From January to December 2027, Wayne Shepheard will present talks about the many ways in which people and communities were affected by events associated with natural phenomena. Emphasis will be placed on how family historians might recognize the events. Find out more about our Mother Nature’s Impact on Our Ancestors series here.
The series will start with a general overview of how Mother Nature has played an intimate role in the affairs of our ancestors, compelling them to adapt to changing conditions in their habitat or to move. This first talk, Natural Phenomena and Their Effects on Our Ancestors, will focus on the physical conditions of the environment in which our ancestors lived, particularly regarding agricultural pursuits.
In almost any scenario one can imagine involving people and communities in the past, the physical environment has played a major role in living conditions as well as in how the necessities of food, shelter, and employment were obtained.
Some commonly occurring events, such as storms or floods, have caused damage and death in just hours; others, such as climate change, have played out over centuries. Many incidents concerning natural phenomena have disrupted normal activities, significantly altered lives and livelihoods and, in many instances, forced people to change their way of life and/or move.
Stories about the places of habitation and circumstances in which people lived, their responses to natural phenomena, and how they adapted to environmental changes are part and parcel of the construction of complete family histories.
Examples of natural phenomena include:
- long-term changes primarily brought about by climate change
- slow-moving events - river system changes, coastal margin modifications, drought, famine and volcanic eruptions
- fast-moving events - storms, floods, earthquakes and disease epidemics
Examples of a variety of events will be presented, from many parts of the world and many time frames.
Social and political events can often be correlated with natural changes or events which may have caused upheaval and unrest among people. Migration of families, on a local scale or involving whole communities, happened when people could no longer support or feed themselves in areas devastated by natural changes to the environment.
This presentations will offer a perspective on how natural events and conditions of the physical environment controlled the lives and livelihoods of people in the past.
- The first ten talks in the series, from January to October, are included with Gold membership. They may also be booked individually for £10 each. Recordings of these ten talks will remain available to Gold members in the SoG Learning Hub for at least one year. Gold members can also watch four related talks from previous years, providing further background and complementing the new series.
- Anyone who books at least four of the first ten talks - including Gold members booking their included places - will receive a free place at both November’s Bringing It All Together presentation and December’s Open Discussion Forum. Otherwise, these final two sessions cost £10 each and are not included with Gold membership. Details of the full series will be in your booking confirmation.
Click here for information about our events. Contact events@sog.org.uk if you have any questions.
About the Speaker
Wayne Shepheard
Wayne Shepheard has pursued genealogical research for several decades, exploring families in North America, Europe and the United Kingdom. He is active in expanding interest in, and writing and speaking about natural phenomena and their impacts on people and communities. In addition to several dozen articles he has written for family history journals and magazines, Wayne has also published two books. Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests relates many of the situations observed in nature to the lives of families who experienced or endured them. Genealogy and the Little Ice Age deals with the physical parameters of the Little Ice Age (1300-1850), the effects climatic conditions of that period had on people and how the environmental situations influenced the broader society. He is a co-author of The Wreck of the Bay of Panama: 10 March 1891. Wayne writes regularly on his blog, Discover Genealogy (www.discovergenealogy.ca). Wayne lives in Langford, British Columbia, Canada.
