Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

As I look back on the past year, I want to thank all of those who were part of my genealogy world, particularly as our world in general changed so much.  First I would like to say thank you to those conferences and societies that chose me to be a speaker.  I am honored to have been part of their educational programs during the year.

• RootsTech/FamilySearch
• Legacy Tree Family Webinars
• Genealogical Forum of Oregon
• IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy
• Sacramento Public Library
• Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State
• Linn Genealogical Society
• Genealogical Society of Washington County (Oregon)

And because 2020 was the pandemic year, some groups that chose me as a speaker had to cancel or significantly rearrange their events, and I didn't end up giving presentations to them after all.  I still am proud that they chose me for their original plans.

• Oregon and Southwest Mensa Regional Gathering
• Vancouver Community Library
• Federation of Genealogical Societies Annual Conference
• Genealogical Forum of Oregon Open House

Thanks go also to the genealogical societies for which I volunteered during the past year.  I continue to serve on the board of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society and also have responsibility for editing the quarterly journal ZichronNote, programming, and publicity.  I am the very active coordinator of the African American Special Interest Group (AA SIG) of the Genealogical Forum of Oregon.  And I am still involved with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon, although I moved from board member to vice president, and then to president when the previous president had to step down for health reasons.  If it weren't for genealogical societies, many people would have even more difficulties accomplishing their research.  I am happy to be associated with thriving groups filled with other energetic volunteers.

And as my blog continues to plug along, I very much appreciate my readers.  Your comments, both online and offline, let me know that you find it worthwhile to spend some of your time reading my commentaries about our shared hobby.

I learn something from everyone I interact with, and I'm glad I leanred with all of you during 2020.  The adventure of 2021 will probably keep us on our toes, but at least we have genealogy to keep us sane at the same time.

Genealogy Volunteer Work in Oregon

I knew I would end up doing volunteer work in genealogy after my move to Oregon, because volunteering is just something I do, and most of it nowadays has something to do with genealogy.

Less than a week after I arrived I called the Family History Center in Gresham, a mere three miles from my house, and asked if they were looking for volunteers.  No surprise, I was told, "Yes!"  I think I started my Tuesday morning shift the week after that.  It's a lot slower pace than when I was at the Oakland Family History Center in California, though.  We usually have only one or two patrons come in during the four-hour shift, and most of the time the help they need is computer-oriented rather than for research.  I'm still trying to figure out ways to "market" the FHC to get more people to come in and use our resources.

I didn't realize I hadn't posted about this when it started, and somehow a year has passed already.  Last fall I took on the job of coordinating the African American Special Interest Group (AA SIG for short) at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon.  The group began the year before, soon after I moved here, and I attended regularly.  The person who started the SIG determined she was trying to do too many things and asked for someone to take over leading the group.  Apparently I was the only person who volunteered.  I have had a small amount of pushback, because I am not black, but neither of the two people who complained was willing to do the work and everyone else is fine with me, so I'm still doing it.  I've been able to get some good speakers, and we've built a pretty solid group.

At the 2018 Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) conference, one of the sessions I attended was about records access for the genealogical community.  The primary genealogical group that keeps an eye on such issues is the Records Preservation and Access Committee (RPAC), which is a joint effort between FGS (which is now part of NGS), the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, and the National Genealogical Society (NGS).  I felt so inspired by the presentation that I volunteered to be the contact person for the state of Oregon, which did not have one at the time.  One of my responsibilities is to let the committee know about "records access and preservation activities within the state, including both problems (issues) and successes."  So if you hear about any records access problems in Oregon, please let me know!

The most recent position I've taken on is Vice President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon (JGSO).  The board voted me in a mere week ago.  My primary job is handling programming for our meetings.  So far I've attended only one board meeting, although I have put together a long list of ideas for future programs.  All I need now is the schedule for the year (which someone else is handling), so I can try to find speakers!

Genealogy still relies heavily on volunteers in so many ways for societies to function.  I'm very happy I am able to help these groups.

What genealogy volunteer work do you do?

Whoops! A Tad Behind in Wrapping Up FGS Day 3

Where does the time go?  I just realized that I didn't finish reporting on this year's FGS conference, having failed to write about the last day, even though one of the best sessions took place then.  Shame on me!

