Sunday, April 20, 2008

Ohio, the 600-pound genealogy gorilla

There should be more liveblogging of genealogy gatherings. Diane Haddad at Genealogy Insider gives us a taste of this past weekend's Ohio Genealogical Society convention in Cincinnati.

You may have seen the maps of the US where states are sized according to population rather than land area, with California and Florida growing to monstrous size and the Rocky Mountain areas tiny slivers? Well, if you made a genealogy-society map of the Midwest, Ohio would be bigger than Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan combined -- a lot bigger. Haddad reports "about 600" on the scene in Cincinnati; the Indiana Genealogical Society meeting in Evansville earlier this month had a paid attendance of 90.

Another comparison might be with the Indiana Historical Society's August gathering, "Midwestern Roots," in Indianapolis. Time will tell.

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