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| 1867 Map of Westchester County |
I had an amazing phone call on Wednesday. A young genealogist in Westchester County, New York read my blog, found me on Facebook, and sent me a message asking if he could call and talk to me about genealogy. We spent an hour and a half on the phone. He is 16 years old and has been researching his family for three years. He wanted to get advice on some places where he has gotten stuck (I won't call them brick walls, because they don't look unsurmountable). He already knows the importance of finding documentation to support his research hypotheses, and of researching siblings to help find information on the main person of focus. He has done some really good research and just needed some pointers on alternative resources where some of the obvious ones, such as early birth records, don't exist. He has one line back to the early 1700's!
One of the sessions I attended at the recent
IAJGS conference in Washington, DC was about getting the younger generation interested in genealogy. It's gratifying to know that some young people are already interested and are actively working on their family history. I'm looking forward to hearing from my young acquaintance and learning what progress he has made. I also started researching my family when I was 13, and look where it's taken me!
