Monday, May 14, 2007

I am quoted in Family Tree Magazine

I'm still new enough at writing for publication that I get excited whenever my name appears somewhere - especially in the print media. As long as they spell it right and don't call me names.

The July 2007 issue of Family Tree Magazine (not online yet) has a column by Diane Haddad called "Branching Out" which contains a Special Report titled "Disappearing Act?" that discusses the membership issues of local genealogy societies.

Jasia of http://creativegene.blogspot.com/ and myself are quoted several times discussing the recent perceived genealogy society membership decline and society efforts to attract new members and retain existing members. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam is also quoted concerning historical trends of membership in groups.

Diane Haddad contacted me several months ago after reading my blog posts concerning this issue at:

1) If Genealogy interest is so high, why are the numbers down?

2) What Can Local Societies Do to Attract More Members?

3) Communicating with genealogists

She asked me two questions about my views in the first blog post and I responded by email. My answers were too prolix I fear - but like a good editor and writer Diane narrowed them down to several sentences.

The questions were excellent - and I will post them and my responses in future posts.

My wife was really impressed by seeing my name in print, although she didn't understand what I was talking about - "pajamas research?" and "traditional paradigm" in the article, but that's OK.

6 comments:

Sally J. said...

I've been keeping an eye on the declining memberships, too, and I look forward to reading the article.

Thanks for the heads up, and congrats!

Anonymous said...

I hadn't read your August postings, but did so today. In our small city (about 20,000, of which half are college students), we have usually 60-70 paid members, and 20-25 of those attend all the meetings. 4 are regular speakers, none is a professional.
We have been worried about our membership being so small, but it sounds like we actually are doing quite well. That surprised me!
The difference may be that we ARE a small city. We all know each other from other things in town: book club, church, senior center, work, and so on. Of the 20-25 regular attenders, half are elderly, the other half go from early 30's and up. Besides our regular meetings, we always have a picnic in September and a dinner at Christmas. We are willing to help each other with genealogy and carpooling is the norm.
Hearing that we are in some ways the same size as societies in much larger places, is reassuring. When I tell our President, I'm sure I won't be believed!
I look forward to hearing more about how to increase and retain membership. Thanks for your helpful blog!!

Anonymous said...

Randy, to your regular readers like me, you have long been a celebrity in the genealogy blogoverse. Congratulations.

Bill West said...

Congtats to you and Jasia,
Randy.

I actually read the article
today at work (the bookstore)
and was going to email you
and ask if you'd seen it yet!

Jasia said...

Thanks for posting this Randy. I don't subscribe to the magazine and I wouldn't have known about it otherwise. I'll to try to find a copy. I'd like to see my name in traditional print too!

Miriam Robbins said...

Congrats! Congrats!