NGS 2014: Wrap up

Thanks!

Thanks to all the volunteers. No conference is possible without the help of volunteers. Volunteers set up and took down booths, volunteers staffed the booths, were room monitors and assisted with registration. And those are just the activities we can see! There are hundreds more volunteers behind the scenes working hard for the year + before the event. Special thanks to the host society, the Virginia Genealogical Society. I hope you can take a well deserved vacation in your beautiful state to decompress.

Thanks to the NGS staff and Board. We know there are not many of you but you seem to multiply yourselves during this time of intense activity.  You make sure the contracts are in place with hotels and venues and coordinate the sponsored lunches and activities, etc. etc..

Thanks to the instructors, who consistently bring terrific content so we can all learn new skills and explore new record sets which make us better genealogists.

And thanks, to the attendees. I met such fabulous people and had so much fun, you make it a joy to attend. I make a point to meet 3 new people a day and easily accomplished my goal, usually before lunch!

Some highlights included:

• lunch with my ProGen class attendees and mentor Craig Scott (thanks Craig, Rorey, Barry and Angela for the great advice)
• meeting Ms. Tweet AKA Jen Baldwin.  She is as terrific in person as she is in 140 characters.
• meeting Debra Hoffman–I hope a new friend.  She and I had a terrific conversation at the GSG sponsored lunch and who I ran into again later that day during the fire drill during Craig Scott’s presentation on Confederate Soldier research.
• chatting with two women reviewing BCG portfolios (both of which said they would submit articles for publication in the SGS Bulletin) and
• the 13 Washington attendees (NE had 2). I think I connected with 8?

See you next year in St. Charles!

Happy hunting!

Jill

What I have done since the last posting: fed my genealogy obsession almost (but not quite) to overload!

NGS 2014: some personal highlights

First off– i have no proof that any of my direct line ancestors, including my parents, ever set foot in Virginia. Nada. So, what was I doing at a conference in Virginia?

The Virginia “track” is only one of eleven that one can experience and I could easily avoid them if I wanted to and concentrate on other learning experiences. But, I found I didn’t want to. You can see below that several of my favorite sessions were VA related.

Tuesday: I had bought my plane ticket early hoping that I would get into the BCG workshop. No such luck. So I walked from VCU to Belle Isle (see photo) and then back up the hill to the convention center to register. (Belle Isle was where Mary’s Union soldier/great grandfather was kept for a few months before being moved to Salisbury after being imprisoned by the Confederates.)  I met up with my friend and mentor (and professional “get on the clock” nag) for drinks before Mary, my gracious host, picked me up to drive to her place where I stayed for the week.

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Wednesday:
“Hell on the Homefront” by ESM (see pic to the left). A new record set to me about claims made, mostly by Southerners,  to the federal government  for war damages
“New Standards or Old” by Tom Jones. Compared the old standards for evaluation of our genealogy work with the new “genealogical Standards.”   He made the strong statement that these standards are not for just portfolio writers but rather ALL genealogy work.

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Thursday:
“Finding Family History in Published Legal Records” by Sharon Tate Moody, a Virginia based researcher. She gave me confidence to explore the published laws of the state and the nation.  I also enjoyed her presentation on the Live Streaming option on land records.
Exhibit Hall: I spent an hour and a half in the exhibit Hall. I reviewed portfolios at the BCG booth, stopped at the FGS booth (met Rorey there, a ProGen cohort member), entered some names at Find my Past, took a picture of genealogists doing a good deed by indexing records. (see left)

Friday: “Bittner Day!”
Attended three terrific sessions by Warren Bittner– German History ( he should have called it “1000 years of German history in 1″), Using German Gazetteers” and finally “Writing to Engage your reader”. All absolutely terrific.

Saturday: The high level buzz is gone! Everyone is starting to drag.
“Using Case Studies to learn Research Methods” by Tom Jones. This was the Birdie Monk Holsclaw Memorial lecture and Tom presented a presentation that had been given by Birdie  and him in 2000 shortly before her death. This was special to me as Birdie and I started an early computer interest group together in Denver, Colorado. She and I were first time mothers together. Russ, her husband, Pat, Birdie and I had dinners together occasionally to commiserate about the lack of computer software programs which focus on sourcing to the extent both of us desired.

Remember the post about how I make decisions about which sessions to attend? Looking back I believe that I pre-identified about 50% of the sessions in advance which I then went on to attend. I consulted and took the advice of others as to sessions to attend and changed my mind on some. I also attended more on Virginia and German sessions than I had anticipated.

Hope to see you in St. Charles.

Jill

What I have done since the last posting: I had trouble getting my draft of this posting (and the next) to upload to the cloud and into my primary WordPress box….hence the delay.  I have been working on my Dirk Bode article.  I now feel I have a draft ready to submit to my ProGen class.  I attended the SGS Spring Seminar.  Jeanne Larzalere Bloom did a great job.  I am now also getting ready for the SGS Board meeting tomorrow.