I began my Saturday with a volunteer shift at the Association of Professional Genealogists booth in the exhibit hall.  We usually don't get a lot of people stopping by, but it's nice to have the resources available for those who want to ask about the organization.  As usual, most of the inquiries I fielded were about how to find a professional genealogist to help with research, but a couple of new BYU graduates with degrees in family history asked for advice on starting a professional genealogy business.  I'm happy to spend some time in the booth to help promote the primary American organization for professional genealogists.

During my time in the booth, I popped out a couple of times and spent some time looking in the exhibit hall for good deals to spend some free "dealer dollars" that I received with my registration.  I finally decided on one of those books for a grandparent to write down information about his life and give to a grandchild — my boyfriend wants to create memories for his younger granddaughter, and I thought this would be a helpful supplement to the time they spend cooking together — and a more general memory book focused on events on each decade from the 1930's to the current time.  It's always fun to get free stuff, and the books ended up costing me not even a penny.

After my shift was over, I zoomed over to catch a session in the first time slot.  As much as it pained me to do so, I did not attend Tony Burroughs' presentation on oral history.  While Tony is one of my personal inspirations as a genealogist, I have read quite a bit about taking oral histories, and I thought I would be better served to learn something new.  In that vein, I went to Tina Beaird's talk on Scottish Presbyterian Church records, and I'm glad I did.  I know a fair amount about religious records, but I learned some specifics about the Presbyterian records, which can include not only the sacramental records one would expect (births, marriages, deaths) but also confirmations, transfers, pauper records, school records, session minutes, suscription lists, and print publications.  Wow, that's a lot of places to find information about your family members!  And Tina was a good speaker, too!

After Tina's talk came the lunch break.  Near the end of the break, MyHeritage held a trivia quiz in their booth, with attendees who answered questions about flags correctly winning various prizes, including DNA tests and annual subscriptions.  I managed to eke out a three-month subscription by guessing the right answer for the flag of Papua Guinea.

I spent the afternoon learning more cool genealogy information.  Ari Wilkins talked about how former slaves, after Emancipation, used newspaper advertisements and the Freedmen's Bureau to try to reconnect with family members.  No study has been done to determine how successful people were, but it appears that for the most part they were not.  It seems that more researchers are successful nowadays in reuniting family branches by using DNA and tracking down cousins.

Janis Minor Forté spoke about strategies to identify slave owners and then using that information to reconstruct slave-era families.  I already knew the techniques she described, but it's always good to attend talks such as this because there are often little gems you find nowhere else.  Since I have not been able to move any of my family lines past the 1865 barrier, I need all the help I can get.

The final presentation I heard was Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist, covering copyright myths, in her version of the top ten.  The most important thing I learned in this session was that something I had been told years ago was wrong.  I don't even remember where I learned it, but someone I trusted gave me incorrect information about copyrights on photographs.  After Judy's talk it became clear to me that having your photographs developed in no way reduces or negates your copyright in those photos.  The developer functions as a publisher does for a book.  I'm glad I never passed on that bad information to anyone else but annoyed at myself for not having analyzed it better.

I had a great time at this year's FGS conference and learned a lot.  I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go.

Days 1 and 2 of the FGS Conference

I've had full days of learning here at the FGS conference, attending sessions in every time slot.  Even as a kid I loved school, so I guess it's no surprise that I enjoy coming to conferences like this and adding to my genealogy knowledge.

Thursday morning started with the exhibitor hall opening at 10:00 a.m., ahead of the first presentations.  I merrily zoomed around and collected free journals, books, and chocolate from vendors.  In fact, I gathered so many goodies that I had to go back to the car to drop everything off, so I wouldn't strain my back with all that weight!

As for the educational aspect, session topics included an overview of Indiana genealogy (types of records available, when they began, where to find them), letters and claims from emancipated slaves and how helpful they can be when searching for family information, updates from the Records Preservation and Access Committee (have you signed up for the announcement lists yet?), and a workshop on reuniting Jewish Holocaust survivors and the availability of Jewish resources on the Internet (offered in part to help publicize the new Northeast Indiana Jewish Genealogical Society).  The most informative talk I attended was on researching U.S. and Canadian World War I veterans, given by David Allen Lambert of NEHGS.  He discussed several record types that were new to me and gave me new ideas on ways to research the World War I vets in my family.

