THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 16, 1996 TAG: 9610150128
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GARY NEWSOME, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 71 lines
A changing society makes it harder to know where we come from, but the Virginia Beach Genealogical Society wants to fix that with a daylong series of lectures and demonstrations Saturday.
The information fair, co-sponsored by the genealogical society and the Virginia Beach Central Library, is designed to provide basic tools for researching past generations and preserving that information for future ones. Main lectures cover using the Internet, the National Archives, medical records, and local libraries as research tools, but Virginia Beach Genealogical Society members also will provide hands-on demonstration of techniques and help with individual family searches.
The society's president, R.W. ``Rip'' Kirby, said increased mobility is the main reason people lose track of their roots. ``It used to be, not that long ago, that families arrived by ship in a city and, if they moved, the whole family moved as a unit,'' Kirby said. ``But now the kids go all over the place to start their own families.''
Changing pace and lifestyles add to the problem, he said, because younger families no longer tend to sit around a dining room table and talk. One result is that the stories Kirby calls ``urban myths,'' tales of family accomplishments, are no longer created. ``No one talks about an uncle who did `this' or points to some connection to their community,'' Kirby said.
These trends are not new, but their effects over the years have become amplified. Technology has been some help to families doing research on their origins, mainly through computer bulletin boards and groups exchanging data on the Internet. However, most of the information a family would need, he said, is not yet stored electronically, and that means digging the old way.
Digging is how Kirby got started in genealogy. Kirby knew everything about his mother's side but was told little about his ancestry by his father, born of Irish immigrants in the Dakota Territory. Kirby took his father back to what now is South Dakota to have a birth certificate made, and learned in the process that his Aunt Josephine was the first white child born in the present Faulk County.
``Every family has someone they can be proud of,'' Kirby said. ``It's not just a lot of going back to royalty. I've certainly got no royalty in me, but I do have continuity.''
A need for continuity, Kirby said, is what has made genealogical research the third most popular hobby in the nation.
``People want to know where they came from,'' he said, and the result is a big change in the local group's membership. ``It used to be old ladies with white gloves, literally, doing nothing but research for the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution),'' Kirby said. The society's 250 members now include men in their 20s and 30s looking for their heritage.
The society meets once a month at the Central Library and anyone wanting more information can call 340-0770. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
WHEN AND WHERE
The genealogical information fair will be held from 8 a.m. to 4
p.m. Saturday at the Virginia Beach Central Library, 4100 Virginia
Beach Blvd.
Admission is $10 at the door.
Call 340-0770 for more information. Assistance on family
research, displays, demonstrations, and scanning family photos onto
computer disks will be available along with lectures on research
techniques. Lecturers include:
Steve Haynes, of Exisnet, on using the internet for family
research
Craig Scott, a professional genealogist, on using the National
Archives and medical records for research
Carolyn Barkley, head librarian at the Central Library, on using
local libraries as tools and ``My Ancestor Isn't in Your Library:
What Now?'' by CNB