NGS 2012 - Day 1

What a great day!!

NGS 2014 will be in Richmond, Virginia.

NGS 2015 will be in St. Charles, Missouri. 

AND remember next year NGS 2013 will be in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I met the entire contingent from the FHSA (the Family History Society of Arizona).  The two of them.  I'd love to know if there are other attendees from Arizona other than George and Linda.

Today there were only three time periods for sessions.

At 11 am I was in a VERY crowded room.  Tom Jones spoke on "Strategies for Finding 'Unfindable' Ancestors".  I loved his comments about the search will be time-consuming, tedious and expensive (for travel).  He provided 4 examples, which are available in the NGS Quarterly, of how to work around this problem.  I think I liked the two comments about not expecting names to be spelled the same (I knew that, but it's good to be reminded of this fact) and that a person is more than his/her name. 

Since I was not scheduled to attend one of the luncheons I had 2 1/2 hours to visit the vendor hall.  I picked up some great ideas from the Oklahoma Historical Society booth on how to find some elusive ancestors.  I also learned more about the familysearch wiki.  I sort of understood it, but Paul Nauta spent time explaining more.  Thank you, Paul.  I briefly said hi to Lisa Louise Cooke, who sent her regards to all of us in Arizona.  (In March she was the speaker for the Family History Society of Arizona's annual meeting.) I found some wonderful old postcards at Wolf's Head Books.  A little costly, but oh, how great!  AND I sat down for about 20 minutes.  I really should go back later and look at some other states. 

The first session after lunch I was torn between Ann Fleming's "Writing with Style" and Suzanne Adams "Paradigm Shifts When Searching Online Genealogical Records."  Both had great pages in the syllabus.  (And I really appreciate that.  I definitely don't like to see syllabus pages that are in prose or that are double spaced just to take up space.)  I went to the writing session.  I learned that I need to make a style sheet for each project that I am writing and I need to be CONSISTENT.  Even if it's wrong.  Ann also reminded us that even if we intend to write "Just for our family" when it's out of our hands we really don't know where it will be.  I wonder how many authors of family histories knew that there works would be in libraries of various types all over the country. 

My last session today was "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury: The Evidence Presented Clearly Shows..." by Barbara Vines Little.  I've never attended a session of hers.  In fact, I don't know if I ever heard of her or have seen her on another conference schedule.  WELL, NOW when I see her on the schedule I will definitely consider her presentations.  She was great!  Now, this was at the end of the day.  The room was warm.  The room was CROWDED!!  And she's explaining the difference between a list-style proof summary, a narrative-style proof summary and a proof arguments.  I'm quite sure no one went to sleep.  What a lot of information in one short hour.

After a quick dinner I walked to the Cincinnati-Harrison County Library. Wednesday nights it is open until 9 pm.  I know that tomorrow night it will be open for conference attendees until late (11:30 pm) but that's past my bedtime.  I was curious what resources they had that may help me with my research.  I think there were probably 40+ attendees in the genealogy section and as I left at least seven more were entering. 

After walking back to the hotel, instead of writing this blog, or deciding what sessions I want to attend tomorrow, OR indexing, I looked at the catalog for the library and made a list (a long list) of items to look at tomorrow night.  Well, perhaps I'll have to stay up past my bedtime.

Yes.  A great first day at NGS 2012 in Cincinnati.

NGS - I met Kimberly Powell

How could I forget to mention that I introduced myself to Kimberly Powell last night?  For those of you (only a FEW I hope) who don't know about genealogy.about.com, it's a great place to find information regarding almost anything about genealogy research.  And I love all of the ideas for organization.  Sorry Kimberly for interrupting dinner last night, but I was so pleased to see you in person.

1940 Census - Arbitration

First, I am an arbitrator.  YES, one of THOSE who don't "like" your indexing.  That's not true.  It's just that I need to make a decision between two different points of view.  I don't make decisions on anything that doesn't already have a conflict. (Two indexers who don't agree.)

I also index.  AND, I was corrected because I didn't put in the county for the township that was listed in the residence.  WELL, there was NO county listed.  Yes, I could have looked it up.  YES I even knew it.  But I believe the indexing instructions say that I'm not supposed to add additional information.

THEN, I was also marked incorrect because what was written as the county was misspelled.  Obviously the other indexer just copied the spelling.  And so did the arbitrator.  I typed in the correct spelling of the county according to an atlas and google wikipedia.  So what is going to be published?  I asked for a review. 

NO there shouldn't be a "war" between indexers and arbitrators, no matter which side of the "war' you are are.  But we need to work together and try to get published the best information online to help us and others with research.

