Concluding Conference

Amy Eberlin
Friday 15 May 2015

PF Fleming Charitable Trust                       University of St Andrews                      Flanders Govt

This posting is by way of an announcement of a conference—to be held in St Andrews in summer 2016—that will bring the work initiated under the “Scotland and the Flemish People Project” to a conclusion.

An international conference is being planned for Thursday, June 16th and Friday, June 17th, 2016 in St Andrews, Scotland. The goal of the conference will be to set out the conclusions of recent research on the Scotland and the Flemish People theme and bring together people of different backgrounds and perspectives to discuss a range of issues that the work addresses.

The two-day conference will have two parallel tracks. One will focus on the relationship between Scotland and Flanders and will examine the economic, political, cultural interchange, primarily in the medieval era. This track will draw largely on research undertaken by academic historians. The other track will focus on the various phases of Flemish immigration to Scotland, where the immigrants settled, what they did, and the impact they had. This track will draw on local and family history resources as well as genealogical and DNA evidence. Participants will be able to attend sessions from either track. Plenary sessions on topics of common interest will straddle both tracks.

There will be scope for various organizations, interest groups and families to showcase their work at tables immediately outside the lecture halls.

The conference will be open to the general public. It will be of interest to academic and local historians, family historians, genealogists, and genetic genealogists. The conference may also appeal to members of families who believe they may have Flemish roots. It is expected that in the order of 120 – 150 people will attend.

More details on the content, logistics and cost of the conference will be made available this summer on the project website (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/flemish/) and in our biannual newsletter (contact Alex Fleming below to be placed on the mailing list).

We are very grateful to the Government of Flanders for its sponsorship of the conference and to the P F Charitable Trust for its funding of the underlying research.

Dr. Alex Fleming
[email protected]

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