NGS 2012 Recap :: Fantastic!

First of all, I have to agree with many of the other genea-bloggers who have posted their thoughts about the NGS Conference in Cincinnati - IT WAS FANTASTIC!

All of the sessions I attended, with the exception of one, were excellent. And the company was incredible. It was so much fun meeting and spending time with “old friends” whom I knew through their blogs as well as meeting some new ones.

Of course, I spent a lot of time with my room-mate Laura Cosgrove Lorenzana and hung out a lot (during sessions and lunches and evenings) with Susan Clark, Linda McCauley, Tina Lyons, and Shelley Bishop. I also met Amy Johnson Crow, Kathy Reed, Lori Thornton and several others whose names I don't recall at the moment!

Two social highlights for me came on Saturday - the first was when a blog reader, Linda Edwards, caught my attention as a group of us were walking into the Hyatt after the sessions were over. She recognized me and I'm very glad that she came forward and said so! It was a really neat moment. Thanks, Linda!

Later that evening after supper at Champs with Kathy, Susan, Linda, and Laura we were relaxing and talking with each other when DearMyrtle came in. She sat down and chatted with us for a while then moved on over to her supper group. From what I understand, Laura and I left too soon - an hour or so later some of the more well-known speakers, including Elizabeth Shown Mills, came into Champs. I'm sure that Susan and Linda enjoyed their time rubbing shoulders with the “rock stars” of genealogy!

As I stated above, all of the sessions I attended (except one) were excellent. All of the presentations by Thomas Jones and Elizabeth Shown Mills were filled to capacity but luckily I was able to get into all of them. It was worth getting there a bit early or waiting in a long line to enter their sessions. Even though I have no intentions of becoming a “professional” genealogist, the practices they espouse regarding documentation, research reports, etc. can be put to use in my own research - hopefully making it better. I discovered that in some ways I already use some of the concepts they talked about but definitely not to the fullest extent.

The last session by Mills was partially titled “Information Overload” and it was appropriately named for by that time my head was nearly bursting with so many ideas and so much new information and thinking about how to apply it all to my research in the hopes of finding some of those elusive ancestors!

Lori Thornton and Becky Wiseman (photo taken by Susan Clark).

Susan Clark and Becky Wiseman (photo taken by Lori Thornton).

The view across the Ohio River from our balcony seating at the Moerlein Lager House on Thursday evening.

Supper was a braised short-rib grilled cheese sandwich with sweet potato chips. It was oh, so good! Laura had the shrimp tacos shown in the background. And yes, a little beer was imbibed.

The conference was over and everyone was homeward bound. Tina Lyons stopped to say goodbye as I was watching the vendors below dismantle their displays.

I want to thank everyone I met but especially Laura for being my room-mate and Susan, Linda, Kathy and Tina for allowing me to tag along to lunches and spending some time with them in the evenings. It truly made the conference more special for me! Thanks, everyone! It's such an understatement, but I had a great time...

My Bags are Packed... I'm on my way

Off to Cincinnati... In a few minutes, I'll be heading south to attend the National Genealogical Society (NGS) Conference! I wasn't sure I'd be able to go but thankfully situations change. I've got a roommate to help share costs (Thanks, Laura) and I'm very happy to be going even though we won't be staying downtown.

This will be my 3rd NGS Conference but the first one where I feel like I actually “know” some of the other people who will be there, even though we may have never met in-person. Reading blogs will do that...

I've gone over the schedule several times and selected at least one session (sometimes two!) for most time periods. Obviously, I can't be in two sessions at the same time so difficult decisions will have to be made when the time comes. There are so many good things to choose from. I'll be concentrating on the sessions regarding finding the elusive ancestors (of which I have more than a few) as well as locating obscure and/or unusual records. I'm especially looking forward to attending several sessions with Thomas W. Jones and Elizabeth Shown Mills, neither of whom I've had the pleasure of seeing before.

Cincy, here I come!

'Twas a Day of Learning

Yesterday was a nice day spent in the company of pleasant people - a group of genealogists! The Indiana Genealogical Society Conference was held in Fort Wayne with a little over 100 folks in attendance. I went with my friend Cindy so didn't “hang out” with the other geneabloggers. I did meet Tina Lyons at check-in (we recognized each other right away) and caught up with her again during a break in sessions. Also saw Linda Herrick Swisher and introduced myself but it was just as a session was beginning and we didn't get to talk. Harold Henderson was there but when I finally saw him in one session, he was out the door so quickly when it ended that I missed him. Some other time, perhaps.

There were two “tracks” for sessions. I attended two sessions with Debra S. Mieszala: The first was “Lessons From A Snoop: Collaterals and Associates” in which she discussed the importance of researching not just your ancestors but everyone around them. I've done quite a bit with collateral relatives but very little with associates. They could be the key to cementing relationships and there are some that I know I should follow up on.

The second session that I attended with Debra was “Digging Through Documents Word By Word” where she emphasized that relationships as we know them today are not necessarily the same as they were back in the day. Sister, brother, cousin, Junior, Senior, aunt, uncle, etc. could and often do not mean the same thing to us that they did to our ancestors. I was aware of that from personal experience - My dad called any relative older than him aunt or uncle, when in fact they were some degree of cousin. The man we all called “Uncle Howard” was actually Dad's 1st cousin once removed. Given the fact that he was 40 years older than dad, it made sense to us to call him Uncle.

The third session for me was “Becoming Expert On Using Ancestry” with Melissa Shimkus, which reinforced that there is always something new to learn. The most important thing I took away from this session was a reminder that wild card searches can be used - something that I haven't taken advantage of so much - and that there are other options to obtain alternate spellings besides soundex.

Neither Cindy nor I were interested in the last session - one tract covered Patent records (those of the inventor kind, not land patents) and the other was on creating a book using Family Tree Maker and Microsoft Word. Neither of us uses either of those programs, so we skipped out for the day and headed home.

We did attend the “Annual Meeting and Awards” session. Two friends, Charlotte Blair and Judy Richter received certificates of merit based on their work as the Whitley County Genealogist and Noble County Genealogist, respectively. They were also recognized for their many contributions to their local societies as well as with the Indiana Genealogical Society.

Other awards given at the Annual Meeting were for inductees into the Society of Civil War Soldiers of Indiana and the newest society that was created in honor of the anniversary of the War of 1812 called the Territorial Guard Society of Indiana.