I think I learned from more of the sessions I went to on Friday.  I began the day with civil registration in Poland.  Although I've definitely attended other talks dealing with the subject, Daniel Jones' explanation of the timelines, jurisdictions, and changes were a little clearer to me.  Legal Genealogist Judy Russell spoke on early Indiana laws and included some general points I don't recall having heard before:  session laws versus compilations/codes, public versus private laws, and additional broad categories to search (legislative records, petitions, committee reports, minutes, debate transcripts, judicial records, circuit/supreme/appelate court records, and territorial/statehood executive/gubernatorial records).  Plus she told us how to find the advanced search page for Google Books, which they apparently have tried hard to bury (and she suggested we all bookmark it)!

Next up was Tony Burroughs' discussion of black employment after the Civil War.    This is a subject I've not seen enough coverage of, so it was all welcome information.  He talked quite a bit about farmers, tenant farmers, and sharecroppers (and the differences between them), which is what most of my family research involves.  And as is usual with his talks, he included a great list of references for further study.  The last session of my day was by Ari Wilkins, on the subject of Quakers (the Society of Friends) and black Americans, particularly before and leading up to the Civil War.  This is a fascinating history, and it was easy to see how some of the Friends' work in freeing slaves (purchasing them and then transferring them to free states, where they were manumitted) laid the groundwork for what became the Underground Railroad, with which the Friends were also involved.

Friday ended with a great event sponsored by MyHeritage.  They booked some time at Crazy Pinz, a local bowling alley/entertainment center, for their employees and some MyHeritage Friends who responded to an invitation.  We were treated to a "luau buffet" (pulled pork sandwiches, fried rice, macaroni salad, etc.) and four bowling lanes in a private area.  Several of us hadn't bowled in many, many years (um, at least 40 for me), but it was a really fun time.  We all got custom-enbroidered bowling shirts, plus we learned that Daniel Horowitz is a pretty good bowler.  I even managed to bowl one strike in my second game!

FGS Conference: Librarians' Day and Society Day

So I was lucky enough to win a registration to this year's FGS conference, and here I am in Fort Wayne, Indiana!  (The last time I was here was 24 years ago, when I still worked full time in the adventure game industry.)  Librarians' Day and Society Day fall on the Tuesday and Wednesday preceding the main part of the conference, and I learn a lot at these days also.

The highlights of Librarians' Day were a presentation by Matthew LaFlash about Omeka, an open-source content management system that is being used to put all sorts of great information online (Newberry Library's Transcribing Modern Mauscripts, the Bracero History Archive, and Ohio Civil War 150, for example), and a rollicking but informative panel discussion titled "Hit Me with Your Best Shot", where speakers including Allen County Public Library's Curt Witcher and FamilySearch's David Rencher (newly named as director of the Family History Library) took any and all questions from attendees.  (Rencher reminded us several times that everything on FamilySearch is still free.)  Some of the topics covered:

• The importance of labeling photos and what to do if they aren't.  Even if photos aren't labeled, you can still look at the context, such as signs, geography (mountains, lakes), dateable items such as cars, etc. to garner information about them.  Recording the provenance is very important, as that might provide context also.

• The best method for scanning photos (this was actually answered by a professional in the photography business who was in attendance):  Scan at the highest resolution that is practical (300 minimum, 600 better, and 1200 if you have the storage space) and save in TIF format.  As a corollary, saving files in at least three locations was also brought up (because Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe [LOCKSS]).

• The confusion surrounding which files on FamilySearch.org are available in which locations.  An icon identifies whether images must be viewed at a Family History Center or affiliate library, but nothing differentiates between which of those can be seen *only* at a Family History Center and not at the affiliates.  The good news is that almost everything that is restricted can be viewed at both, but no solution right now to let you know quickly which can't.

• Limited hours at several Family History Centers.  Family History Centers are governed locally, and not all of them are able to provide enough volunteers to be open more regular hours.  Because of this, FamilySearch has been expanding the affiliate library program (currently at more than 400 libraries), so that restricted digitized images can be more widely available.

