1980
1980 World Conference on Records Has Something for Everyone
January 1980


“1980 World Conference on Records Has Something for Everyone,” Ensign, Jan. 1980, 79

1980 World Conference on Records Has Something for Everyone

With four days of meetings and nearly three hundred seminars, the 1980 World Conference on Records should interest anyone who’s interested in his heritage.

“Preserving Our Heritage,” the 1980 conference, will emphasize family and personal histories. Authorities from throughout the world will give instruction in a wide field of topics relating to genealogy. Seminars will be held in the Salt Palace and adjoining buildings in Salt Lake City, Utah, 12–15 August 1980.

Anyone from anywhere is invited to attend. Registration for the four days is $50. Those registering after 15 June 1980 will be required to pay $60. Hotel accommodations are available through the Genealogical Society. Information and forms are available from the World Conference on Records, Genealogical Society of Utah, 50 East North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84150, USA.

Each participant will be able to attend a general assembly, a plenary session, and five seminars daily.

Those scheduled to address the general assemblies are President Spencer W. Kimball, Elder G. Homer Durham of the First Quorum of the Seventy, and author Alex Haley.

Support for the conference is coming from various organizations and individuals throughout the world. News media of many countries have been notified of the conference.

The nearly three hundred seminar topics include the following:

—Family histories: biographies, family unity, Mormon women and family history, publishing family history, audiovisual family history, oral history, heirlooms, diaries, illustrations, books of remembrance, effects of the environment on family history, ethnic background and family history, black family history, the use and abuse of coats of arms;

—European records: mail order genealogy, military records, the holocaust and family history, the family in European civilization:

—Great Britain and Ireland: parliamentary activities of interest to family historians, tracing family history of poorer English ancestors, tombstones and censuses, the effect of occupations on British family life, special British marrying places and customs, life on a Mormon emigrant ship, family life during industrialization;

—Scandinavia: life of a Scandinavian soldier, Norwegian immigrant churches, life in Scandinavia;

—Spanish and Portuguese language areas: immigration to South America, archives of South America, the family as a business corporation in Argentina, the Morelia Project in Mexico;

—Asia and the Pacific: bond and free immigration and colonial settlement in Australia and New Zealand, interisland relationships, multicultural families in Hawaii, a family’s oral traditions, legends and myths, land tenure, extended family gatherings, samurai and merchant family history, Buddhist death registers, Japanese aborigines;

—Africa, South Asia, Middle East: Islam and the Moslem family, nomadic family life in North Africa, Christians in the land of Mohammed, pilgrimage records of India, the Arab family under colonization;

—Demography: life-course of families in the past, the role of the family in past societies, widowhood in an earlier time, mobility and industrialization, migration, the stem family and the joint family, the Great Potato Famine and the Irish;

—Special curriculum: physical disabilities and preparing family history, family histories for the blind, family histories prepared by the deaf.