My ancestors Jacob Wise and William Brubaker were part of the “first” class of inductees into the Society of Civil War Soldiers of Indiana in 2007. I have one possible ancestral candidate for the Territorial Guard Society of Indiana - John Bray of Switzerland County. But the requirements are rather stringent - you must be a “direct descendant of any person who lived within the present boundaries of the State of Indiana on or before the day of statehood on December 11, 1816.” It's going to be tough to prove since the information I currently have that says he was here in 1816 is hearsay...

Pleasanton Family History Expo

By all accounts, the recent Family History Expo in Pleasanton, California was a success. I'll add my kudos to all of the reports with one exception...

The speakers were good. The topics presented were varied and interesting. Visiting with geneabloggers previously met was wonderful. The exception? In plain and simple terms, the venue was awful. Two classrooms in each building separated by fabric curtains certainly did not enhance the learning experience. To give her credit, Holly Hanson (president of Family History Expos) apologized for the classroom environment in her end of the Expo presentation, saying that the Expo will return to the area next year but in different and hopefully better facilities. That's good news for everyone! All in all, the Expo was well worth the time and money.

The first session I attended was with Arlene Eackle. And even though I have few ancestors in the south (a couple in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky), I learned a great deal about locating the “right” ancestor through property records.

At 11:30 I learned what was new in RootsMagic4 with Bruce Buzbee. RootsMagic has some interesting features. I'm almost convinced that I should switch from Legacy! Almost.

The lines for getting lunch were quite long and I missed the 1:30 session with Lisa Alzo that I had planned on attending. Her talk was on Websites You Might Be Missing - a review of some cool tools and useful web sites for genealogists. I'll be able to get some of that information from the Syllabus but I'm sure more information was given in the lecture.

At three o'clock I sat in on Tim Cox's presentation on Hard Drive Organization and learned about how he files his genealogy documents and images. I'm always looking at how other people do that since I have several thousand documents and photos that I scanned before leaving home last September and have yet to organize them. I want to devise a system that will not need to be changed sometime in the future! Probably an impossible dream.

The final classroom session for the day was with Jean Wilcox Hibben on Shaking the Myth: Proving/Disproving Family Legends. Jean has devised a method of evaluating evidence by asking a series of questions to help determine if the legend could be true. It was fascinating to “step through” one of her family legends using this process.

The first day wasn't quite over when the last session finished. I, along with most of the geneabloggers and quite a few other people, attended the live Genealogy Gems Podcast with Lisa Louise Cooke. Her guests were Craig Manson and Sheri Fenley. They discussed writing for the online magazine Shades of the Departed which was created by footnoteMaven. Both Craig and Sheri were fantastic guests, and the dessert bar was pretty good too!

Lisa Louise Cooke and Craig Manson

Day two of the Expo, I was a slacker. It was noon before I made my way to where the Expo was being held. I went in to a session at 1:30 but left after 10 minutes. I couldn't hear the speaker due to the noise from the neighboring session... I went to a 3:00 session but left soon after it started because the subject wasn't what I thought it would be. At 4:30 Holly Hanson gave the final presentation on breaking down brick walls on those troublesome ancestors providing several inspiring examples. And then, it was over... a few days respite and I'm back on the road!

iPad Envy

Thursday evening, footnoteMaven was flaunting her tech toys: Droid phone, iPod video camera, and her iPad – I want one of those! I really, really want one!

Steve has one too. So does Dick. I want one... (photo courtesy of Cheryl Palmer)

I spent half an hour writing a query for Dick's GenQueries project in the hopes that I might win the iPad he was giving away. But alas, that didn't happen. Looks like I'll have to go out and buy one.

SCGS Genealogy Jamboree :: Part Two

It had been a late night on Friday and I skipped the first session on Saturday morning opting to attend the Blogger Summit (part one and two) and then the Live Podcast by Lisa Louise Cooke.

Lisa Louise Cooke and Chris Haley during the live podcast.

I had intended to go to Cath Trindle's presentation on "How Much Proof is Enough?" but didn't make it to the room on time. The next session I went to was "Neglected History" with Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak who discussed several people who have been “lost” to history – their important contributions have been pushed to the wayside with the emphasis on the more well-known people.

I was thrilled to meet Megan later and get my picture taken with her – and the photo was taken by Dick Eastman! Thanks, Dick.

At 6:15 there was a “special” session with Geoff Rasmussen titled “Brick Walls be Gone: Using Legacy's Research Guidance and To-Do List Tools” which I attended with Cheryl Palmer and several hundred other people. The Pavilion was packed with few, if any, empty seats. Most people were probably there because Legacy was giving away a netbook! I have been a user of Legacy for several years (since version 3.0) but had never really utilized the features Geoff discussed. I learned a few tips but didn't win the netbook.

Cheryl and I went to the geneablogger lounge and to our surprise found that no one was there! No geneabloggers in the lounge? We walked into the Marriott Grill and the only geneablogger we saw there was Randy Seaver and his lovely wife Linda. They invited us to join them, which we did and we had a very pleasant evening chatting with them. (Thanks, Randy.)

Me and Randy. I didn't get a picture of Randy and his wife Linda together...

On Sunday, I didn't attend any sessions!! But there was a good reason... In April of this year, when I had lunch with Craig Manson and Sheri Fenley, Craig had mentioned that he had never been to his grandmother's gravesite. She was buried in Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, which is not far from Burbank and just happens to be the largest Memorial Park in the World! I told Craig then that if we both made it to Jamboree I'd take him to the cemetery! I made good on that promise Sunday morning.

Craig and I left the Marriott at nine o'clock and breezed through the traffic, which was pretty light even for a Sunday morning. Rose Hills has an online database of interments and we had looked up his grandmother so we knew the section and plot number. Even so, I stopped at the gate, which had an attendant, and was given a drawing of the cemetery and directions to the gravesite.

After one wrong turn we made it to the right section. It was on the side of a hill so I went to locate the grave while Craig waited in the van. But I couldn't find it. I counted off the rows and spaces several times but came up with nothing except a blank space. I really didn't want to tell him that I couldn't find a grave marker but I did. We then returned to the gate attendant and asked if there was a marker for his grandmother. The response was brief and blunt – No. And I wondered why she hadn't mentioned it the first time, but I didn't ask. We returned to the site so Craig could view the area and I took a couple of pictures for him.

More than a little disappointed and with more questions than answers we returned to the Marriott in time for lunch. Craig then had an interview with Lisa Louise Cooke for a future podcast and I skipped the final session for the day.