• Which microfilms from the Family History Library are digitized first.  Part of what helps decide the priority of films to be digitized is based on the rights negotiations that FamilySearch holds with the original records holders.  Digitizing films more quickly can make further negotiations go more smoothly, both for more digitization and more records.  (That doesn't explain all of it, of course, but it was nice to hear some reasoning.)

• What to do when newspapers no longer sell microfilm for archival purposes but refer libraries to online subscription options.  This one had no good answer.  Because microfilm has become so expensive, it isn't a viable option for many companies anymore.  Unfortunately, online subscriptions leave the libraries (and everyone else!) owning nothing, so when you drop the subscription, you have nothing to show (like Microsoft and its online Office 365 software).  You are essentially only "renting" your access.  We were told that the Sacramento Public Library paid more than $1 million to have the Sacramento Bee digitized from microfilm that it provided (but were not told which aggregator stuck it to them).  This situation is only going to become worse, and the large information aggregators (ProQuest, NewsBank) will be holding libraries hostage.

• Where to share copies of family histories, research, photographs, etc.  Share them everywhere that they could be considered relevant:  Allen County Public Library, FamilySearch, local genealogical and historical societies, Internet Archive, ethnic societies, and anywhere else you can think of.  Always check with the repository first to make sure it will accept a copy (whether physical or digital), but the more places the information is available, the better the chances that someone who is interested will find it.

And a couple of comments from Curt Witcher:  We should all be trying to pursue, preserve, and present stories.  And facilities always appreciate feedback from visitors.  Think about the latter the next time you go to an archive or library — offer feedback before you leave!

Librarians' Day ended with a behind-the-scenes tour of some parts of the Allen County Public Library (ACPL):  the Genealogy Materials Handling Unit (intake and assessment of donations), FamilySearch Book Scanning (a partnership with ACPL), Internet Archive (another partnership with ACPL), and the Lincoln Collection Library and Fine Book Room.  It was so interesting to get insight into how donations are processed, see ongoing scanning of public-domain books, and view many original Abraham-Lincoln-era photographs, letters, and newspapers.

Internet Archive scanning in progress

Wednesday was Society Day, with sessions geared to those of us in leadership and volunteer positions in genealogical societies.  I attended a session on how to apply business management principles to society procedures and processes, and one on leadership and conflict resolution.  Both had a lot of useful information I will be taking back to the societies with which I am involved.

In between those two sessions I went to the annual FGS meeting, attending as the delegate of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society.  I had received notices about the meeting and had been wondering why no agenda was distributed beforehand.  That question was soon answered.  The entire annual meeting took three minutes.  The agenda was shown on a screen and was approved by voice vote.  The treasurer said that the society had been audited and was in good financial standing, with no details.  No announcements were made, and the meeting was adjourned.  I'm not sure why delegates are even encouraged to attend.

The final event I attended on Society Day was the presentation by Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist.  Titled "Preserving the Past, Protecting the Future", Judy's talk focused on the attacks that have been made over the past several years on records access and facilities budgets.  Citing circumstances such as the loss of the most recent three years of the Social Security Death Index, New York City's decision to severely restrict birth records (older than 125 years) and death records (older than 75 records), and the encroachment of the Right to Be Forgotten into far too many areas (including a proposed Indiana law that would allow the total destruction of someone's criminal records, leaving no trace that the crime ever occurred), she declared that it is the calling of genealogists to serve as guardians of history.

And how do we do that?  We need to stay informed, join together, and reach out.  You can stay informed by signing up for notifications from the IAJGS Public Records Access Alerts List, which sends out announcements related to access to public records.  You can also stay informed about the activities of the Records Preservation & Access Committee, a joint venture between several genealogical groups, which monitors records access issues.

Joining together has been effective in several instances of keeping repositories open and reopening facilities that have been closed.  And efforts to reach out should include a broad range of individuals, such as archivists, librarians historians, the news media, and medical researchers.

In Judy's words, we all need to pitch in, speak up, and meet up.  I took my first step tonight.  I've written to RPAC, asking how I can help.  What will you do?

FGS and RootsTech: Saturday and Overall Impressions

As I walked to the Salt Palace Saturday morning for the last day of the FGS-RootsTech conference, I realized I had accomplished a lot during the week — attended several informative talks, networked with a lot of genealogy colleagues, even scanned more than 400 photographs.  I could have gone home then and still have had a very successful trip.  Lucky me, I was able to add even a little bit more on Saturday.

