Save the dates! The new series rolls into its eleventh year in September. This fall, the talks will focus on Colonial and Revolutionary Boston. From January 2014 through May, the theme will be Boston’s Changing Neighborhoods: History and Genealogy.
Programs are held two Wednesdays per month (except in December) at 6pm in the Commonwealth Salon on the first floor of the Central Library in Copley Square. Get details on each talk here.
September 11 The state archeologist, Victor Mastone, will give an illustrated talk on the Battle of Chelsea Creek, one of the lesser-known battles of the Revolutionary War.
September 25 Massachusetts State Archives staff will review the wealth of records at the Archives useful to researching colonial ancestors and the colonial era.
October 16 Nancy Rubin Stuart will speak on her new book, Defiant Brides, a dual biography of Peggy Arnold and Lucy Knox.
October 30 Maureen Taylor, aka the Photo Detective, will discuss her book and film project, The Last Muster, which uncovers photographs of Revolutionary War veterans who lived into the era of early photography.
November 6 Historian JL Bell will talk on Boston’s colonial newspapers and the men who published them. Bell contributed to Todd Andrilik’s Reporting the Revolutionary War and is the author of the very entertaining Boston 1775 blog.
November 20 Veteran genealogist Barbara Mathews will give tips on using colonial records in family history research.
December 4 Epidemiologist and genealogist Lori Lyn Price will discuss medicine and health in colonial New England. What types of health issues and diseases might your ancestor have experienced, and how might these conditions been treated?
Collections and programs related to the fall series on Colonial and Revolutionary Boston are:
BPL Collections of Distinction: Colonial and Revolutionary Boston
BPL Collections of Distinction: American Revolutionary War Maps
BPL Collections of Distinction: John Adams Library
BPL Collections of Distinction: Local and Family History
The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center exhibit, Charting an Empire: The Atlantic Neptune is on now and runs through November 4. The Map Center is located adjacent to the Commonwealth Salon, so check out the exhibit now or when you visit for the September and October talks.