Craig Manson and me.

To mark the end of Jamboree, a little celebration was held courtesy of Susan Kitchens who surreptitiously provided a bit of bubbly for the occasion. And then I reluctantly departed, happy to have met so many of my online friends but sad that it all had to end and hopeful that we'll meet again someday.

Having some fun! Contrary to appearances, I had only a few small sips of the bubbly... Susan is more than a little crazy – but in a good way! Thanks, Susan.

SCGS Genealogy Jamboree :: Part One

It was early Thursday afternoon when I arrived in beautiful downtown Burbank (well, actually at the Ramada Inn) and met up with Cheryl Palmer who was to be my roommate for the weekend. Cheryl had originally planned to team up with Sheri Fenley again this year (they were dubbed “Thelma and Louise” last year) and they were graciously going to allow me to barge in on them! However, Sheri was unable to attend (we missed you, Sheri).

Me and Cheryl Palmer.

Later in the afternoon, Cheryl and I went over to the geneabloggers lounge at the Marriott and schmoozed with the other geneabloggers. I was going to try to keep track of everyone I met but that goal went down the tubes after the first few minutes! The excitement was palpable. Everyone was thrilled about meeting or reuniting with online friends.

A group of us went across the street to George's Greek Cuisine for supper after picking up our registration packets. There wasn't enough room inside for us and the other customers so we pushed five or six tables together in the outside dining area (on the sidewalk). There were so many conversations going on with smiles and laughter all around. Then it was back to the geneabloggers lounge for more chatting and greeting the new arrivals.

One of the highlights of the evening occurred when Elyse Doerflinger arrived. She had graduated from college earlier in the day and was on cloud nine. But Tami Glatz had a surprise for her that literally put Elyse over the top. During the NGS conference earlier this year in Salt Lake City Tami had gathered the signatures of many of the “top names” in the genealogy field. At Jamboree the geneabloggers were invited to sign the book also. Many people not only signed the autograph book but most of them also wrote a personal message of encouragement and congratulations to Elyse. It was a wonderful thing for Tami to do and Elyse was nearly speechless, at least for a few seconds! Shortly after the presentation to Elyse, Cheryl and I called it a day.

Tami Glatz presenting the genealogist autograph book to Elyse Doerflinger.

Friday morning we returned to the Marriott for some more schmoozing. Class sessions began at 1:30 and I went to “Cases that Made My Brain Hurt” by Megan Smolenyak2 wherein she described some of the more challenging characters she has had to track down.

For some reason, I skipped the second session. For the third and final session of the day, I listened to Cafi Cohen talk about the importance of “Cousin-Connection Genealogy” and the possibility that it could help you break through a brick wall. Her primary emphasis was on researching the siblings of your ancestors and locating the descendants of those siblings.

After a little more schmoozing in the geneablogger lounge, I joined footnoteMaven, Kathryn Doyle, Schelly Talalay Dardashti, and Daniel Horowitz for supper. And then it was back to the motel for a good nights sleep!

It's Over...

This weekend has been fantastic! I've had the bestest time ever meeting genea-bloggers as well as other genealogists and even attending a few sessions! It's been such a great time, I really didn't want it to end. I think many of us felt that way.

Thank you to the Geneabloggers Swag Bag Team of Amy Coffin, Thomas MacEntee, Joan Miller, and Denise Levenik for putting together a wonderful assortment of items for us. Another thank you goes to the Sponsors for providing that swag!

I'll post additional photos and more information in the very near future. Thanks to everyone for an absolutely amazing time!!!!


in front: Miriam Midkiff (AnceStories), fM (footnoteMaven and Shades of the Departed), Becky Wiseman
the others: Kathryn Doyle (California Ancestors.org), Cheryl Palmer (Heritage Happens), Denise Levenik (The Family Curator), Elyse Doerflinger (Elyse's Genealogy Blog).

Thomas MacEntee (Destination Austin Family and Geneabloggers), Joan Miller (Luxegen Genealogy), Becky Wiseman, Randy Seaver (Genea-Musings), Miriam Midkiff (AnceStories), Craig Manson (GeneaBlogie), and Susan Kitchens (Family Oral History).

California Dreaming

As most everyone in the genealogy community is most likely aware, the SCGS Genealogy Jamboree got underway Friday at Burbank, California. And I'm wishing I was there!

In addition to the standard fare of hour-long sessions by a myriad of presenters, there will be a Genealogy Blogger Summit Saturday morning from 10 a.m. to noon. The panel will consist of Stephen Danko, Shelly Talalay Dardashti, Dick Eastman, George G. Morgan, Randy Seaver and Megan Smolenyak. It will be moderated by Leland Meitzler. I'm sure they all (except George) will be blogging about the Summit as well as the Jamboree itself. George no longer has a blog but he does guest posts on Dick Eastman's Online newsletter about once a week.

Several other genea-bloggers are also attending the Jamboree and have indicated that they will be posting periodically about their experiences. Those that I am aware of are:

• Craig Manson - GeneaBlogie
• Elizabeth - Little Bytes of Life
• Janet Hovorka - The Chart Chick

Anyone else? Since I can't be there, I am looking forward to reading about their experiences.

FGS Conference Index to Posts

FGS Conference - Day One

FGS Conference - Day Two

FGS Conference - Day Three

FGS Conference - Day Four

FGS Conference - Some Thoughts

FGS Conference - Favorite Session(s)

John Philip Colletta (favorite speaker)

WeRelate and the Allen County Public Library

WeRelate and the Allen County Public Library

Promise? Yes, I promise! This will be my last post on the 2007 FGS Conference ;-) . . . in one of my previous posts I mentioned that one of the sessions I attended at the FGS Conference was "Working on Tomorrow's Virtual Community Today" with Curt Witcher in which he talked a bit about the relationship that the Allen County Public Library has established with the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy and WeRelate. Curt didn't really say much about the specific role that the ACPL is playing in the partnership but we did learn a little about the philosophy behind the relationship and the goals they want to achieve.

As Curt said "these are challengingly interesting times for researchers. The available electronic data is immense and growing exponentially. Along with this, the challenge of finding relevant data is also growing exponentially." Nothing new there, right? He continued "there is a growing need for collaboration - to avoid duplication of effort, to have the ability to have your data online on a site that has no affiliations and at no cost to the users."

