A few weeks ago, Mark Lowe, professional genealogist and well-known genealogy speaker, joined me on The Forget-Me-Not Hour to talk about whiskey and Southern migration in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Mark explained how whiskey production was a major draw and livelihood for many settlers in Kentucky and Tennessee after the Wilderness Road was blazed by Daniel Boone in 1775. Small home-run distilleries sprang up as a result of fresh, sweet (non-mineral) water, good soil for growing whiskey-producing crops, and eventually easy transport on the rivers with the advent of the … Read More
Geoff Miller, chair of the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, and Nelsie Aybar-Grau joined me on The Forget-Me-Not Hour a few weeks ago. They talked about the Reher Center located at the Rondout in Kingston, N.Y. and the oral history project that the center has undertaken. The Reher Center began as a project of the Jewish Federation of Ulster County to document the lives of the Jewish immigrants who landed at Rondout, N.Y. during the heyday of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The project soon encompassed all immigrant groups who … Read More
A few weeks ago Suzanne Wasserman, director of the Gotham Center for New York City History, joined me on The Forget-Me-Not Hour to discuss how New York City fared during the Great Depression of the 1930s. I had heard Suzanne speak on the topic at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street in February in an all-day conference on the then soon-to-be released 1940 U.S. census. The impact of the Great Depression on NYC was astonishing, as you will hear. Breadlines became the norm. Hoovervilles (tent cities) sprang up throughout the city. … Read More
A few weeks ago Geneablogger’s Thomas MacEntee joined me on the Forget-Me-Not Hour to talk about hardware for genealogists. It was a most informative show, and I was jotting down notes as Thomas explained what is available and what are the pros and cons of each type of device. Thomas explained the ways that we can capture data through cameras, smartphones, scanners (a few different types) and microfilm readers at the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City that digitize images to store on a memory stick or even … Read More
Harold Henderson who writes the Midwestern Microhistory blog http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com/ joined me on the Forget-Me-Not Hour two weeks ago to talk about the ins and outs of writing for genealogical publications. The show was extremely informative and inspiring for this writer. Harold covered writing for local genealogy society newsletters, state publications and what he called the Big Five, the national scholarly publications: The American Genealogist, The Genealogist–published by the American Society of Genealogists, NGSQ–National Genealogical Society Quarterly, the New England Historic Genealogical Society Register and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society Record. … Read More
Two weeks ago on the Forget-Me-Not Hour, Bridget Bray, organizer of The Genealogy Event in New York City, joined me on the show. The Genealogy Event is the only genealogy event happening in New York City this year–on 26 & 27 October at the Metropolitan Pavilion. See www.TheGenealogyEvent.com for more information. Because of her own interest in genealogy, Bridget organized a Meet-up group in New York City for people with Irish and English ancestry, and she attended the Who Do You Think You Are? genealogy conference in London a few … Read More
Last week Kenyatta Berry, the president of the Association of Professional Genealogists, joined me on The Forget-Me-Not Hour show. Kenyatta packed the interview with so much information about the APG! She discussed how the organization has evolved since its inception in the 1970s to its current focus on the business of professional genealogy and how the process of forming the APG mission is done. To that end the APG has webinars for professional development, the annual Professional Management Conference (PMC) in Salt Lake City (next year in March), the APG … Read More
Last week on the Forget-Me-Not Hour, Dick Eastman joined me and talked about computers and genealogy. Dick, the author of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, shared his experience as a computer techie forging the way in the infancy of personal computers, when computer data was stored on punch cards. That concept was hard for me to comprehend–genealogy data on a punch card. I vaguely remember those cards when my brother was studying computer science in college and brought some home for his little sister to play with. Dick talked about how … Read More
Two weeks ago on The Forget-Me-Not Hour, Puritan expert Robert Charles Anderson joined me to talk about the Puritans of New England–who they were and his genealogical work on them. He shared how the Puritans became his life’s work as a genealogist and what projects he has completed about them. Bob is the author of The Great Migration series of books that chronicles what is known about the 20,000 or so Puritans who emigrated from England between 1620 and 1640. So far the books cover through the year 1635. With his … Read More
South African native and now Ulster County resident Glenn Leisching, an Elder in the tradition of the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso in West Africa, joined me on the Forget-Me-Not Hour last week. He talked about the importance of ancestors in the spiritual traditions of indigenous Africans–an unusual but fascinating topic for this genealogy radio show. Glenn shared how and why ancestors (which is anyone who has died) are honored and venerated in indigenous African traditions–not unlike how they are honored and venerated in other traditions like Native American spirituality, … Read More
