EWGS & Change & A Book Review

When I asked Google for images illustrating the word "change," I was given the choice of hundreds! Of course there would be hundreds of images to illustrate this huge and multi-faceted concept. This simple one did the trick for what I'm thinking today.

James Tanner, in his Genealogy's Star Blog, back on July 4th, 2014, posted that "The Only Constant Is Change." In this post, Tanner talked about all the changes he's seen in genealogical methods over his lifetime. "We started out with paper forms. In my case (I had) thousands of family group records, pedigree charts, and boxes and boxes of photographs, letters, diaries, journals, certificates, business records, and so on and on and on."

"As time passed, it became evident to me that the shear volume of information generated by (my) genealogical research had to have a solution. I saw that solution, in part, in computerizing all of my records. This meant changing in a big way."

Tanner went on explaining how really better it is to embrace change, to use change to make your work and your life easier. And why not?  "All I can say is if you don't like change, you are going to live a hard life," quipped Tanner.

Is EWGS changing? And is it changing for the better? For the better in your opinion? As president, I see EWGS striving to hang on to our original goals (which is good) while moving to change the ways we do that "hanging on." We help people find their ancestors in vastly different ways than we did 20 years ago you must agree. And isn't that a change for good??  I'm welcome to your thoughts and comments.

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Book Review: The Lost Ancestor: A Genealogical Crime Mystery

by Donna Potter Phillips,  October 2014

Morton Farrier, who terms himself a forensic genealogist, loves to solve genealogical mysteries. When a dying client, Ray Mercer, approaches him and requests that Morton find out what happened to his great aunt. “I want to know what happened to her before I die,” Ray tells Morton.  Thus begins the story of how Morton learns the story of Mary Mercer, born in 1893 in the town of Winchelsea, Sussex, who disappeared from the family in 1911 and died and then ………… well, you’re going to have to read the story for yourself.

This is Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s second novel and is just as gripping as was his first, Hiding the Past. Through the character of Morton Farrier, he takes us to local research repositories and orders records from the Public Record Office. He freely uses Ancestry.UK. All of this is good teaching to us the readers and we scarcely know we’re being taught because we are so caught up in the story.

How does Morton piece together these puzzle pieces:  red hair, Scotland, The Keep, duties of a maid, twins, Nova Scotia and a lily pond? You’ll just have to read The Lost Ancestor and find out for yourself.

This book may be ordered from Amazon as a Kindle edition for $6.89. Look for (and Like) Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s page on Facebook. It is a really good read.