Day 2: Professional Management Conference in Salt Lake.

It was another good day!

It started with a very nice breakfast at Blue Lemon, a little breakfast place down the street from the hotel. I decided to play hookey and went to the Family History Library for some research rather than listen to Judy Russell talk about copyright and contracts.  It was a tough decision because I love to hear Judy.

But it was productive time in the library.

i knew that I wouldn’t have big chunks of time to do research so I instead identified more but smaller tasks to accomplish.

Task no. 1: Daniel Suhm, a Danish soldier moved to a different county every ten years.  I wanted to check the Danish military records to see if they can answer the question of his residence  in the late 1770’s.  Danish military records unfortunately start after the Daniel “retires” to the village of the birth of his wife.  Therefore, no additional information is found and there is no resolution to the “brick wall” question of naming the father of Anne Kirstine Suhmsdotter/Danielsdotter.

Task no. 2: Swedish tax records may yield direct evidence as to the birth year of my ancestor Bengt Andersson, b. 1774.  It also may provide “bridging information” for missing parish recordS.  Records were reviewed. Because the family has lived in this tiny parish for more than 300 years before emigrating, I copied every page of the tax schedules for four years– 1712, 1734, 1740, 1815.  I’m excited about taking some time to really check these records.  The records will provide additional direct evidence of the birth year which is in conflict with two other recorded birth years.

Task 3: My goal was to see if any additional progress can be made on my Frederick Eilers problem of Stephenson County IL.  I may not even get to this  problem at the library but Karen and I brainstormed this problem and identified an approach using the 1865 IL and the 1870 Federal censuses to see if we could find Berg family.

I think it is very important to be realistic about the time you will have available and the tasks you need to do.   My preparation would have been quite different if I would have anticipated large blocks of time available to do the work.

I came back to the conference and attended an excellent presentation by Cece Moore on advanced DNA analysis. I am so much smarter about this and now have a better idea of  what I do not know.  I learned how autosomal DNA tests are being used to solve adoption cases and other intractable problems. It was very interesting and made very accessible to this genealogist.*

Tomorrow will be quiet.  Karen and I are going to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  There is a reception for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) in late afternoon.  It shouldn’t interfere with Downton!

Happy Hunting!

Jill

* just listened to an interview by a SLC TV news reporter of Cece about the Tom Lipport case. At the end, after FIVE tries, three of which named our organization the “Association of Geologists” she stumbled out the name of Association of Genealogists.  Of course, our name is the Association of Professional Genealogists. Geesh.