Curt continued to emphasize that use of the site and data would be free to users. Call me a skeptic, but as Dear Myrtle (and Jasia) brought up just this week, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone, somewhere has to pay for the costs for this "free" online data including server space, bandwidth, obtaining the data, etc. So, how are they going to finance this free resource? Curt didn't get into that aspect but currently WeRelate is being funded by tax-deductible donations. In the "Watercooler" I found a comment regarding the recent design change of having the data being on the left side of the screen with notes in a larger "open" space on the right: "It's in preparation for putting genealogy ads on the right, which we need to do to pay for hosting costs." I'm wondering if maybe for an annual fee you could have the ads removed like they do for some other sites? I don't have a problem with ads, the expenses have to be covered somehow.

Why is the ACPL associated with WeRelate? Well, the way that Curt put it is that he wants "to let everyone play in the sandbox" by making genealogy accessible to more people. Essentially, the more players there are the better it will be for everyone. He also wants it to be a site that has no affiliations so that people will feel more "comfortable" with contributing their family data and to make it easier to collaborate with other researchers. The use of the wiki platform should encourage that collaboration by making it easier for information to be updated while maintaining a record of changes that were made and by whom. In order to edit any page on the site the user must be registered and logged in to WeRelate.

The bottom line is that WeRelate is all about collaboration, getting more people involved in genealogy, and free access to information and records.

Now, I've played around a bit with WeRelate but haven't yet uploaded a GedCom or created any people pages or anything else. I am working on a small file for testing purposes. I do want to see how it will handle the data as it is entered into my database and what kind of adjustments I may need to make in my data entry to conform to the site and how it displays information. I do think the site has great potential and I especially like the idea of collaboration with other researchers. So why haven't I contributed to it yet? Mostly inertia, but also a bit of skepticism, and the fact that I really haven't found the site to be all that intuitive to use. In my opinion, navigation of the site and the search feature both leave a lot to be desired. I got frustrated when doing a search on one of my surnames that is also a place name: a search for the "Berlin" in the Surname field and with "Person (and Family)" selected as the Namespace to search returned 578 items. On the 15th page of results it finally displayed a couple of entries for people. That's as far as I went. It wasn't giving me what I thought it should.

One thing to keep in mind is that WeRelate is a Beta site, it is under development, they are still learning what it is the users want and need. They are open to suggestions and want to improve the site. I encourage you to investigate WeRelate, take the 10-minute video tour and check out the other help features they have.

I highly recommend the series of posts that Denise Olson at Family Matters has on using WeRelate. She has tips and screen shots as well as some step-by-step instructions. She'll also be writing additional posts on using the site:

• Building Community
• Genealogy 2.0 - The Wiki
• WeRelate Update
• WeRelate: Registration and Profile

Also, Randy Seaver had an interesting and informative post on Testing the WeRelate.org Wiki/Genea-Networking site wherein he describes uploading a GedCom and using some of the features. He also lists what he likes and what he dislikes about WeRelate.

Additional Links:

• Allen County Public Library
• Foundation for On-Line Genealogy
• WeRelate
• Dear Myrtle: Genealogy sites at no cost to users?
• Jasia: Money is a Dirty Word

John Philip Colletta

On my FGS Conference - Favorite Session(s) post, Randy Seaver commented that he hasn't heard John Philip Colletta speak yet and asked if I could share some of his audience participation techniques. I was going to respond to Randy in comments, but I became a bit verbose ;-) thus, this post.

In my opinion, Mr. Colletta simply followed the basic precepts for a good speaker: Know the needs of your audience and match your content to their needs. Know your material thoroughly. Put what you have to say in a logical sequence. Emphasize your strong points. Look pleasant, enthusiastic, confident, proud, but not arrogant. Remain calm. Appear relaxed, even if you feel nervous. Speak slowly, enunciate clearly, and show appropriate emotion and feeling relating to your topic. Establish rapport with your audience. Vary the tone of your voice and dramatize if necessary. Etc., etc. He did all of these things, very well.

I attended at least one lecture during the conference where I wasn't sure that the speaker really even wanted to be there, and it showed during their presentation: monotone voice, little emotion, reading a script, etc. Perhaps it was their first major conference and they were nervous. I left the lecture feeling sorry for the speaker having learned very little in the hour spent with them. Quite the opposite with Mr. Colletta. Keep in mind, I can only speak of my own reactions and thoughts regarding his lectures, not those of others in the audience. Their reactions to him may have been different. But, to me, it was obvious from the beginning that he knew what he was talking about. It came across in his demeanor. You could see that he was interested in and enthusiastic about his topic. And he was enjoying himself.

He involved the audience immediately by starting out with a story that related to his topic, by telling only a part of the story to begin with, and letting us know that we would learn the rest of the story before the end of his presentation. A technique similar to that used by Paul Harvey. He evoked emotions by using humor and sometimes even sad, poignant stories. You felt what he was talking about, you weren't just listening. He was constantly giving examples to emphasize his point and to build the storyline. He asked questions during the lecture and encouraged those who had questions to ask them.

I had never previously attended one of his lectures. While writing about the conference I found his website in which the first paragraph speaks volumes to me about his philosophy:

"Searching for ancestors is a journey of self-discovery. — As you learn who they were, you discover more about who you are. The journey is not only enlightening, but great fun, too! My teaching focuses on seeing every ancestor as an individual living in a particular place at a particular time. Classes are interactive, as I respond to participants' questions as they arise. My goal is to help family historians optimize their efforts to uncover and write the stories of their forebears, and to enjoy all along the way the pleasure and humor of the journey."

His website: http://www.genealogyjohn.com/

Some of his lectures have been recorded on audio (cassette tape) and can be found at the Repeat Performance website. I don't know how well the lectures would translate because you wouldn't see the examples he used but it might be worth getting one of them to check it out. They are reasonably priced.

FGS Conference - Favorite Session(s)

In a comment on one of my posts on the FGS Conference, Janice Brown at Cow Hampshire asked which was my FAVORITE session of the conference. . . It would be difficult to select just one, there were so many that were well done and informative.

