John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1847

There is another Spring meeting of a genealogical society that I want to bring to your attention  The Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society is meeting on 24 April 2004, at the Comfort Inn Conference Center in Bowie, Maryland.

For four presentations, there are two speakers, Barbara Vines Little and John T. Humphrey  The four talks are:

  1. Taxes:  Milk Them for All They're Worth , by Ms. Little.
  2. Finding German Ancestors in the Nation's Capitol , by Mr. Humphrey.
  3. Teasing the Silent Women from the Shadow of History , by Ms. Little.
  4. Using German Church Records in Germany and the U.S. , by Mr. Humphrey.
I can't help but be amused by Barbara's title pertaining to taxes, especially as the talk is just a few days after April 15  Maybe there will be surprises about how you should have done your income taxes  I suspect, instead, it will be along the lines of Betty Johnson's Germanna Seminar talk last year about identifying and tracing people through the records they left in the tax office  Ms. Little, in a Beyond Germanna article, showed that one John Rector was really two different John Rectors.

John Humphrey's titles seem straightforward enough, though I had hardly expected that my German ancestors were in Washington, D.C.  (Andreas Mielke has found there were Germans in the area before it became designated as the District of Columbia.)  There are lots of information resources in D.C.  Just enumerating them will take a while.

Perhaps my favorite talk will be Barbara's second talk on finding the "Silent Women".  From my own personal experience, I know that it can be done, at least in some cases  There may be no standard approach to finding these "Silent Women", as you may have to let your imagination roam in finding a method to use.

My favorite talk by the male speakers will be on using German church records in Germany and the U.S.  This is not always a simple task, as you will have noticed by several of my recent notes.

Both speakers are good and I have heard and worked with them in the past.

Registration can be done by visiting the MAGS web site at sites.rootsweb.com/~usmags/ .  The cost, before April 10, is $35 for members and $40 for nonmembers.  After April 10, add $5 to each of these prices.
(06 Mar 04)

We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.