Gena Philibert-Ortega is a genealogist, author and contributor to Family Tree Magazine. Her primary passions are history and food, which she'll blend together like cake batter at this weekend's Fall Virtual Conference. In this guest post, the author of From the Family Kitchen talks in detail about her VC sessions:

Social history and genealogy go hand in hand. As family history researchers we tend to focus solely on the dates and places of our ancestor’s life. That’s important, but it’s one thing to know the dates and places and another to fully understand what was going on during that historical time period. Social history is the story of people’s everyday lives. Social history places your ancestors in context. It will even help make your research more interesting to the non-genealogists in your family. The session itself is called "Top 10 Tools For Social History", in which we'll talk about resources you can use for any research project. These will include images, online catalogs and collections.

My second presentation, "Cook up Answers About Immigrant Ancestors", is a chance to see social history in action. What does food have to do with your ancestor? Everything! Food is so integral to everything we do in our families. It’s part of celebrations, holidays and even somber events. Food and food history resources can help us learn far more about our ancestors. I can’t wait to tell you about all the available resources, such as community cookbooks.

Please join me at the Virtual Conference. What a great way to spend a weekend. Talking genealogy from the comfort of your own home!

ACT QUICKLY:Only three days until the conference! Register now for the Fall Virtual Conference and save $40 with coupon code FRIENDSOFGENA.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012 9:28:10 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Developing a flavor profile describing how the dish tastes, what the consistency was, etc.
  
  
• Running recipes by family members for their input.
  
  
• Scouring old cookbooks for potential recipes.
  
  
• Listing ingredients the original cook would have used by considering her tastes and financial means (some ingredients would've been too expensive for everyday use).
  
  
• Finding out what ingredients were available in the time and place. Old cookbooks from local churches and women's clubs are great for this.
  
  
• Using the same tools as the original cook, including rotary egg beaters instead of a fancy stand mixer and old loaf pans instead of today's nonstick ones.

If you're recreating family recipes, you'll also want to refer to our list of old measurements and their modern equivalents.

Our book From the Family Kitchen: Discover Your Food Heritage and Preerve Favorite Recipes by Gena Philibert-Ortega, now available for pre-order in ShopFamilyTree.com, has tons of advice on finding vintage cookbooks and recreating recipes.

From the Family Kitchen also covers the social history of food and contains a recipe journal so you can write down how to make Mom's delicious banana bread. 

Wednesday, March 07, 2012 4:07:35 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]