If I had to choose a favorite speaker it would have to be John Philip Colletta. I attended all three of his lectures and was blown away with his savvy presentation techniques. He involved the audience immediately and kept our attention for the full hour regardless of the topic. He didn't just explain the concepts he was trying to get across but used examples that were informative and entertaining at the same time. He was able to bring life to dead people! Not only were his presentations interesting and exciting, I actually learned some techniques that can be utilized in my research and took away some ideas that can be used in writing biographical stories of my ancestors and other relatives, particularly pulling descriptive information out of a photograph to paint a word-portrait of a person. Research the time period in which the photograph was taken, investigate every detail to reveal as much as possible about the person or people or place depicted. What clothes they are wearing, their hairstyle, what objects are included in the photograph. I think I really already knew that, but seeing and hearing about the examples he gave really emphasized the importance of studying the photograph, not simply looking at it. Actually, I'd have to say that all three of his lectures were favorites!

Probably the most informative, in terms of brand new knowledge for me, were the two lectures given by Megan Smolenyak. Pretty much because all I previously knew about DNA was how to spell it! Now I know enough to know that I'd like to get my mtDNA tested and will probably approach my brothers to see if they would contribute a sample for DNA testing. I'm still not sure what it would tell us, but I think it is important enough to at least contribute to Sorenson Genomics or the National Geographic Genographic Project.

One of the most exciting sessions for me was "Building a Digital Archive" when Brigham Young University, the Family History Library, and the Allen County Public Library announced their collaboration project for digitizing books, maps, and city directories. Even though I had nothing to do with it, it was neat to be present at the announcement and to see the excitement in the presenters as well as in the audience, which was comprised mostly of librarians and vendors. Much more fun than just reading a press release about it!

You can read more about all of the lectures that I attended:

• FGS Conference - Day One
• FGS Conference - Day Two
• FGS Conference - Day Three
• FGS Conference - Day Four
• FGS Conference - Some Thoughts

FGS Conference - Some Thoughts

Overall I think the FGS Conference in Fort Wayne was one of the best organized that I have attended. The speakers were top notch and the selection of lectures was almost overwhelming. There are really only a couple of complaints I have, and I heard most of them from several other attendees as well.

1. The 2-hour break between the opening and the first lecture session on Thursday really was not necessary. In my opinion it was a waste of time. And I know of several people who did not attend Thursday morning because of that reason.
2. The 30 minute break between each session was the longest I've ever seen at any conference. Perhaps at another venue it would have been necessary but the rooms where the lectures were held were within a few minutes walk of each other. There were some lectures held at the library but it was still only about a 2-3 minute walk from the Grand Wayne Center. Fifteen minutes would have been more reasonable, twenty minutes at most.
3. The 2-hour lunch break was a bit much but I understand it was necessary because of the luncheons offered each day (each at $20 a pop, none of which I attended). It did give me a chance to browse some periodicals at the ACPL and I took a nap in my car on Friday ;-) so the time wasn't really wasted.
4. I've already mentioned the syllabus, which was 650 pages or so, and is a good resource. But something really needs to be done to offer it optionally in a different format. There are a number of ways it could be done to please those who still want a hard copy. A suggestion made by several people was to provide separate booklets for each day. Perhaps they could reduce the price of the conference for those that are willing to download it or even send a CD to early registrants before the conference. After the second day there were still a lot of people carrying the syllabus around and almost all that I saw had loose pages.

A video of a portion of the opening session of the Conference on Thursday morning is on Dick Eastman's blog. I'm in it ;-) That's my blond head you see in the center of the picture at the bottom of the frame. . . I was sitting in the fourth or fifth row, in front of the podium.

Dick Eastman attended the same session of the FootNote meeting that I did and took a couple of pictures. I'm in two of them though I don't know if he'll post them when he gets around to posting pictures of the conference on his blog. . .

Also attending the same FootNote meeting was Ceil Wendt Jensen. Now, I'm usually not one to go up and introduce myself but got up the nerve to do so this time and am glad I did. Ceil is very pleasant, congenial and easy to talk to. I mentioned that I'd heard of her through a recent post by Jasia (about the podcast Ceil did with Dear Myrtle). In the process I found out that I didn't know how to pronounce "Jasia" as I said it with a "J" which is actually pronounced as a "Y" and the "a" is more like "ah" so it's something like Yah-c-ah. I also discovered what Jasia's real first name is, but I'm not going to tell. . . I made the comment that I rather envy Ceil, Jasia and Steve since I consider myself an ethnically challenged researcher - one with no historical family traditions based on where my ancestors came from. The last of them came over so long ago (1832) that trace of any traditions that might have been have completely disappeared. Ceil suggested that I could become an honorary Pole...

While exploring the exhibit hall one day I had the opportunity to 'help' one of the vendors, who shall remain anonymous, with a slight technical problem he was having. I had stopped at the booth to introduce myself and he mentioned that his laptop had powered itself down after not being used for a while and it was not restarting as it should have. My suggestion was to see if it still had power. . . turns out the power cord had come unplugged from the power strip. He was a bit embarrassed that he hadn't already checked on that but we had a chuckle over it and I went on my way. I'm sure he would have figured it out eventually, but I was amused by the incident, but then I am easily amused.

For information on the lectures I attended, check out my previous posts on the conference:

• Genealogy Conferences (my contribution to the Carnival of Genealogy)
• FGS Conference - Day One (Wednesday)
• FGS Conference - Day Two (Thursday)
• FGS Conference - Day Three (Friday)
• FGS Conference - Day Four (Saturday)

Links outside this blog:

• opening session video on Dick Eastman's blog
• recent post by Jasia about the podcast Ceil Jensen did with Dear Myrtle
• Michigan Polonia which is Ceil Jensen's website, not to be missed if you are doing Polish research

FGS Conference - Day Four

Yesterday was the final day of the FGS Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Out of the ten options that were available for each of the six hour-long sessions for Saturday, these are the lectures that I chose to attend.

For me, the morning started out the same as the previous day ended - with Curt Witcher. His presentation of "Exploring the Crossroads of America: Indiana Records and Repositories" was a whirlwind tour of the Hoosier State. Curt outlined a six-step strategy for Indiana Research: (1) Identify all the local record repositories. This is especially important since many of the records are still located in the counties and communities where they were created. (2) Explore the county sites at Indiana GenWeb. All Indiana counties have a presence at Indiana GenWeb, some have an amazing amount of online data. (3) Visit the three state facilities in Indianapolis, either virtually or in person: The Indiana State Library, The Indiana State Archives, and The Indiana Historical Society. (4) Explore the offerings of the Indiana Genealogical Society (5) Explore the Indiana resources available at FamilySearch (6) Visit the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library! Each of these facilities has their own unique collection of materials.

