THE SCIENCE OF GENEALOGY or Collecting Dead Relatives

Local genealogist Dann Norton will be the guest speaker at the Lawrence County Historical

Society on Monday, April 28, 7:00 p.m. at the History Center in Lawrenceville. Norton, a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, maintains an interactive blog whose masthead reads, "Everything I ever needed to know in life, I learned from genealogy." Norton will discuss his most recent genealogical projects, with special emphasis on the role of DNA technology and pedigree verification.

Many people in Lawrence County are related to the Cummins family.Dann will focus on "Vinedressing the Family Tree of Rebecca DeLong Cummins: A study on the inefficiency of online family trees and AI-generated hints and the need for empirical research." That doesn't sound like it's about DNA, but it does end up with DNA confirming the corrections the research revealed. (To see if you are related click here ). Many aspects of Dann's research and analysis will relate to genealogists of other families.

Norton has been a teacher of English and the Language Arts for over 25 years. He has been an active member of the Lawrence County Arts Council, working both on and off stage in many of its productions. He authored the play, The Hanging: The Saga of Betsey Reed, for which he received an award from the Illinois State Historical Society.

The program is free and open to the public.

"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance." George Bernard Shaw (Dann will NOT be dancing, just so you know!)