The Genealogy Resource Fair at the Statesboro-Bulloch County Library gave attendees the opportunity to explore Statesboro’s history and their own family history.

“Genealogy is the study of your family history, but you also need to have the documentation to prove that,” said Lillian Wingate, president of the Georgia Genealogical Society. “A lot of people will say, genealogy without documentation is mythology.”

Wingate started the Genealogy Fair in 2023, and the fair has partnered with Georgia Southern for the past two years.

Wingate added that the event was a way to network, spread resources, and show people that many different organizations contribute to the study of genealogy.

“We basically are kind of the library within the library where we have the rare one of the kind archival materials that relate to the history of Georgia Southern, Statesboro, Savannah, the surrounding area, special research topics,” said Willow Farmer, special collections assistant for Georgia Southern’s library. “We also have rare books, artifacts, and all sorts of really interesting things.”

Community members, faculty, and students at Georgia Southern are free to explore the Special Collections at Henderson Library.

“Genealogy touches everyone, even if you’re not very close with your family,” said Kaitlyn Capper, regional genealogy and local history coordinator at the Statesboro Library. “Everyone has a past, they have someplace they came from, and digging through the stories, giving voice to those people of the past, it helps us to honor them.”

Saturday’s Genealogy Fair hosted 30 vendors, classes, and raffle opportunities for guests to experience.