events
Sunday, June 27, 2010 • 13
RVL Magazine
Attendees at a June genealogy class at Heritage Hall sponsored by the Pope County Library System. At left, Lynda Childers Suffridge (background), the program presenter and a former member of the Arkansas History Commission, talks about ways to trace your roots by following information left along migration trails popular in days gone by.
T
Library classes show tracing your family’s roots may be more accessible than you think By Mary Kincy
he Arkansas River Valley is resplendent with roots, nowhere more obviously than on occasional weeknights at the Pope County Library System’s Heritage Hall, where those interested in their pasts gather to learn about the science — and the art —of genealogy. Lynda Childers Suffridge of North Little Rock presented the program at a June 3 gathering focused on using migration paths from the earliest origins of these United States to find information on family from days gone by. The Pope County Library System’s
Charity Park and Kristen Ulsperger organized the event. Park, a librarian specializing in genealogy and history, said demand for such information is high. “There’s a lot of people looking into their family histories and there’s a lot of information on the Internet right now, but people don’t really know where to look (sometimes),” she explained. The class is designed to help budding genealogists of all experience levels — but much like the process of tracing one’s roots itself, where a days-long slog through musty files can in a moment yield a revelation, the value of the information presented can only be real-
ized over time. “A lot of people have Native American ancestry but they’re not able to document it because written records were not kept during (early) period(s),” Suffridge told attendees. One way to find information? Migration paths. All five of the socalled “Civilized Tribes” — the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole — moved through the Arkansas area in the 1800s, leaving ancestors, and in some cases, information, behind. Pottsville’s Linda Reasoner, who attended the class, hoped to capitalize on Story continues on page 15