My First Genealogy Conference

I attended my first genealogy conference this weekend.  One downside - it was on the best flying day we've had yet this year!  While my husband was out flying our Taylorcraft, I was inside.  

Goals:  In January I wrote a set of goals for 2013. One was to attend two genealogy conferences.  This one was at the Family History Center in Charlottesville, VA.  I pre-registered for this free conference so I would feel obligated to go even if the weather was spectacular. 

I almost stopped for a cup of coffee on my way there but, fortunately, decided not to.  As I approached the doors there was a large sign requesting no caffeinated or tobacco products. I wasn't surprised, I just hadn't thought about it.  I have several Mormon friends who will laugh when they read this! Back to the conference ...

Before leaving home, I looked at the agenda. Clearly they were targeting a beginner audience and I looked for presentations that would be of interest to a more advanced audience.  

Here's a review of the presentations I attended:

1. The keynote speaker gave a one hour presentation on the new familysearch.org site that launched a week and a half ago. The screen shots were interesting to see since the site is new but the presentation only scratched the surface.  It showed the new family tree function and that you can up-load photos but didn't cover more challenging topics like using RootsMagic to upload or sync your tree.

The following 3 speakers from the Central Virginia History Researchers (CVHR) discussed the group's research in 20 minute presentations. 

2. Alice Cannon from CVHR was my favorite conference presenter. She told the story of buying Bleak House, a former plantation home in Albemarle County, and the research she's done on the slaves that lived there. In addition to having great information, Alice wove together a great story. CVHR's very interesting website is here.

3. Robert "Bob" Vernon is a co-worker and provided a demonstration of his on-line map of African American land ownership in Albemarle county. The presentation was a bit technical, but his work is truly a gift to the local genealogy community.

4. I also enjoyed Lucia "Cinder" Stanton's discussion about CVHR's project to establish the African-American Families Database. 

5.  In a separate discussion, another CVHR presenter discussed the families at Monticello during the Civil War.  His presentation followed the documentation and the discoveries they lead to.  This format made it a bit difficult to follow. The speaker told the story in the order that he discovered the information.  I've spent a lot of time thinking about this presentation and whether I unknowingly use this very same technique, especially when talking with non-genealogy family members. If I, an experienced researcher, couldn't quite follow it, I should be careful when using this technique. Steve Luxenberg used this technique in the book Annie's Ghost. It was very compelling. OK - so perhaps the lesson is that it can be used -- very carefully. Clearly there's an art to using it correctly.  There's no doubt the Monticello researcher had done a tremendous amount of very valuable work over a 13 year period.

6. After lunch I sat in a class about digital images.  It was so basic I got up and went to a different presentation. I waited until the speaker had turned to face the screen as I didn't want to be discourteous. This was my first conference and I'm not sure if it was "ok" to do this. Unfortunately I'm not the most patient person. I went to a presentation about brick walls.  This one was also very  basic and very generic. There were no examples showing how these techniques had helped the speaker with a breakthrough.  I don't know about other genealogists, but I love a good story. I'd like to recommend, if you're presenting basic information, please consider providing some specific use cases. 

Other classes:  I skipped classes like "Exploring and Using findagrave.com".  The site is so intuitive that unless you bought a computer yesterday morning and started genealogy in the afternoon, I can't see needing a class on it.  Other "computer-morning / genealogy-afternoon" classes were "Using the Federal Census in Genealogy," and "Using Newspapers" in Genealogical Research."

What I'd like to see next year.  I'd love to see the CVHR group take questions and answers about brick walls in Virginia.  They have so much experience with local records they could probably point genealogists in the right direction.

My favorite part of the conference was the people I met.  I ate lunch with Patricia whose husband is Lithuanian and immigrated to the US as a child.  We compared stories about visiting Lithuania and exchanged contact information.  I don't often get to swap stories about Vilnius and this was a treat!

I also spoke with Sharon, the current Regent of my DAR Chapter. Sharon is one of the most interesting people I know and I'd like to get to know her better. Genealogy is one of the primary reasons I joined the DAR and Sharon is a wonderful genealogist and teacher. 

During registration I spoke with Doris, another co-worker. She's been doing genealogy for about 30 years. At work we bonded over findagrave.com. Her family is primarily in Ohio. Talking with other genealogists made the conference worth it.

Till next time, keep the blue side up ... Lynn