My request?  Indexers and Arbitrators:  READ the instructions:  Read them again in ONE week.  Read them AGAIN in TWO weeks.  I'm definitely not saying, or implying that I don't make mistakes.  But PLEASE don't correct me for a spelling that is correct, just because the enumerator didn't spell the county correctly.

NGS - Familysearch dinner for bloggers

First, I received an invitation to this dinner because I am a blogger (sort of?)  Anyway, I received a tech pad.  I'm not a tech person but it's this neat device to keep all those cords in one place.  You know:  those that go with all of our tech devices.  Thank you, familysearch.

Now, am I there under false pretenses?  I don't blog regularly.  I don't often write about events and I almost never ("never say never") write about products.  But I was at this lovely dinner. 

The most fun was the bloggers I sat with and the stuff I heard.  Another Karen but she's from Ohio: www.karenmillerbennett.com.  Then Ruth Blair www.familyhistorysearchers.com  from Ontario, Canada,  She mentioned that copyright laws are different in Canada.  We often forget about that.  Then Julia Langel at http://geneajulia.blogspot.com. 

I talked "briefly" with Dick Eastman.  Well, I reminded him that he had come to Arizona for the 2011 Family History Society of Arizona annual meeting. 

I also met a woman who is real:  Kimberly Powell.  I've been recommending her web site/blog for years.  It's www.genealogy.about.com.  In my opinion (and of course this entire blog is my opinion), it's one of the best sites for information, particularly for beginners.  But researchers of all levels can benefit from her site.

I learned about becoming a blog ambassador.  I signed up a few minutes ago. 

Now for the really exciting part.

Did you know that familysearch.org has historical record collections from over 60 countries?  And, one of the newer collections will be the 1802-1940 Civil Registrations from Italy will eventually be online with images and then indexes with an agreement between familysearch and Italy.  WOW!! 
Daily, there are about 10,000 volunteers online to answer patron questions in 13 languages and sometimes as many as 17 or 18.  WOW!!!
More than 650 societies have registered to help with indexing the 1940 census.  (Family History Society of Arizona is one of them.  Thank you!!)  What's really amazing is that a little over 30% of all  of the 1940 census records have been indexed in 37 days.  If we continue at this rate, the entire 1940 census may be indexed in July.  We really need to keep working.  Don't slow down just because the initial excitement is over. 
Now, this may not seem quite as exciting as the 1940 census project, but family search has plans to add more and more images to their web site.  And you all know what that means.  Indexing! INDEXing!!  INDEXING!!!  When we finish the 1940 census we will want to continue our efforts.  After all, the more indexed records, the easier we will find records what may include our ancestors.

So, thank you familysearch.org.  Thank you to my dinner companions.  And a special thank you to all of you who help make those records searchable.

NGS - I'm in Cincinnati

Yes, I arrived.  I'm in my room; have internet connection with ethernet cable (that's OK).  I picked up my registration bag.  This is my first NGS conference but I've attended 2 FGS and 2 Jamborees.

Now decisions!!

Fortunately tomorrow only has 3 time periods to make decisions for.

The vendor hall opens at 9:30 and the first session starts at 11.  But first there is the Opening Session (AT 8).  Oh, well.  I wasn't planning on much sleep any way.
I'm going to try to get into "Strategies for Finding 'Unfindable' Ancestors" by Thomas Jones at 11.  But then there is also "The Family Tapestry: Integrating Proof Arguments into the Genealogical Narrative" by James Bloom, and then two more that aren't going to be recorded by Lisa Louise Cooke and Josh Taylor.  Now what?

Unfortunately during the afternoon 2 hours I have 4+ sessions that I'd like to attend during each hour.  I'll order CDs, but which ones?  And how many?  Have I reached 10 already?  I get a discount if I order 10.  Does that mean 10 a day?  :) 

I'll try to write tomorrow night and let you know.  But I'm excited.

NGS 2012 Cincinnati - 3 days

Only three days until NGS starts.  I'm already in Kentucky, just 100+ miles south.  I've been traveling and haven't had daily access to the internet (BooHoo), and I don't have a printer with me, so I am not organized in the same way as before other conferences.  We'll see how it goes.  BUT, I'm looking forward to seeing friends, making new ones, getting ideas to help get through those "brick walls" AND, naturally, improve my documentation, etc. etc. 

See you in 3 days.

Zane Grey AND Jess Severs

Do you have any OLD Zane Grey books?  Do they have the name Jess Severs written in the front, in a woman's hand?  If so, I'd love to hear from you. 

The family story is that my grandfather Jess Severs loved Zane Grey books and bought some and my grandmother wrote his name in the front.  I'm trying to locate one, or more.  Please let me know.  Thank you.