Interested in researching your Celtic roots? You can do that and so much more when you attend the Celtic Connections Conference 2018 “Pathways to Our Past” on Aug. 10 and 11 at the Marriott in Newton.

TIARA (The Irish Ancestral Research Association) together with IGSI (Irish Genealogical Society International) will join forces once again to co-sponsor the conference where presenters from Ireland, Scotland, and England will be presenting lectures in the areas of Irish, Scots Irish, Scottish and Welsh genealogy, culture, DNA and exciting new ways to interpret and discover your ancestral roots.

Audrey Collins, Dr. Bruce Durie, Fiona Fitzsimons, Maurice Gleeson, John Grenham and Christine Woodcock are all internationally known genealogists. Also making presentations will be ten family history experts from around the United States.

Conference participants will be hard pressed to choose between four tracks of lectures that will include such topics as “Strategies for Finding the Origins of Your Irish Ancestors”; “Adding DNA to Your Genealogical Toolkit”; and “Mapping Your Ancestral Home in Ireland Using Google Earth.”

A full listing of the two days of programs is available at celtic-connections.org.

Offerings outside the classroom will be equally engaging. The Aug. 10 luncheon speaker will be Kate Chadbourne , a harpist and storyteller who will present “Fairy Paths & Ancient Ways: Songs and Stories of Roads and Remembering.” Saturday’s luncheon will have a local flavor when storyteller Sharon Kennedy, tells of “The Strike for Bread and Roses, Lawrence, 1912.”
A preconference bus trip to Lowell will continue the story of Irish and Scottish millworkers. Participants will tour the Boot Cotton Mill, hear a lecture on the Irish in mill history, and view the “Mill Girls and Immigrants” exhibit.

Kate Chadbourne will join Katie O’Neill, Mike Kerr and Greg Bacon in the musical group “Katie and Friends” to entertain at the Friday night banquet with “Songs from Both Sides of the Atlantic.” The conference will end on Saturday evening with a lively Celtic-themed pub quiz.
Specially priced lodging for conference-goers is available at the conference site. Discounted registration fee is available until June 4, 2018. Conference details including the conference brochure, online registration and link to hotel lodging / conference venue are available at celticconnections.org.