At 9:30 I decided to forgo the regularly scheduled programming and attended a FootNote Users Meeting. About a dozen people attended this session in the small Boardroom of the Grand Wayne Center. I think I was the only one who was not a vendor or a speaker. Beau Sharbrough, Vice President of Content for FootNote, was the moderator of the meeting. The site was launched on January 10, 2007 and, in addition to the National Archives of the United States, has recently announced partnership agreements with the Family History Library and the Allen County Public Library. The site is not specifically geared toward genealogists in particular. One of their goals is to create and build a community related to History. Individuals can contribute to FootNote by creating story pages with their own personal records, documents, and stories. Individuals can also contribute by creating an annotation to any record - these are added to the online index and appear in search results. Individuals can also leave comments on any page to add to, correct, or enhance information contributed by someone else. You have full control over any information you contribute. There is a process in place for reporting inappropriate content that will then be reviewed by a member of the FootNote team. FootNote has been given exclusive distribution rights to the digital version of "Evidence Explained" by Elizabeth Shown Mills. When someone prints out a document from the FootNote site, the printed copy will contain a source citation that conforms to her criteria. The digital version, fully text searchable in pdf format, is available for about half the cost of the hard copy book.

My morning ended with "Lights, Camera, Action" presented by Tony Burroughs, which was a beginner's crash course on creating a digital video documentary. He emphasized that the software you select will define what you are able to do and how you will be able to do it. If your computer was purchased more than a year ago it probably will not have the processing speed or memory needed for the software to run properly. It probably also won't have a hard drive large enough to store the files that will be created. Tony briefly touched on the other equipment that would be useful, such as lights, cam corder, tripod, basic computer skills, shooting and editing techniques. You don't need video content to create a family documentary as it can be done with still photos and documents in the same manner used by Ken Burns for many of his documentaries. He also showed several examples that he has been working on that are still in the 'draft' stage. The process is labor and time intensive but the results are rewarding and well worth the time and effort.

After meeting up with some friends for lunch, I sat in on "Using Artifacts in Family History Narrative" with John Philip Colletta (again). John pointed out that there are basically three sources of information available about the past: Oral History/Family Lore, Private and Public Records both original and derivative, and Material Culture or Family Artifacts. A portrait of a person (physical traits, character, personality, social standing) can be created by carefully looking at and reviewing the information, photographs, documents, and records that have been collected on a person or family. John used examples from his own family to illustrate what can be gleaned from even the smallest artifact or bit of information. You can't say something was definite but by using terms such as "actions indicate", "it appears that", or "probably" you can infer that it was so and make an interesting narrative in the process.

The lecture with Mr. Colletta was the last one of the day for me. Perhaps, if the offerings had really, really interested me I might have stuck around for the next three hours, but I was very tired and having a very hard time staying awake! For me, the conference was a success. There was a lot to absorb. New ways of looking at age-old techniques. Refresher courses on the basics. Even some brand new stuff. Though tired and weary, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and am looking forward to using some of this new-found knowledge!

Links:

• Curt Witcher
• Indiana GenWeb
• Indiana State Library
• Indiana State Archives
• Indiana Historical Society
• Indiana Genealogical Society
• Indiana Research Guidance at FamilySearch
• Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library
• FootNote
• Tony Burroughs
• The Ken Burns Effect
• John Philip Colletta

FGS Conference - Day Three

These were my lecture selections out of the eleven options that were available for each of the six hour-long sessions on this, the third day of the FGS Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

My Friday morning began with "Old and New: Combining the Best of Internet and Traditional Research" by Rhonda R. McClure. She emphasized that the internet is a good thing but not 'everything' is out there. The internet allows us to do more faster, to do things we could not do before it came along. It is not the be all, end all for genealogy research. She continued with examples such as indexes, the IGI, Ancestry, PERSI and Online Catalogs that can and should be used as preparation for onsite or traditional research.

Next up was "Stories that Instruct: Using Case Studies to Teach Genealogy Methodology" with John Philip Colletta, one of my new 'favorite' speakers! He discussed examples of how human drama can be pulled out of documents to illustrate usage of a resource or methodology. Case studies can be used to teach a skill, how to find a particular record, how to use an archives or repository, and how to interpret historical documents. Case studies can help bring records to life.

Rounding out the morning was "Trace Your Roots with DNA" presented by Megan Smolenyak. This was a very basic introduction to Y-DNA which is the most popular type of testing being done. Y-DNA is passed from father to son through each generation thus is useful in conjunction with surname projects. There are different 'resolutions' for testing - the higher the resolution (or number of markers tested) the higher the cost for testing. The results are more reliable and consistent with the higher resolutions. The more people that have the testing done means a greater chance for a match. The important thing to remember is that DNA testing will probably not tell you who your specific ancestor is but it will tell you if you are related to someone else, perhaps someone who has done more research than you have! This session was really good for me because I knew nothing at all about DNA testing.

Megan also started out my afternoon with "Beyond Y-DNA: Your Genetic Genealogy Options". In this lecture, she talked briefly about the various DNA tests that are available, primarily mtDNA, which is passed from a mother to each of her children but the sons don't pass it on to their children. This is the second most popular type of testing, after Y-DNA, and is more of a 'deep ancestry' type of testing. The results will tell you which maternal haplogroup to which you belong, i.e. which of the 'Seven Daughters of Eve' you are likely descended from.

Then it was into "The Twilight Zone. . . Strange Web Sites for Family History Research" with Christina Ann Staley. The sites she mentioned will not provide you with any specific data on your ancestors but instead can help you to add meat to their bones and stories to their names. Included were sites such as The Weather Channel (for information on major weather historical events), The Old Farmer's Almanac, old book sellers, the history of costume, The History Channel, and many others.

The last session of the day was "Finding the World with WorldCat" presented by Curt Witcher. The largest bibliographic database in the world, WorldCat includes data on more than one billion items in more than 10,000 libraries and record repositories world-wide! The basic search screen on WorldCat searches across all the fields (metadata) for that term. Use the Advanced Search screen to limit your search to specific fields such as the Title or Author. The search results can be refined to those more relevant to your task at hand. You can find out which libraries have a book of interest and where that library is located and even how far away it is from you. If the book is listed as an available internet resource, i.e. it has been digitized, a clickable link is displayed that allows you to access the online version directly. In many cases the digital version can be printed or downloaded. Curt emphasized that WorldCat should be used in conjunction with the Family History Library since the FHL catalog is not included in WorldCat. The books that the ACPL is digitizing, in the project with the FHL and Brigham Young University that was announced on Thursday, will (eventually) be available as a direct link in WorldCat as well as in the ACPL online catalog. If you are not utilizing WorldCat you are missing out on a huge resource!

