Workshop: Family history and academic history

On Saturday 14 July 2018, we hosted a workshop at Leeds City Museum entitled 'Family history and academic history – the value of collaboration'. It explored the ways in which family historians, genealogists, academic historians, archives and libraries can collaborate. These groups are not distinct - many people fall into a number of these categories. The workshop considered how we can bring together different kinds of knowledge (about one's own family, or a special social context) and different people across various groups and institutions.

Our programme included historians from a wide range of backgrounds, including our own group of family historians, with whom we've been collaborating.

Keynote Lecture from Tanya Evans, Macquarie University: ‘The value of collaborating and co-creating knowledge on the history of fractured families with family historians’.

Panel Session, talks from:

Julia Laite, Birkbeck, University of London: ‘Who stands in Family History’s Shadows?  Digitization, ethics, and the family history industry’.

Mike Esbester, University of Portsmouth, ‘Crowd-sourcing, family history & the British railway accident: An introduction to the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project’.

Cynthia Brown, independent oral historian, and Mary Stewart, British Library, ‘Exploring encounters between families, their histories and archived oral histories’. You can find advice for family historians on the Oral History Society website.

Nick Barratt, consultant for genealogical television programmes and historian, ‘From navel-gazing to naval history: the changing relationship between family historians, archives and academic researchers’.