Organize Your Family History

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Planning my Kentucky research trip

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One of my goals for 2019 is to take another research trip to Kentucky. My people were from western Kentucky: McLean, Hopkins and Muhlenberg counties, primarily. I’m really fortunate in that Kentucky has many wonderful repositories. I had a brief visit to the Kentucky Historical Society (or was it the State Archives?) in Frankfort when I was there on a bourbon trip with my husband in 2014. Earlier that year, I visited cemeteries and a library in McLean and Daviess counties.

On both those trips, I did do some preparation but I really floundered a bit when I got to the repositories. I don’t want to repeat that feeling of not knowing what to research. I went to a talk on Kentucky resources at the NGS conference, so I have a great list of places I could visit. And I went to a talk on organizing a research trip and have lots of great logistical ideas in terms of the travel.

Here’s what I’m struggling with today: What’s a better way to go about planning what I want to find out? It seems like I have a couple of options:

  • Come up with research questions and then figure out which respositories might have the answers
  • Research the repositories’ holdings and then figure out what I records I need from each of the repositories

My gut tells me to do the former. Figure out my burning questions and seek out the answers that I can’t find online. But I’m not sure.

These are the places I’m thinking I’ll go:

  • Kentucky State Archives (Frankfort)
  • Martin F. Schmidt Research Library at the Kentucky Historical Society (Frankfort)
  • Office of Vital Statistics (Frankfort)
  • Filson Historical Society (Louisville) [I made a connection with a curator there when I was at NGS!]
  • Kentucky Room of the Daviess County Public Library (Owensboro)
  • Western Kentucky University Manuscripts and Folklife Archives (Bowling Green)
  • McLean County Courthouse (Calhoun)
  • Various cemeteries in McLean County

That’s kind of a daunting (but exciting!) list.

I’d love to hear comments from any of you who are familiar with Kentucky research or have advice about planning my trip, which I’m hoping to take in late June. If there’s an approach you recommend for preparing or if there are places you’d suggest I go, I’m all ears!

 

 

Highlights of the NGS conference

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I was so glad I attended last week’s family history conference from the National Genealogical Society. It was a terrific conference for me. I attended NGS four years ago, the last time it was in the St. Louis area, but I got more out of this year. I think that’s because I’m further along in my research so the more advanced classes were more helpful to me. Sometimes we hear talks that we need to hear just at the right time.

Over the course of four days, I attended 14 classes. My brain hurt a little at the end! I used the terrific NGS app to select my classes before the conference and I was so grateful that I didn’t have to make on-the-spot decisions. I did a great job of selecting because all the classes I took, except one, were very helpful.

One highlight of the conference was attending four classes taught by Elizabeth Shown Mills. Of course I was familiar with her work (Evidence Explained is legendary!) but I don’t think I’d ever actually listened to her speak, certainly not in person. Without exception, all of her classes were excellent, but her class on Context was mindset-shifting. She offered an explanation for why context is so important, along with specific suggestions for how to find context for our ancestors’ lives. I was so grateful for the opportunity to briefly chat with Elizabeth after that session and tell her how valuable I thought it was.

Elizabeth sets some impressively high standards but if I can strive to come close to them, I know I will be upping my game.

Another highlight of the conference was meeting up with some blog readers as well as talking with a podcast listener. And I met some really terrific folks just by sitting next to them in sessions.

I’m planning to take a research trip to Kentucky next month and many of the classes fed right into that. I took classes on planning a research trip, on Kentucky resources, on locating obscure and hidden resources, and of course the class on context. Also helpful will be the classes on breaking through brick walls (which Elizabeth Shown Mills prefers to call stone walls–more on that in a future post). I hope to do some thorough preparation so that I can make the best use of the local resources when I’m in Kentucky.

Next year’s NGS conference will be held in Salt Lake City from May 20 to 23, 2020. Based on the quality of this year’s conference, I’m planning to attend! If you’ve ever wondered whether going to a genealogy conference was worth the time, expense and effort, for me the answer is most assuredly yes.

Making the best use of time at a genealogy conference

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time management at genealogy conferencesI’m attending the NGS conference this week and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. One great thing about going to a conference is having the opportunity to block out the other distactions and focus on the topic at hand. This year, the conference is in St. Charles, a half hour from my home in St. Louis. That sounds incredibly convenient, but in fact in means that I miss the full genealogy immersion that I get when I travel to a conference. I have to head home in rush hour traffic, walk my dog, and deal with day-to-day life. Today, in fact, is my husband’s birthday, so as soon as I get home from the conference I’ll be turning off the research side of my brain!

Within the conference itself, there are some time-management challenges. For example:

  • How early do I need to get there to register on the first day? (Turns out not as early as I thought.)
  • The exhibition hall is open throughout the day and, of course, it is more crowded during the breaks between sessions. Today I decided to skip a class session in favor of touring the exhibition hall when I could get the chance to really talk to exhibitors. That turned out to be a good choice (though I’m sure I missed a good session), because I had two really great conversations. (Keep an eye out on the blog for the fruits of those conversations!)
  • Fitting in time to blog can be hard during a conference. Skipping this morning’s class gave me the time to write this blog post!
  • Of course, deciding which class to attend is always challenging because there are so many good options. Yesterday I made great choices. Here are the sessions I attended, all of them excellent.
    • Judy Russell’s keynote address, “Journey of Discovery”
    • Elizabeth Shown Mills class, “Dissection & Analysis of Research Problems: Ten Steps to a Solution”
    • “Anatomy of a Case Study: Steps Used to Write for Yourself or for Publication,” presented by Melinda Daffin Henningfield. It actually reinforced some of things Elizabeth said, which was great.
    • Jen Baldwin’s, “PERSI: Spanning the Generations”
  • One way I use to determine which class to attend is to pay attention to which are available as live stream and/or audio recordings. If I can view/listen later (for a fee) I may choose a competing class that is only available live.
  • Figuring out the best use of time during breaks is another challenge. Some sessions are in small rooms that fill up, so taking an advance look at class locations can help you get into the class you want. On the other hand, my friend wasn’t able to get into her first-choice class and ended up joining me Elizabeth Shown Mills’ class in a larger room and was so happy she did.  (And, of course, sussing out the less-crowded bathrooms is helpful during breaks as well!)

Sometimes I find myself getting wrapped up in making sure I use my time in the best possible way at a conference. But I try to remind myself to leave myself open to serendipitous connections. If I over plan, I might miss out on spontaneity. You never know where your next great learning opportunity or next great connection with a genealogist will come at a conference like this.

In an environment like the NGS conference, no matter how I spend my time, I pretty much can’t lose.

Photo by Devon Janse van Rensburg on Unsplash.

April 30 x 30 wrap up

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April felt like a really long month! I’m happy to say that I was able to do at least some genealogy research every day. But I don’t think I managed to do 900 minutes’ worth over the whole month. I’m really proud of my daily research, because I didn’t let travel get in the way. I was out of town nine of the 30 days.

Even though I didn’t manage 30 minutes every day, I think that doing at least a little bit of research each day was really beneficial. It kept me connected to my research and my ancestors and made getting started at any given session much easier. I’m looking forward to attending the NGS conference next week and it’ll be nice to be so connected with my research as I learn.

It’s May 3 and I didn’t research on the 1st and 2nd (I think I needed a break), but I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of frequent (if not daily) research.

How about you? If you participated in the challenge, how’d it go? Did you find it beneficial?