It’s a great day for genealogy! And, it’s a particularly good day for me too!
Today marks exactly 43 years since I started working in genealogy.
Wow, it’s been fun.
It was 26 July 1965 – in Stamford, CT – George B. Everton, Sr. (1904-1996) and his wife Ellen (Nielsen) Everton (1902-1987) were conducting a genealogy workshop at the Ferguson Library. I worked at the “Ferguson” and was listening to their presentation from the hall – standing in the doorway – when he announced that they were going to give out a few door prizes – “to the youngest and oldest person” attending the lecture.
He said, “the youngest person is easy …. it’s him” – pointing to me. I was shocked – but was pleased to receive a 10-generation family tree chart. And, as they say – the rest was history.
When I started to fill in that chart the family knew a few generations – now we have records on over 70,000 ancestors and cousins in the family computer and I now have “cousins” from all parts of the world.
It has been fun. Over the past 43 years I have taught workshops and given presentations in 37 States & was a keynote speaker at the first genealogy conference in China. I have written over 20 books and many, many articles that were published in national, state and local – genealogy, library and archival journals.
And the capstone has been the opportunity to be the “Father” of GenealogyBank – and to watch it grow into an essential core genealogy online service – with over 3,500 newspapers you just won’t find anywhere else – easy access to more than 1 billion of our ancestors & cousins.
It’s a great day for genealogy and a great day for me too!