American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
United States
Join us in person or virtually to hear historian Karin Wulf discuss her latest book, Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America (2025).
Genealogy is everywhere--in books, online, through organizations and conferences, and more. But technologies aside, genealogy was everywhere in the eighteenth-century, too. In Lineage, Wulf explores how genealogy shaped the lives of diverse early Americans. More than a personal interest, tracing family lines played a central role in law, politics, and religion—and was even used to justify and enforce systems like slavery.
Drawing on research that spans from Maine to Georgia, and with particular attention to local contexts and sources—including those at the American Antiquarian Society—Wulf's talk will illuminate how and why family histories carried such meaning in early America.
A historian of early American, Karin Wulf is the Beatrice and Julio Mario Santo Domingo Director and Librarian at the John Carter Brown Library and Professor of History at Brown University. From 2013 to 2021 she was the Executive Director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture and Professor of History at William & Mary. She writes for public and academic audiences about early American history, the worlds of scholarship and scholarly publishing, and why footnotes can save democracy. Wulf's newest book is Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in 18th Century British America (2025). She serves on a variety of non-profit boards, including the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Inc. and the National Humanities Alliance, and is a co-founder of Women Also Know History. Wulf was elected to AAS membership in October 2004.