First, at the E-Z Photo Scan booth I managed to finish scanning the rest of the photos I had brought with me to Utah (thanks again, Arnold!).  I think my total over the three days was around 500.  I know that's a small drop in the bucket of the 100,000 the company was trying to preserve during the conference, but I was happy to be part of the total.  The photos I brought with me were all unidentified.  I decided to focus on those because now that they're scanned, it will be a lot easier to share them with cousins who are likely to recognize a good number of the faces.

Second, while I admit I did not find the Saturday sessions to be as good as the ones earlier in the week, I still learned something from each one I attended.  The best was Deena Coutant's talk about the U.S. nonpopulation census schedules.  The high points were that she gave a good overview of the six different types of nonpopulation schedules (farming, manufacturing/industry, defective/dependent/delinquent, mortality, supplemental, and social statistics), some ways in which they are helpful in learning more about your family, and which ones are online (not all of them are, something I did not know previously).  Unfortunately, most of the images on her slides were too small to be effective, and she zipped far too quickly through the slides that showed where one could find several of the series offline (and didn't include that information on her handout, having taken valuable real estate there to show partial images of schedule pages).  Coincidentally, she wrote a guide to the nonpopulation census schedules that's available for sale, and it was the only resource listed on the handout that she talked about during the class.  Hmmm . . . .

The other two presentations I went to were not as good as the census one.  A talk about online resources for black genealogy research was rambling and disjointed.  The speaker gave incorrect information several times, such as saying that all books digitized on Google can be read online (many, many books are available in snippet view only or can't be read online at all); if it has to do with genealogy and is online, Mocavo will "grab it" for you (Mocavo searches specific databases only); and you can log in at HeritageQuest.com with your library card to look at their databases (you need to go through your library's Web site for authentication).  Almost all the useful information was in the handout (where she spelled "Afrigeneas" incorrectly).

The last talk I heard, on the Digital Library on American Slavery hosted at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, was a little better but still frustrating.  Way too much time was spent on "jokingly" whining about how research was done prior to the advent of the Internet and how it cost lots of time and money to do so.  One short example would have been sufficient; four long ones was overkill.  The slides didn't really show how to do searches or how to link results together (not that it looked particularly difficult to figure out), and no real explanation was given of how to determine where to obtain copies of original documents after you decide that an abstracted record is relevant to your research.  One positive thing, especially in relationship to the "tech" part of RootsTech, was that the speaker announced at the beginning that there would be a hands-on practical learning part for the final quarter of the time block — but that was unfortunately not included in the handout, so not everyone was prepared for the opportunity.

Unfortunately, the talk I told Randy Seaver I was looking forward to the most, "School Daze:  Finding the School Records of Our Ancestors", was in the very last time slot of the conference, from 4:00-5:00 p.m.  My flight back to Oakland was scheduled for 6:10 p.m., so I had to miss the entire class.

My overall experience at the FGS-RootsTech joint conference was pretty good.  I learned about new resources, and more information about resources that I already use.  More than three quarters of the sessions I attended were offered by FGS.  I saw many of my genealogy friends in person, some for the first time, and did lots of networking.  And I think I made effective use of several of the special deals offered by vendors in the exhibit hall.  I'm thrilled I won a free registration.

My impression of RootsTech specifically — not quite as good.  I remember when RootsTech started as the great technology conference, with apps, developers, and programming as the focus.  Even though this was the first time I have attended, I noticed an extreme lack of tech overall and even in many of the sessions officially labeled "RootsTech" (as in no mention of technology of any sort in session descriptions).  I heard several attendees, particularly programmers and developers, comment negatively on the lack of technology orientation.  One woman I spoke to was aghast that the winner of the Innovator Challenge was something that essentially allowed you to record a phone call; she had been rooting for the application that could do OCR on handwriting.  (I tend to agree with her.)  A man next to me in a session said this year would be the last he attended due to the lack of programmer and developer focus.  It appears that FamilySearch's desire to have a conference to attract entry-level genealogists has had a negative impact on the appeal of the conference to those outside that category.  It's a shame they didn't just create a new genealogy conference with that focus and leave RootsTech independent.  It was probably an economic decision.

