Featuring Gail Shaffer Blankenau
“Beyond the Bauer [Farmer]: Your German Ancestor’s Place in the Social Structure”
Was your Germanic ancestor engaged in agriculture? German farmers had their own social scale with farms of various sizes and pursuits. We will explore the important social hierarchies to which your farm ancestors belonged and discuss regional terminology that can help you to understand their farming experience.
“Peopling the Prairie: Germans in America’s Heartland”
We will explore the peoples who undertook a great migration into the heart of America from frontier days into the 20th century. Using case studies, the stories from a diverse group of families will bring new perspectives to our understanding of how people came to inhabit the Great Plains area.
“Unexpected Union – a Tale of Two Soldiers in the Great War”
Gail will explore the experiences of two men—one American and one German—who fought in the infantry on opposite sides of what George F. Kennan called “the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century,” their families merging some seventy years later in America’s heartland.
“Find Your Roots in German Farm Histories”
For many with Germanic heritage, the history of the farm is the history of the family. Learn about farm histories, what they are and what might be in them. We will also discuss resources, websites and keywords to help in locating farm histories. Case studies will show how research in American can lead you “back to the farm” in Germany.
Gail Blankenau is an experienced genealogist, speaker and author. Her publications include articles in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register and The Genealogist. She is also a contributor to Family Chronicle and Internet Genealogy magazines. Based in Nebraska, she specializes in migration into the Midwest and west, land records, Germanic genealogy, 19th-Century photographs and tracing lineages. Her research has taken her near and far, from small-town courthouses in the Midwest and New England to the National Archives in DC; from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, to the North-Rhine Westphalia State Archive in Muenster. See her website at https://www.discoverancestry.org/ for more detail.
Register for this event on the MAGS Store page of this website. You can also mail payment noting “2023 Spring Conference” on the check to: Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society, ATTN: Cheyenne Cashin, 20650 Hope Spring Terrace, Unit 403 Ashburn, VA 20147-2950, email: registration@magsgen.com. 