Links:

• Rhonda R. McClure
• John Philip Colletta
• Megan Smolenyak
• The Seven Daughters of Eve
• Curt Witcher
• WorldCat
• What is WorldCat?

FGS Conference - Quick Note

Whether from 'Information Overload' or simply from staying up too late Thursday night, I crashed when I got home last night!! Sat down in my comfy easy chair to rest for a few minutes and promptly dropped off into never-never land. Woke up by a phone call several hours later (thanks C.K.) I got up and went to bed. Still not quite refreshed (I'm not a morning person, never have been) but I'm ready to head off for another exciting day.

FGS Conference - Day Two

The start of the second day of the conference was definitely interesting! As usual during the opening session, key people were introduced and thanked and as Curt Witcher was mentioning the fact that this year is the 30th anniversary of the miniseries made from Alex Haley's Roots, the sounds of "Day-O, Day-O, Daylight come and we wanna go home" was heard throughout the auditorium. At first, it was hard to tell where it was coming from, it sounded like it was all around, and then we saw him, still not know what was going on. Well, turned out it was Chris Haley, the nephew of Alex Haley. He spoke for a few minutes, primarily about Roots Television, where he would be interviewing people throughout the day. Then the proceedings continued.

[my personal opinion: Regardless whether Roots was fact or fiction and whether or not the charges of plagiarism were warranted, you have to admit the impact of Roots on the American psyche and genealogy in particular was tremendous. I'm not going to say that the miniseries was the reason that I got into genealogy, because it wasn't, but it definitely had an impact on my life in other ways.]

The keynote speaker was Dr. Andy Anderson the senior VP and Chief Historian of Wells Fargo who spoke on "The Healing Power of Family History and Genealogy" and I must say, it was very inspirational. A great way to start the day! There was a two-hour break so that everyone could peruse the exhibit and vendor area. Personally, I could have done without that break. So the first lecture session of the day began at 11 a.m., was over an hour later, and then there was another two-hour break for lunch!

The lecture I attended at 11 a.m. was on The New FamilySearch presented by Jim Greene. The initial rollout has already started with the St. Louis and Reno temple districts. It is going to be released to LDS Church members first and, likely within the next two years, will be released for use by the general public. It is going to take a lot of work to 'clean up' the existing information, which came from contributed data and the IGI. The problem is with the fact that there are, in many cases, multiple records for the same person and it can be troublesome to determine if it really is the same person. Their goal is for collaboration to create a "pedigree of mankind" as well as to preserve the records and information. Privacy features are in place to protect the information of living people and they are going to be improving the method for sourcing data. Eventually you will be able to include images of the source documents, if you have them, or links to the documents if they are posted on a website. The interface seemed intuitive and easy to use, although it wasn't a live demo.

It was a tough choice as there were two other lectures I wanted to go to at the same time, but after the lunch break I went to the lecture by John Philip Colletta on "Using Original and Derivative Sources: How to Evaluate Evidence" and was not disappointed. He didn't just explain the concepts of original/derivative sources and primary/secondary information but showed examples and engaged the audience. It was informative and entertaining at the same time. There are relatively few speakers that could talk about anything and you'd learn from them and enjoy it in the process, Mr. Colletta is one of those speakers.

The next session for me was "Working on Tomorrow's Virtual Community Today" by Curt Witcher. Curt is also one of those few speakers who is engaging, informative and enjoyable. I was especially interested in this lecture because it was about the relationship that the Allen County Public Library has established with the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy and the WeRelate wiki. Curt didn't really say much about the role that the ACPL is playing in the partnership but we learned about the philosophy behind the relationship and the goals they want to achieve. I'll post more on this in the near future (probably next week) but it is all about collaboration, getting more people involved in genealogy, and free access to information and records.

Going along with the theme of collaboration, cooperation and free access, the next session I attended was very interesting indeed! A panel consisting of Randy Olsen of Brigham Young University, Michael Hall of the Family History Library, and Curt Witcher of the Allen County Public Library announced and discussed "A Collaborative Digitization Project" which is a continuation of the current BYU project which has just finished digitizing 5,000 family history books from their collections. These have been made available online (see link below) as they were completed. Each of the libraries involved will be able to select what they feel is unique to their collections. There will be checks and balances in place to ensure there is no duplication of effort so they aren't scanning the same item. The project will only include books and periodicals that are in the public domain. If the author of a book under copyright gives written permission then that work could also scanned. Curt stated that the ACPL will concentrate on its collection of Local History books first. BYU will be scanning much of its map collection for inclusion in the project.

You'll be able to search for a book, when you open the book you will then be able to do a full-text search within that book. But what I think is really cool is that the online catalogs of all the libraries involved in the project will be linked together so that when you do a search for a book or periodical you can tell which of them has the physical book and whether or not it has been digitized. If it has been digitized there will be a clickable url to display the digitized version. You can do this now with the Family History Library catalog because the books that have been digitized by BYU already have a clickable link in the catalog entry. But this will be across all the libraries involved. In addition, a fourth library has been brought into the project - the Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research in Houston, Texas. Other libraries may be added in the future.

I'm sure there will be a press release, if there hasn't already been one, with more details on the BYU/FHL/ACPL and Clayton Library project. Exciting times indeed for genealogists and family historians! Three cheers to everyone involved in the project! And three more cheers for collaboration and free access to records and information!

Links:

• Wikipedia entry on Alex Haley
• Wikipedia entry on Roots, the miniseries
• Banana Boat Song
• WeRelate
• Foundation for On-Line Genealogy
• BYU Family History Collection
• Family History Library
• Allen County Public Library
• Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research

FGS Conference - Day One

As mentioned in my post on Genealogy Conferences for the Carnival of Genealogy, I'm attending the FGS Conference in Fort Wayne this week and today was the first day of the conference. The printed Syllabus is probably about 650 pages (637 pages covering the sessions and the rest is advertising and informational pages). I'm sure it doesn't weigh more than a couple of pounds but after lugging it around this morning it sure seemed like it weighed at least 10 or 15 pounds! I left it in my car at lunchtime and probably won't be taking it with me the rest of the week either. Too bad they can't provide it on a CD or make it available for download to paying attendees.

