Portland, Maine Headlight from 2015 |
Providence Rhode Island last year, Manchester New Hampshire
2 years before that, and Springfield Massachusetts next year. At regular
intervals, my thoughts have turned to New England vacations in the spring. Yes,
New England is a beautiful place to visit in the springtime. I have many
ancestors that lived there. But why is there a theme about the time of year
developing?
The reason is that every two years I can combine a trip to
New England to research and tour an area with some education and meeting up
with other great genealogists. A year ago this morning we were heading home
from the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence from that year’s The
New England Regional Genealogical Consortium, Inc. (NERGC). It consisted of two
and a half days of over 95 lectures in total. Many of them were geared towards
research in Rhode Island itself, but they covered subjects all over New England
and general topics as well.
It wasn’t just about the lectures
either. In just about every class, I sat next to somebody I had met before.
Walking between classrooms and in the vendor hall I ran into people that I
know. Genealogists from all over New England, New York and beyond were
gathering there to learn and discuss genealogy. There is huge serge in energy
at such a place. If you’ve never been to a conference, you really must go to at
least one to see what it is like. I always come home from such a conference
exhausted, but with renewed eagerness to dive into more genealogy.
Next
year we will be headed to Springfield a little later in April. The theme for
the conference is: Using the
Tools of Today & Tomorrow to Understand the Past
and will be held April 26-29 at
the MassMutual Convention Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. Although I
don’t personally have any direct ancestors that lived in the area, I am sure
there will be many lectures that I will look forward to hearing. Old town hall or schoolhouse Exeter, Rhode Island |
The call
for papers has closed, and they are still working on deciding which lectures
will be presented. Some of the categories included repositories across New
England, and many areas of technology. Other topics on the call for papers included:
genealogy research focused within
social, cultural, racial, or ethnic groups; and family history writing
and publishing in print and on the web. So, there will be quite a variety of
topics presented no matter which people are selected to present.
The website at http://www.nergc.org/ is still mainly giving
information about last year’s conference, but it should be updated before long.
Many volunteers are working behind the scenes to get everything ready for
Springfield in 2017. Until then, we will just sit back and dream of New England
and next year’s conference. I hope I will see many friends old and new there!
2 comments:
I am inspired to attend next year's conference! I have ancestors in Belchertown to track down, as well.
Anne Slatin
I'm still sad to have missed last year's conference, but I'm looking forward to next year! NERGC is one of my favorites.
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