Genealogy Jottings

Archive for the ‘Seminars’ Category

Because I live near a large city, I frequently have the opportunity to hear nationally-known genealogy speakers. Just this fall, I attended day-long seminars by Dr. Michael Lacopo (sponsored by the Palatines to America), and David MacDonald (sponsored by W.I.S.E., the Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England research group). The genealogy speaker’s market has exploded in recent years, and most of the well-known genealogists make their way to Denver sooner or later.

For those genealogists who live in more remote area, the pickings are not so rich. To view similar presentations, they must attend genealogy conferences. The National Genealogical Society (NGS) and the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) host large annual conferences around the country. A consortium of societies and vendors sponsors the technology-focused RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City each year. Some state societies hold large conferences as well.

Potential speakers pitch topics to the event organizers. The subjects selected for the conferences often focus on development of professional skills or research in the conference locale. There may be a group of presentations on a current hot topic, like DNA.

The speakers for the upcoming FGS conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana were announced recently, and I was surprised to learn that Thomas McEntee will not be among their presenters. He is well-known in genealogy circles as the organizer of all the genealogy bloggers out there, including me. At this year’s RootsTech conference, he spoke on Twitter for genealogists and inspired me to try it. He has a lot of good ideas about how to use technology in genealogy.

Those in the Denver area will get to hear Thomas McEntee next year even though he will not speak at FGS. The Computer Interest Group of the Colorado Genealogical Society has invited him for their one-day spring seminar on May 25, 2013. I am eager to learn more from him, so I plan to sign up for this seminar. I am lucky to live in the midst of a large genealogy community that provides these opportunities. I wonder who FGS selected to speak next year when they passed over Thomas McEntee. Would it be worth a trip to Indiana?

I find that I make more progress with my genealogical research when I focus on one familyline at a time. Recently I am feeling almost disoriented because I have not been following my own advice. All year, I have tried to find the discipline to study only the Finns, but I keep getting distracted.

Earlier this month, I went to Salt Lake City for a research trip. After one day with Finnish records, I needed a break from that difficult task. I spent the remainder of my time at the LDS library investigating my English and Scots-Irish lines in the American Midwest.

I resumed some Finnish research once I returned home, but a week later I attended the semi-annual Palatines to America seminar in Denver. This took my attention away from the Finns again as I spent an entire day learning about German research from Dr. Michael Lacopo.

What a harried month! The Finns, the English, the Scots-Irish, the Americans, the Germans! No wonder my head spins. I need to get everything I collected this month filed and put away pronto. Perhaps then I can get back to the focused research tool that works for me, the laser, not the shotgun.

How do you locate other genealogists searching for the same surnames you do? Trading information with them can really push along your results.

For many years I have used a couple of online genealogy message boards for this purpose. I have been delighted to discover Reed cousins in New York and Florida; Riddle cousins in Montana, Canada, and Germany.

But increasingly, the posts on the message boards have dwindled. Often they are not queries and answers at all but rather just people looking to test DNA or posting links to recent obituaries. Although I still check them every week, I am finding the message boards have become less and less helpful. So where did all the family researchers go?

I suspect I might find them on Facebook or Twitter. Neither of these has interested me much. They seem time-consuming, and I worry about privacy, so I have been dragging my feet on joining.

This week, however, I listened to a RootsTech presentation by Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers on using Twitter. He made a good case for establishing a Twitter account and using it solely for genealogy. One can follow surnames, other genealogists, or genealogical organizations to connect with like-minded researchers.

I am thinking of giving it a try. I just need to think of a clever Twitter name first.

“I am researching Finns this year,” I keep telling myself. And so I must if I hope to maintain focus and steady progress. Jumping from family line to family line creates confusion and slows you down.

But the temptation this week has been strong to take a long-postponed look at my Revolutionary War ancestors. Not only did we celebrate Independence Day yesterday, but I also attended a class last weekend that stole my attention away from the Finns.

Four times a year, on a 5th Saturday of the month, the Denver Public Library hosts a class on some topic of specialized genealogical interest. This month they discussed Virginia research. Well, who has 4 family members who served in the Revolution from the colony of Virginia? I do–Joshua Reed, Robert Kirkham, and John Day (Senior and Junior). I attended the class, learned a bunch, and now I would love to dive into the records to learn more about those patriots.

But I have a research plan. Everything Finnish lies spread across my desk, and I need to finish (ha! ha!) this before I move on to something else. Those Revolutionary ancestors will wait for me, and when their time comes, they will get my full attention.

I changed my tagline on this blog today. I chose the new one after I attended a seminar last weekend and heard an interesting twist on a familiar phrase. We all know that the Declaration of Independence asserted our right to the pursuit of Happiness. The seminar speaker took that phrase and changed it to speak of genealogy as the happiness of pursuit. That really says it all for those of us who relentlessly seek information about our ancestors. So I adopted that thought as my new tagline.

And I have had a happy discovery or two this week. I located a ship passage record for relatives from Finland, and it proved quite interesting. This group came over in 1908, and their record was very detailed–physical descriptions, names and addresses of kin in Finland, and information about relatives already in America.

I still have a couple more ship passage records to locate for my Finns. Four  Mattila siblings in all came over, some with spouses and some with children. I now have the passenger lists for Alex and Ida. I will be truly happy when I have found the records for the rest of them.