Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

I’m loving the Florida State Genealogical Society virtual conference

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As I mentioned earlier this week, the Florida State Genealogical Society is hosting the 2017 Fall Virtual Conference today and tomorrow. I listened to all four talks today and they were great! Such interesting topics, great presenters, and lots of new ideas for my research.

I’m liking it so much I decided to blog again about it because it’s being recorded so you still have a chance to hear the content. If you register for the conference today ($59.95 for non-members) you’ll have access to the recordings for three weeks and you can download the handouts. It’s a great opportunity and I’m glad I didn’t miss out out on it.

Case in point: Today’s talk by Daniel Earl on using funeral records was so interesting and new to me. I had never thought about how funeral records, like bills of sale and programs of funeral services, could help my genealogy research. Now I not only know about them I know where to look for them and even how to contact funeral directors to ask for help.

If you have the money in your genealogy budget, I’d urge you to sign up for this conference, listen in tomorrow live and listen to the recordings of today’s talks over the next three week. I think it’s a well worth the time and a great value.

Florida State Genealogical Society’s Fall Virtual Conference is this weekend!

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I’m not sure how this escaped my notice, but I was glad to learn today that it’s not too late to sign up for The Florida State Genealogical Society’s 2017 Fall Virtual Conference, this Friday and Saturday, November 17 and 18, from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm (eastern time) each day.

FSGS has lined up eight hours of lectures, from notable genealogy presenters, including Michael Lacopo and Diahan Southard, who have been participants in my How They Do It series. Topics include DNA, tax records, funeral homes, and newspaper research. You can see the full lineup on the conference registration page. If you’re not able to watch the whole webinar live, recordings will be available to registrants for three weeks after the conference.

Conference registration is $54.95 for FSGS members and $59.95 for non-members. I just signed up–the topics interest me and I actually like that there’s a three-week deadline on the recordings. That should ensure I actually watch them. I do hope to catch some of the presentations live, however.

Are you planning to attend? Which talk(s) excites you most?

 

Preparing for your first genealogy conference

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Today I received an email from a reader who will be attending the St. Louis Genealogy conference on October 14. I look forward to meeting her at the conference. She mentioned in her email that it will be her first genealogy conference, so she didn’t know what to expect.

That got me thinking it might be worthwhile to share a few tips about attending conference. I love going to genealogy conferences and have attended probably a dozen or so. Here are my big tips:

  • Bring your family tree or have access to it on a device. I frequently hear things at conferences that make me want to check my tree, to see whether I have ancestors in a locality, for example. Once, I was able to verify on my tree that the speaker, Joshua Taylor, and I were related! (I blogged about that exciting moment here.)
  • Bring some way to take notes, either a notebook or device. (I prefer to take notes into Evernote on my laptop.)
  • Eat a good breakfast, because you’re going to need a lot of brainpower. And bring along a bottle of water to stay hydrated. I always bring trail mix or something too.
  • Be prepared to keep a list of next steps, because the sessions you attend will surely spark ideas for things to look up or other actions.
  • Take a class that doesn’t necessarily interest you–you never know what new interests it might spark. (This tip came from reader Jan Rogge in a comment on my blog post about attending the Missouri State Genealogical Society conference last month.
  • If it’s a large conference with an app, download the app and decide what sessions you’ll be taking in advance of your arrival at the conference.
  • Make conversation with the person next to you. You may be in a position to help him/her or vice versa. Or you could even meet a cousin that way!
  • Take time after the conference to read your notes and process the conference materials you bring home.

Basically, be prepared to write stuff down because you’ll probably learn so much you’ll never remember it. Most of all, enjoy yourself!

Join me at the St. Louis Genealogy Conference!

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I attended last year’s St. Louis Genealogy Conference, a free conference sponsored by the LDS church, and it was terrific. So I was delighted to be invited to present at this year’s conference! The theme is Remembering Families.

The registration for the conference, which will be held Saturday, October 14, just opened. If you’re interested, you can register here. I will be presenting twice on the same topic, Going Paperless in Your Genealogy Research. If you’re a regular reader here, you know that’s a passion of mine.

The lineup looks great, with presentations on social media, maps, Missouri Digital Archives, researching Civil War ancestors, and German research, among other topics. If you plan to attend, please let me know in the comments or via email!

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When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.