The Swiss Anabaptist Genealogical Association’s annual conference is coming to Harrisonburg this weekend, and many of its events, including lectures on Anabaptist History and tours of local historical sites, will be free and open to the public.

The conference headquarters, so to speak, will be at Lindale Mennonite Church, located at 6255 Jesse Bennett Way in Linville. The church will open its fellowship hall at 9 a.m. Friday and stay open all day to provide conference attendees and visitors with information, directions, maps, and fellowship. Books about Anabaptist History will be for sale at the church, and information about SAGA will also be available. The church will reopen Saturday at 8:15 a.m. when the conference reconvenes.  

Some free public presentations scheduled for the conference may be of interest to the public. They include a talk by SAGA member Karl Rhodes, who wrote the historical fiction novel “Peggy’s War” about his ancestor Margaret Rhodes. Rhodes helped conscientious objectors during the Civil War escape the Confederate South on the Unionist Underground Railroad. The title of his 7 p.m. Friday talk, which will be at Lindale, is “Anabaptist Underground Railroad in Rockingham County.” 

On Saturday, there will be two other public talks at Lindale Mennonite Church. One of them, which will be held Saturday at 9:45 a.m., is called “Two Amish Mavericks” by genealogist Loren Johns. This presentation will be followed by “Mennonites in Virginia: Families, Faith and Outreach” at 11 a.m., hosted by Mennonite historian Elwood Yoder. 

Andrea Early, who is a member of the SAGA planning committee, said that the conference is “geared toward genealogy and also local history. The association putting it on is specifically Swiss Anabaptist, but you don’t necessarily have to be a Swiss Anabaptist to enjoy it. I think anybody interested in genealogy, especially of the local area, there’s going to be relevant lectures and workshops and sites to visit that all people can enjoy.”  

During the conference, there will be several open houses at Mennonite and Brethren historical sites throughout Rockingham County, including one at Rocktown History, Rhodes said. Other sites available to view during the conference include the Breneman-Turner Mill, the John Kline Homestead, the Wenger-Geil-Mehegan House, the Lincoln Homestead, the Joseph Funk House, the Silver Lake Mill, Fort Harrison, and the Eastern Mennonite Library Special Collections.

“Most of these places are not normally open to the public, so these are rare opportunities for local history buffs,” Rhodes said. 

While all of the open houses are free, some museums may charge a small fee or request donations for entrance, a SAGA brochure said.  

“SAGA is a nonprofit organization that promotes and facilitates genealogical research among members with Swiss Anabaptist ancestors,” said SAGA member Karl Rhodes in an email.

SAGA membership costs $10 a year, but you don’t have to be a member to attend the free public events offered through this weekend’s conference.

“The organization hosts 64 online databases containing 7.5 million records,” Rhodes said in an email. 

For information about the conference, or if you have questions, email Karl Rhodes at karlrhodes@gmail.com.