Sunday, March 22, 2015  at 2 pm

In the lecture, The Brazen, the Bad and the Beautiful: A Genealogist's Memoir, Elise Bernier-Feeley will discuss some of the more bizarre and intriguing genealogical questions she's been asked in her long career as a public library genealogy and local history librarian. Each question requires a different genealogical technique and set of sources, and sometimes even family heirlooms with unusual histories.

Ms. Bernier-Feeley is the Local History and Genealogy Librarian for the Forbes Library. A native of the Connecticut Valley, she grew up in the Northampton-Easthampton area. After graduating with honors from the University of Massachusetts with a double major in English history and American Studies, she received her Masters in Library Science from Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. She came to the Forbes Library in 1982 from the Springfield Public Library System, and was appointed Reference, Genealogy and Local History Librarian, serving in that capacity until 2006. Now she pursues her passion (both professional and personal) by concentrating solely on local and family history in the Hampshire Room for Local History at Forbes Library. She is the recipient of a City of Northampton Preservation Award and the Frederick Henry Kramer Award for Excellence in the Study of History. She has served as an adjunct member of the Northampton Historical Commission and is cited in Who's Who in America.

The lecture is free and open to the public and will take place in
Historic Northampton's newly enlarged program space
at 46 Bridge Street in downtown Northampton.