American Society of Genealogists

The American Society of Genealogists was founded by John Insley Coddington, Arthur Adams and Meredith B. Colket, Jr., in December 1940. It is the scholarly honorary society of the genealogical field, limited to 50 living Fellows.

Prior to the Second World War, genealogy was frequently viewed as the realm of eccentric dilettantes. The founders of ASG and others were leaders in the push for more rigorous research standards. Information was to be documented and original sources were to be used whenever possible. Donald Lines Jacobus noted in 1960 that a "new school," had developed in American genealogy circles about 1930. That movement, according to the late Milton Rubincam, "...wrote accounts of specific famliies, documented and referenced: they showed by example how problems should be solved, what sources should be used, and how records should be interpreted." [Milton Rubincam, "Introduction," in Donald Lines Jacobus, "Genealogy as Pastine and Profession" Second Edition, revised (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1999), 1-2.]

Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists, who bear the postnominal acronymn FASG, have written some of the most notable genealogical materials of the last half-century. In particular, current Fellow Robert Charles Anderson is director of "The Great Migration Study Project," an effort to catalogue the earliest European immigrants to New England. John Frederick Dorman, currently the senior Fellow, recently completed the Fourth Edition of "Adventurers of Purse and Person," chronicling the earliest settlers in colonial Virginia. ASG publishes "The Genealogist," a scholarly journal of genealogical research semi-annually.

External links

* [http://www.fasg.org American Society of Genealogists]
* [http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/04/the_most_exclus.html The Most Exclusive Genealogy Society]

References