Sougenir

Today as I  was looking at my collection of pens and pencils gathered at geneaconferences and repositories  I thought of a word to describe these and other novelties we have picked up on our geneatravels.

Many of these items are inducements to visit vendor stands at conferences and to remind us of their goods and services. Some archives provide pencils so we won’t be tempted to use pens near precious documents. I did have to purchase the lovely  red pencils from The National Archives at Kew but that was a small price to pay for the treasure I found in their files.

So my new word is Sougenir – a genealogy souvenir ie branded pens, pencils, stationery, bags and gadgets collected by genealogists from conferences and repositories.