FGS Conference 2019

Have you heard of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and their annual conference? The mission statement of FGS is “The Federation of Genealogical Societies empowers the genealogical and family history community, especially its societies and organizations, by advocating for the preservation and access of records, and providing resources that enable genealogical organizations to succeed in pursuing their missions.” Like other family history conferences, FGS holds classes on a wide array of topics taught by professional genealogists. This year the conference is being held in Washington, D.C.

I received a grant to attend the conference from the Center for Family History and Genealogy from Brigham Young University along with four other students. We came the week before the conference to conduct research in the National Archives of the United States, the Library of Congress, and the Daughters of the American Revolution Library. I will blog about those experiences and share highlights from the conference in later posts, so stay tuned!

This year, an exciting announcement was made. The National Genealogical Society (NGS) and FGS will merge their organizations in 2020! The organizations issued a statement about the merge and said “The two organizations, both non-profit leaders in the dynamic genealogy industry, will form one consolidated group that will continue to operate as the National Genealogical Society… Leaders of both organizations believe this merger will serve the genealogy community by improving the support of both individual members and societies in the pursuit of genealogical excellence.” Both organizations will hold conferences in 2020, but beginning in 2021 after the merge is complete, only one conference will be held. I am excited for this merge and the impact it will have on the genealogical community!