The National Genealogical Society will hold its 2014 Family History Conference from May 7-10 in Richmond, Virginia. All conference sessions and exhibits will be held at the Marriott Hotel, located at 500 East Broad Street, or the Greater Richmond Convention Center, which is located across the street.
Live streaming for two tracks of the conference is available for a fee, but registration for this service ends on April 30.
Additional information is available on the NGS website.
The Kentucky Genealogical Society will hold its Annual Seminar on Saturday, August 2, at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort. Registration for the seminar is now open. Additional information is available on the society website.
The presenter will be J. Mark, Lowe, CG, FUGA, a professional researcher and lecturer. He is a Tennessee resident with deep roots in Kentucky. Mr. Lowe is a frequent lecturer to audiences across the country.
J. Mark Lowe is a former president of the Association of Professional Genealogists, and former vice president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. He is an instructor for the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR), Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburg (GRIP), and the Regional In-depth Genealogical Studies Alliance.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” -Ernest Hemingway
A recent family vacation brought to mind the many ways to travel across the country to the Pacific Northwest. One might make the journey by bicycle or perhaps by plane, train or automobile. It is even possible to ascend the Continental Divide and then travel westward by watercraft down a river. An adventurous person might even make the trip on foot.
In the mid-nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of pioneers traveled west across the United States and its territorial lands. Some made the journey on foot, while others traveled on horseback or in wagons. Many of these adventurers traveled at least some portion of the Oregon Trail, a 2,000 mile wagon route from Independence, Missouri to the Willamette Valley in modern-day Oregon, which primarily coursed westward along major tributaries such as the Platte River and Snake River.
Today one can follow much of the Oregon Trail across the Great Plains and over the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, which separates Oregon and Washington. The wagon wheel ruts that still remain along much of the historic trail map the route of the pioneers and provide evidence of the important role the rivers played in their journeys across the continent.
The rivers along which the pioneers traveled provided a pathway as their water courses descended from and cut through the formidable mountains and foothills. Perhaps more importantly, the rivers provided life sustaining water for the adventurers and their livestock on the long and exhausting travel across the arid plains and deserts of the west.
The lives of the pioneers depended on sustenance as they made their way westward. The water provided by the rivers was essential to the pioneers’ survival and the success of their journey.
And so it is with every step in life, every journey down a pathway of exploration and search for new meaning. While genealogy may not involve life risking travel, the search for ancestors is often strengthened by, if not dependent on, the nourishment and other sustenance that comes from experiences and relationships developed with others who share the passion for family history.
The genealogical community in its many manifestations provides not only a pathway but also nourishment for the family historian. Societies and associations link individual genealogists with fellow travelers. Conferences, institutes, literature and resources equip researches for the challenges along the way. Libraries and archives serve as guide posts to the road ahead and as travel diaries of the past.
Ancestors often seem to be on the other side of dry deserts and tall mountains. For genealogists, the search for family history is long and often difficult, but the genealogical community serves as inspiration and support. Just as the pioneers almost never crossed the country alone, the genealogist’s search for the past often is better with company along for the journey.
The National Genealogical Society will hold its 2013 Family History Conference from May 8-11 in Las Vegas, Nevada. All conference sessions and exhibits will be held at the event center at the LVH—Las Vegas Hotel & Casino.
Registration information is available at the NGS website.
Aunt Barbara made the sweetest tea I ever tasted.
I thought of her this past week when I visited family and friends in Kentucky. It is always good to return home to my native state, but I especially enjoy being there in the springtime when the dogwood trees bloom and the horses race.
Horse racing is a Kentucky tradition and this weekend swift and majestic three year old thoroughbreds will compete for the blanket of roses in the annual running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville at Churchill Downs.
I hold close to my heart many cherished memories of afternoons spent at a race track with Aunt Barbara. She loved to find a bench along the rail near the finish line so that she could see the horses thunder down the stretch. I feel connected to her still today, years after her death, when I spend a day at the races with my children.
The Kentucky Derby tradition is renewed each year on the first Saturday in May. The race is often called “The Fastest Two Minutes in Sports” and has been held every year since 1875.
This weekend in Colorado, I will celebrate the race and Kentucky’s moment in the national spotlight at a Derby Party with friends. I will introduce them to mint juleps and bread pudding. There will be ladies in hats and no shortage of Kentucky bourbon.
The race and associated celebration will connect me as a Kentuckian with my heritage. I will sing “My Old Kentucky Home” with a tear in my eye and remember the many times I watched the race on television with my family. And no doubt I will sip on some sweet tea and think of Aunt Barbara.
The Kentucky Genealogical Society will hold its 38th Annual Seminar on Saturday, August 3 at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort. Information about the seminar is available at the society website.
