Organize Your Family History

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Free live streaming of this weekend’s Genealogy Jamboree!

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The Southern California Genealogical Society puts on a terrific conference each year. It’s called the Genealogy Jamboree and it’s being held this weekend in Burbank, California. I attended the Jamboree in 2015 and it was excellent. Since I’m not able to go this year, I was thrilled to learn that 12 sessions will be live streamed and that there is no charge to watch!

It gets better: You don’t have to watch the sessions live (though you can). They will be available for viewing until July 31, 2019. The live stream is being made available free of charge through the generosity of Ancestry.com.

To take advantage of this, you must register by filling out a simple form. You don’t even have to be a member of SCGS.

Check out the conference’s website to see a listing of the 12 sessions that are available for free viewing. Syllabuses will be included!

Note: Free live streaming is available for the non-DNA portion of the conference only. Two days of the four-day conference are devoted to genetic genealogy and those sessions are available for streaming as well, but a fee applies. Here’s a link more information on the streaming the genetic genealogy sessions.

The genealogy community is so generous. There are so many opportunities to learn without paying much. The hard part is finding time for all the learning!

Even “paperless” genealogists should keep some records

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If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve embraced the idea of minimizing paper in my genealogical research. I never print out the documents I find online. Instead, I download them, immediately rename the file according to my file-naming protocol and, once I’ve gleaned all the information I can from the document and created a source citation, I file it within my folder structure. My blog post called How I process a downloaded document takes you step-by-step through my digital workflow. And there’s lots more information in the Paperless Genealogy Guide, the 44-page downloadable guide that Brooks Duncan of DocumentSnap and I wrote as we prepared to speak on that topic at RootsTech in 2017.

As someone who espouses letting go of paper, I’m often asked if there are papers that those who are trying to minimize should keep. I usually reply by saying that documents that are impossible or difficult to replace–even if they’re scanned–are worth hanging on to. That means, for instance, there’s no need to hang on to census records but original birth certificates are worth keeping in a file or binder.

I recently came across a post on the Abundant Genealogy blog from Melissa Barker, The Archive Lady, on this very topic. (Melissa was the subject of my How They Do It Interview in August 2017.) Her Abundant Genealogy post, called 5 Genealogical Records You Should Never Throw Away, goes into some detail about five types of records that you should hang onto. It’s definitely worth reading. (Spoiler alert: The five types of records are original records, diaries and journals, scrapbooks, old letters and photographs. Read the blog post to find out why.)

I would have a hard time throwing away hand-written letters and, in fact, though I carefully scanned it, I still have the epic 36-page letter my grandfather my wrote my grandmother right before they got married, in which he confessed the family secrets. That will be passed along to my niece or nephew or, perhaps, a cousin. But will I keep all old photographs once I’ve scanned them? I’m not so sure.

What about you? Are there are any records you would add to the list of keepers? Any that you don’t think belong there?

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!

 

 

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.

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