Piece family trees together—and celebrate the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth—at this summer’s “From Lincoln Logs to Linkin’ Families.”

The History Section of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) invites librarians, library staff and personal family history researchers to attend this preconference held in conjunction with the 2009 ALA Annual Conference. This one-day event highlights newly available Illinois-specific genealogy resources as well as resources for African American family history research. A panel of genealogy experts comprise the list of speakers, including George Morgan of “Genealogy Guys” fame and author of “How to Do Everything with Your Genealogy.” Curt Witcher, manager of the Genealogy Center of Allen County (Ind.) Public Library, will speak about African American family history research. Jack Simpson, curator of local and family history at the Newberry Library in Chicago and co-creator of ChicagoAncestors.org, will present a basic genealogy primer, and Lorreto “Lou” Dennis Szucs, editor of the definitive genealogy tool “The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy,” will discuss conducting Chicago research locally and from afar.

The preconference will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, July 10, in Chicago. Advance registration rates, available until May 22, are $100 for RUSA members, $145 for ALA members, $220 for non-members and $75 for students and retirees. Lunch and coffee breaks are included courtesy of sponsor ProQuest.

Ready to register? Check out our post on how to register for Annual Conference. If you want to add this event to your conference registration, you can do so through Step 6 – Your Events of the online form.

To register for the preconference only, use the printed registration form and mail or fax it in per the instructions on the form.