The presenter will be J. Mark Lowe, CG, FUGA, a professional researcher and lecturer. He is a Tennessee resident with deep roots in Kentucky and has been researching families for more than forty years. Mr. Lowe is a frequent lecturer to audiences across the country.
J. Mark Lowe is vice president of the Southern Kentucky Genealogical Society, former president of the Association of Professional Genealogists, and former vice president and secretary of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. He is an instructor for the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research at Samford University, the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, and the Regional In-depth Genealogical Studies Alliance.
Additional information about J. Mark Lowe is available at his website.
Perhaps no other geographic feature impacted early settlement of Kentucky more than the Appalachian Mountains. Whether the mountains were home to the backcountry settlements from which they began their migration, or the barrier over which they had to cross, all paths into early Kentucky for my ancestors and most migrants passed over the mountains.
The Appalachians were formidable obstacles and to pass over them involved a commitment to a changed life. How must it have been to bid farewell forever to family and friends and head across mountains and rivers to new lives on the American frontier? My earliest identified ancestors came to the shore of Virginia three hundred years ago, and their descendants’ willingness to confront new challenges, face uncertainty, and leave behind their families led them from the seashore to the foothills and across the mountains.
My people made their way to Kentucky from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Some arrived in the 1780’s and the others followed over the next few decades. Almost certainly they migrated there through the Cumberland Gap or down the Ohio River, which flows out of the valleys within the mountain range.
I have followed their migratory paths along the waterways and over the mountains which they traveled, and have felt connected to them and their journeys. The scenic beauty of this American land captures my spirit and imagination, and always makes me think of my ancestors taking in the splendor of the mountain vistas, the hardwood forests filled with chestnut and oak trees, and the woods populated with elk and mountain streams filled with abundant fish.
Perhaps the sensory rewards of the journey helped them cope with substantial hardship and struggles when they ascended and climbed over the mountains.
Once in Kentucky, my ancestors made homes for themselves in the Appalachian foothills, where they settled on the hillsides, in the hollows and along the tributaries that emptied into the rivers that flowed out of eastern Kentucky. They were forever connected to those mountains and passed on to me respect and appreciation for the tremendous environmental treasure that they are still today.
The mission of Fincastle Ancestry Research is to make Kentucky accessible to family historians who are climbing the tall mountains of genealogical research.
There is nothing quite like a drive down a Kentucky highway.
The experiences of my life have placed me at the foot of soaring snow capped mountains and along ocean wave pounded coasts. I have walked among towering redwood trees and over sun baked deserts. My heart has leaped at the sight of river eroded canyons and determined waterfalls. Endless breadbasket wheat fields and tall grass prairies have carried my mind westward to orange sunsets.
And yet, I find them all, despite their grandeur, lacking the sensory pleasure of a journey with the windows down as I traverse along a Kentucky back road. The best is off the beaten path, down a two lane paved course through the rolling fields of the Bluegrass or over the deciduous tree covered mountains.
Something is mystical about a late afternoon drive, when sunlight bows to the coming night and twilight shadows dance on fields of freshly cut grass. Crickets and katydids in unison serenade the setting sun. The evening perfume of summer honeysuckle delights the senses on a moonlit night, with fireflies flickering in the distance. It can only be made better by the scent of a recent rain still lingering in the air.
But then there is the summer day. I have never known beauty, other than the faces of my children, more pronounced than sunrise over a field of thoroughbreds corralled by century old stone fences. Spirited foals run through the pastures while burley and corn crops stretch to the glorious sun. Brooks of clean fresh water stream along the roadsides while singing robins wing their way over the verdant meadows.
The goldenrod growing next to the highway, as common to the roadside as the limestone under the fertile soil, has always waved me on to the next hill or around the next curve in the road. The summer gold banner has never failed to give way to the canvas of autumn, dressing the hardwoods of the eastern mountains with their painted best before a winter sleep. But spring always has come, a time when the mountain laurel of the forests and the roadside dogwoods pair up for a waltz, all to the sound of music made by magnificent equine creatures thundering down a stretch of Kentucky soil.
I am awed when I drive along Kentucky’s highways and feel connected to the past, knowing that the natural beauty was here long before I was witness to its truth. It makes me wonder what the emotional experience of my ancestors was when they traveled through the state of my birth.
Whether they came over the Appalachian Mountains or traveled down the Ohio River to enter paradise, it was the roadway that took my ancestors to their home places and on which their lives journeyed. Many who passed through Kentucky found roadways which led them away from the state and on to the Midwest or further westward into the expanding nation. For whatever reason, perhaps it was a transcendent experience I share with them, my people made the state their permanent home and the blood of at least seven generations of forever-after Kentuckians runs through my veins.
