Carla Love Maitland is a retired educator, who spent over 25 years in the classroom teaching history on the secondary level, and 15 years in an administrative capacity in which she served as middle school coordinator, oversaw the optional (magnet) school program for her school, helped design curriculum, and taught teaching techniques to other teachers throughout the system and across the state of Tennessee.
Carla’s passion for genealogy began in the mid-70s when she set out to prove two ‘family stories.’ She actually disproved one of them, proved the other, and ultimately became completely ‘hooked’ on studying and writing about her family’s history. She began each year in the classroom involving her students in family history projects of their own.
During her years in the classroom, she designed and taught special interest classes in world cultures and Memphis history. She was a Facing History and Ourselves teacher and received an award from the Memphis Commercial Appeal as Outstanding Secondary Teacher of the Year, as well as numerous certificates of recognition from the Memphis City Council. She was listed in Who’s Who in American Education and Who’s Who in the South and Southwest. She also served for three years on the Board of Directors for the Tennessee Association of Middle Schools.
After retirement, Carla became more actively involved in a number of genealogical, historical, and lineage societies, including first and foremost the Tennessee Genealogical Society (TNGS), an organization she joined in 2006. She has served as Vice President of the society, as a Director-at-Large, and is currently serving in her second term as President of TNGS. Carla is the current Shelby County, TN Public Records Genealogist.
Carla is also a member of the Middle Tennessee Genealogical Society, the West Tennessee Historical Society, the Memphis Scottish Society, Clan Maitland Society of North America, the Celtic Society of West TN, the Southern California Genealogical Society, the Illinois Genealogical Society, the Indiana Genealogical Society, the Fairfax County (VA) Genealogical Society, and the New England Historical and Genealogical Society.
Carla took her many years of research to become a member of several lineage societies, including the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the United States Daughters of 1812, the National Huguenot Society, the Huguenot Society of the Founders of Manakin in the Colony of Virginia, and the National Society Daughters of the Union, 1861 – 1865. She has served as a Registrar for her DAR chapter, and is currently the Curator for her Daughters of 1812 chapter and is the Chaplain for her Manakin Huguenot chapter.
In 2012, Carla entered and won first place in Best Unpublished Authors for the International Family History Writers and Editors international competition. She has presented a webinar on Writing Family History for TNGS (as well as on other topics), and facilitates an online Special Interest Group for Writing Family History for TNGS.
In addition to her other activities, she is currently the president of her neighborhood branch of the Friends of the Library (Memphis Public Library System). She frequently serves as a volunteer at the Germantown Regional Genealogy and History Center, helping people trace their family history and teaching them how to find documentations of proof. She enjoys helping others in their quest for their family’s history and delights in helping them find proofs of their lineage.
A native Memphian, Carla is the mother of three grown sons, three grown grandchildren, and two amazing great grandsons.
Her favorite quote is one she uses to describe her own family tree: “It is a revered thing to see an ancient castle not in decay. But how much more it is to behold an ancient family which has stood against the waves and weathers of time.” (Sir Francis Bacon)
Carla maintains two blogs, whenever she has time, which is not often enough according to her! One is a genealogy blog, and the other is a writing blog.
Southern Sass – With Just a Little Bit of Class (Sassy Just Writes)