printed volumes and 362,000 records on microfilm and microfiche.
Genealogy Center librarians provide tours to groups of 10 or more when scheduled in advance.
All of this makes the Genealogy Center at ACPL the largest collection of genealogy and local history materials in a public library in the US.
It is the second largest private collection in North America behind the Family History Library run by the Genealogical Society of Utah in Salt Lake City.
I’d suggest attending the conference in Indianapolis this weekend, then heading north on I-69 to Fort Wayne to spend weeks in the stacks of the Genealogy Center. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable. You won’t be sorry!
For more information about the Midwestern Roots 2014 Conference go to www.Indianahistory.org/midwesternroots or call
317.232.1882.
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