| Thomas K. Edlund |
| Thomas K. Edlund, a specialist in East European languages and manuscripts, is an Associate Professor of Family and Local History, Brigham Young University and formerly Senior Librarian of Slavic Bibliography at the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. He has graduated from the University of Utah, the Defense Language Institute Presidio of Monterey, the University of Maryland, Brigham Young University, et al. He has authored many books on language and genealogy, including The Lutherans of Russia, Die Ahnenstammkartei des Deutschen Volkes, Medieval Latin for Family Historians, An Introduction and Index to the German Minority Census of 1939, and A Compendium of Nahuatl Dialectology. He has served as Editor of the FEEFHS Journal since 1998. |
| |
| Presentations: |
| • | Reading Vital Records and Other Local History Documents in Latin |
| | A facility with reading Latin is an immensely valuable skill for any genealogist researching in European records. This workshop summarizes the challenges Latin records present to family historians, and discusses procedures and resources for interpreting Latin documents form the 16th to 20th centuries. |
| |
| • | The 1897 census of Imperial Russia |
| | The 1897 census was the first and last attempt to enumerate the entire Imperial Russian population. The census documented vital and demographic data of approximately 126,000,000 individuals. This workshop summarizes the history of enumeration in Russia (tribute lists, land and household tax lists, revision lists, family lists), and focuses especially on interpreting 1897 census returns for genealogical information. |
| |
| • | Die Ahnenstammkartei des Deutschen Volkes (Central Index of the German People) |
| | Active from 1921-1994, the primary goal of ASTAKA, or Die Ahnenstammkartei des deutschen Volkes, was to assist genealogists in circulating and coordinating research. The files of this service, now closed to submissions, document the names, vital data and pedigrees of 2,700,000 individuals. This workshop focuses on how to access the information contained in this massive resource documenting central European ancestry. |
| |
| • | Researching the Germans from Russia |
| | Germans have had a long association with the Russian Empire, the earliest dating to the beginning of the 16th century. This workshop studies the records and resources documenting the Black Sea and Volga German populations which immigrated to Russia from 1764 to 1819, and whose descendants now live in North and South America. |
| |