Meeting Location

for 2019 Dates:

Causeway Branch

St. Tammany Library 3457 U.S. Highway 190

Mandeville, LA

FACT VERSUS FOLKLORE: USING RECORD RESEARCH TO EVALUATE FAMILY STORIES

The St. Tammany Genealogical Society will host a presentation entitled Fact Versus Folklore: Using Record Research to Evaluate Family Stories with Sheila Delacroix, the former President of the St. Tammany Genealogical Society.  Using her own research of a branch of her St. Tammany Parish ancestors, Ms. Delacroix will demonstrate how properly conducted genealogical research can be used to affirm or refute the family stories that are passed down to us.  The speaker will take us through her analysis of the vital records, sacramental certificates, U.S. census, the family bible, and notary public records that she collected in her quest for the truth.

According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., of the PBS show Finding Your Roots, family stories are “notoriously unreliable.”  Ms. Delacroix’s presentation provides the audience with a genealogical standard to emulate, as well as a road map to follow, in order to weed out the fiction in our own family stories.

PLACE:  Causeway Branch of the St. Tammany Parish Public Library
3457 U. S. Highway 190 in Mandeville, LA - (985) 626-9779 (in the former K-Mart parking lot, near the UPS store)

DATE AND TIME:   Saturday, June 8, 2019 - 10 am to 12 pm

The Society’s Meet-and-Greet will precede the presentation and will begin at 9:30 a.m., during which light refreshments will be served.  The presentation will begin at 10:00 a.m. and end at 12 noon.  It is free and open to the public.  Seating is limited to adults and is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Sheila Delacroix is a retired university librarian and former President of the St. Tammany Genealogical Society.  She currently serves as the Society’s newsletter administrator.  Ms. Delacroix first became interested in genealogy in graduate school and has been researching the branches of her Louisiana family ever since.  She believes strongly that history is largely composed of the story of the lives of the everyday people who came before us and that genealogical research reveals that history to us.