The International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences is a biennial conference discussing topics of heraldic and genealogical interest. The Congress brings together scholars and other interested persons from all the nations of Europe and from many countries around the world. The first Congress was held in Barcelona in 1929; at the second Congress, held in 1953, it was decided that future meetings would be held every two years (there have been two exceptions). Memorable 22nd Congress held in Ottawa in 1996 "for the first time beyond the birthplace of modern scientific studies in genealogy and heraldry" had Honourable Roméo LeBlanc, Governor General of Canada and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Diana Fowler LeBlanc as its patrons.The 2006 congress in St. Andrews, had The Princess Royal as its patron, and the 2008 congress in Quebec City had Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada as its patron.
The main themes of the Congresses have changed greatly over the years, and some disciplines have ceased to form any part of the Congresses' study. Abandoned subjects include sphragistics and iconography, which were dealt with at Paris, and vexillology, which was to have been one of the themes at Congresses after Bern. Genetics, which had been a subject of discussion at Stockholm in 1960, did not reappear until the Ottawa Congress of 1996. Chivalric orders were another discarded subject, despite featuring in the congresses held at Rome/Naples, Madrid, Stockholm and Edinburgh, as well as in a few papers presented at Madrid in 1982.
Over the years the meeting have been held in different cities:
- I Barcelona (1929)
- II Rome/Naples (1953)
- III Madrid (1955)
- IV Brussels (1958)
- V Stockholm (1960)
- VI Edinburgh (1962)
- VII Hague (1964)
- VIII Paris (1966)
- IX Bern (1968)
- X Vienna (1970)
- XI Liège (1972)
- XII München (1974)
- XIII London (1976)
- XIV Copenhagen (1980)
- XV Madrid (1982)
- XVI Helsinki (1984)
- XVII Lisbon (1986)
- XVIII Innsbruck (1988)
- XIX Keszthely (1990)
- XX Uppsala (1992)
- XXI Luxembourg (1994)
- XXII Ottawa (1996)
- XXIII Turin (1998)
- XXIV Besançon (2000)
- XXV Dublin (2002)
- XXV1 Bruges (2004)
- XXVII St. Andrews (2006)
- XXVIII Quebec, The Meeting of Two Worlds, Quest or Conquest (23-27 June 2008)
- XXIX Stuttgart, Identity in Genealogy and Heraldry (12-17 September 2010)
- XXX Maastricht, Frontiers in Genealogy and Heraldry (24-28 September, 2012)
In 2014, the congress will take place in Oslo, Norway.
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“All the sciences are now under an obligation to prepare for the future task of philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the rank order of values.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)