Jamboree Live Broadcast: "Using Ancestral Origins as a Genealogical Research Key"- Curt Witcher 

This lecture explores how the concept of "America, the Great Melting Pot," may really be a flawed concept, and that identifying the particular ethnic group of one's ancestor or potential ancestor can pay significant resarch dividends. Topics covered in this lecture include how to build a historical context for one's ancestor, studying population clusters, paying attention to patterns of all sorts (naming, migration, settlement, etc.), understanding the "push and pull" of migration (i.e. the reasons behind families or inidividuals migrating), and locating repositories for various ethnic groups.

Curt B. Witcher is the Senior Manager for Special Collections at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, IN., where he manages The Genealogy Center, serves as general curator for that institution's Rare and Fine Book Collection as well as the institutional archives, and is the Supervisor for the new Lincoln National Foundation's Lincoln Library Collection. Curt is a member of the Genealogy Committee of the American Library Association, a past chair of the Association's History Section, and a participant in other genealogical and historical committees of that organization.

He is a former president of both the Federation of Genealogical Societies and the National Genealogical Society. He is the founding president of the Indiana Genealogical Society and has memberships in a number of historical and genealogical organizations in the state and country. The list of awards and honors that have been bestowed on Curt is long and impressive: The Federation of Genealogical Societies' highest honor, the Rabbi Malcom H. Stern Humanitarian Award, in 1997; the FGS David Vogels Award in 1999; the first fellow of the Indiana Genealogical Society; and in 2007 with the National Genealogical Society's P. William Filby award for outstanding, life-time contributions to genealogical librarianship.