Anyway, it was 'Society Management' day but there was also a Librarian's track as well as the APG Professional Management portion of the conference. "Societies Going Virtual" was the topic of the keynote address by David Rencher, former FGS President. His premise was that societies must shift from a paper centric model to a virtual one and that societies are going to be challenged by this change. Societies need to find some way to serve the needs of distance members as well as local members while maintaining the viability of their society regardless of the type of society, whether local, regional, national, ethnic, etc. In addition they must adopt some of the new technologies such as on-demand publishing, email newsletters, webinars, podcasts, social networks, etc. to help meet those needs. Essentially, his message for societies was "Go Virtual or Perish!"

The lecture I selected, out of the six available, in the next hour was "The Role of the Genealogical Society in the 21st Century" which was presented by Jana Sloan Broglin. I've had the pleasure of hearing Jana speak several times before and she always puts her own unique spin on things. Jana essentially picked up where David left off with some specific ideas for publishing, programs, and society websites and what they can offer members.

In the following session, since I'd heard some of the other lectures (or similar ones) at other conferences, I chose "Where is the Book with My Family in It?" presented by Drew Smith. Drew is an engaging speaker and showed several ways to find out what may have already been done on the families you're researching. Resources such as the Family History Library, the Library of Congress, and WorldCat as well as local libraries, Google Book Search, online bookstores, and PERSI can all be used to help locate those previously published family books.

During the lunch break a lot of people went across the street to the Allen County Public Library. The Genealogy Center was quite busy, to say the least. After the two-hour lunch break, I started the afternoon off with "Inform, Promote, and Expand: Keeping Your Society's Website Alive" with D. Joshua Taylor. Some of the ideas he mentioned were virtual tours, a what's new page, research guides for your area, and finding aids.

Next up was Michael Ritchey who demonstrated a new feature that is being tested and evaluated as part of FamilySearch. You won't find information on specific individuals with this new feature but it is going to be a good tool for locating resources. It is still in the development and testing phase so it will be a while before it is available.

My selection for the final session of the day was "Seeking Your Comfort Zone As You Approach Different Repositories" presented by Paula Stuart-Warren. Although I have done research onsite is some courthouses and libraries outside of Whitley County, it has been a while and I've never ventured into some of the larger repositories. I thought Paula's lecture would be a good refresher, and I was right. Basically, advance preparation is the key to a successful research trip. Be not afraid to go where you've never been before!

I chose not to attend the Open Forum scheduled for 7:00-8:30 p.m. since it's an hours drive from the Library to where I live...

Well, as I was just going through the syllabus looking at the various sessions that are scheduled for tomorrow, several pages separated from the binding. It's a large soft-bound volume and bending the spine to get it to lay flat probably didn't help any! I'm thinking maybe I'll just go ahead and separate the pages for tomorrow sessions and punch holes in them to fit in a small 3-ring binder, at least for those sessions where I'm having a tough time deciding which lectures to attend!

Genealogy Conferences

The first national genealogy conference that I attended was the NGS Conference in the States in Nashville, Tennessee in May 1996. It just so happened that I had to go to Ardmore, Alabama (a couple hours south of Nashville on the Tennessee/Alabama state line) to do some training for the company I worked for and was able to arrange it so that I could go down there a few days before the conference. Nice.

There was another reason for wanting to go to Nashville. I knew that my 3rd Great Grandfather, Jacob Wise, had died in a Nashville hospital towards the end of the Civil War and was buried in the National Cemetery there. I wanted to find his grave and also see if I could find any information about the Civil War era hospitals. For those reasons alone, the trip was a success. Attending the lectures was icing on the cake!

Since then I've only attended local and regional conferences such as those sponsored by the Indiana Genealogical Society (IGS) and the Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS). The IGS conferences are one day affairs, on a Saturday, and are in a different location within the state each year. This year it was, conveniently for me, at that Allen County Public Library (ACPL). The OGS conference has some events on Thursday afternoon with the lectures on Friday and Saturday so it is a bit more expensive, but still quite reasonable.

The June 2006 NGS Conference in the States was in Chicago and I was able to attend on Friday and Saturday. The schedule at work just didn't allow for taking off Wednesday and Thursday but I just couldn't pass it up completely. Highlights of that conference, for me, were the presentations by Stephen Morse on how to get more out of search applications and creating one-step search tools. And I really enjoyed Rhonda McClure's ideas on using scanners for objects, not just pictures and documents.

And, this week is the FGS/ACPL Conference in Fort Wayne, A Meeting at the Crossroads of America!, which I'm planning to attend. The problem that I have is in deciding which lectures to attend. There are a couple of hours where there isn't really anything of interest to me but many of the session times have more than one lecture that is of interest. How to choose? Decisions, decisions!

Of course, there is more to going to a conference that simply attending the lectures. The opportunities to meet other researchers - remember to say hello and introduce yourself to the people sitting next to you in those lectures, you never know, it could be someone related to you! Then there are the temptations of the vendor booths in the exhibit hall ready and willing to take your hard-earned money and the demonstrations of new products.

My plans, aside from attending lectures, are to:

• check out the new version of Legacy due out in October
• attend the Footnote members meeting (I had to select an alternate date/time - the one session they had planned was filled up quickly and they added four more meetings!)
• check out the presentations at The Generations Network (hopefully those presentations will coincide with the times when none of the conference lectures are of interest to me)

I'm not going to 'blog the conference' as it is happening, my laptop computer is old and does not have wireless internet access. Besides, I don't want to lug it around during the conference anyway. I am hoping to do some posts in the evenings but it's about an hours drive from downtown Fort Wayne to where I live, depends upon how tired I am when I get home.

What amazes me is the number of members of my local genealogy society who are NOT going to attend this conference. Only three others, that I know of, have said they are going. I wonder why that is? Those that I asked said they just didn't want the bother, it's too far to drive everyday. Huh? For most of them it's less than half an hour. If you lived within an hours drive wouldn't you want to attend? They didn't go to the IGS Conference in April either. Most of them are retired, and I don't think the cost is an issue for them either. I just don't get it. Oh well, their loss. I'm looking forward to this event, learning about new resources, meeting some of the presenters, and perhaps making a new friend or two.

Online registration is no longer available but you can register onsite at the Grand Wayne Convention Center. You don't have to attend all four days - single day registration is available. Check out the lecture schedule, I'm sure you will find something that grabs your attention.