Ironic comments about the technological aspects of RootsTech:
• Tuesday, the day registration opened, the system crashed and wiped out records of people's paid add-ons.
• The Web site crashed during the conference.
• Nowhere online (or at the conference) could I find a version of the schedule that listed all events happening at the same time together.  Clear separation of every aspect of the conference (FGS, Innovators Summit, Getting Started, Getting Started, RootsTech, keynote sessions, computer labs, and events) was maintained throughout.  Maybe sorting a database by times is too much to ask of technology?

As a final note about my time in Salt Lake City, while I was waiting for the light rail to take me to the airport, I met a woman who told me she was from Murphys, California.  I asked her if she was a member of the Calaveras Genealogical Society.  When she said yes, I told her I would be seeing her in April, because I was going to be the speaker at the spring seminar.  She told me she was the new director of the FamilySearch Center in the church, where the seminar will be held.  Considering the fact that the population of Murphys was counted as only 2,213 in the 2010 census, that's a pretty amazing coincidence.

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My previous comments on the conference are here for Tuesday and Wednesday, and here for Thursday and Friday.

FGS and RootsTech: Thursday and Friday

On Thursday, the RootsTech part of the joint conference with FGS began.  This meant that the exhibitor hall opened!  I was ready and waiting at the entrance for the 10:00 a.m. opening because I wanted to go straight to the E-Z Photo Scan booth.  There had been lots of announcements prior to the conference about their free scanning opportunity, with the company having a goal of 100,000 photographs preserved the course of the conference.  The purpose of the promotion was to show off the capabilities of the Kodak Picture Saver Scanning System (I think I was using the PS50).  I have to say, I was extremely impressed.  Arnold Hutagalung, one of the company reps at the booth, was very helpful.  He showed me how to get started, and it was pretty smooth sailing.  I scanned almost 350 photos in half an hour!  That's all it took!  It took a little while longer to copy the files to my flash drive, and I was done.  I can't afford one of these, but I was told that a big focus of the company's marketing is FamilySearch Centers and Libraries.  I'm hoping we'll get one in Oakland.

After I retrieved my flash drive, I ran off to the far reaches of the Salt Palace for more FGS learnin'.  The outstanding session of the day was Craig Scott's talk on Civil War medical records.  When I wrote about my great-great-grandfather Cornelius Godshalk Sellers, I mentioned that he had been in the hospital twice, and I'm very interested in finding more records related to those incidents.  Craig started off his talk by warning everyone that if they would be uncomfortable seeing information about STD's, they shouldn't go anywhere near Civil War medical records.  Apparently STD's were the leading cause of men needing to go to the hospital during the war.  Craig mentioned that even George Armstrong Custer (then only a lieutenant) was treated for gonorrhea!  Craig explained things such as the levels of care men might have received, which records might mention medical information, the top two medical reasons for which men received pensions (diarrhea and dysentery), and several of the National Archives Record Groups in which records might be found.  I felt inspired, but now I need to go to Washington to do research!

The other great talk of the day was by Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist, who spoke about federal court records and how they can be useful in family history research.  (This was scheduled as a RootsTech session, though the only discernible "tech" connection I could find was the seven URL's she listed in her resource list.)  This was the first time I have heard Judy in person, and it was fun.  She discussed which types of cases could be heard in federal courts (and which couldn't), where records are held (almost nothing is online), and who might appear in records.  Beyond the expected plaintiffs, defendants, and judges, maybe you have a relative who was a court officer, investigator, attorney, witness, juror, bondsman, or someone in Customs, the Treasury, or the FBI?  Judy also talked about how you could follow people or an issue through a case and showed some interesting examples.  One man was prosecuted for running a still, and the file had lovely photographs of the still, from several different angles no less.  An inheritance dispute between some family members (which went through the federal court because it involved people in one state and land in a second state) included photographs from childhood to old age of the deceased man who had bequeathed the land, and fantastic family information about who was related to whom and questions of the paternity of a putative grandchild.  The cases she chose to showcase issues were on polygamy in the Utah Territory, and the famous Dred Scott case.  The decisions in those cases had lasting effects and are obviously relevant to families affected by them.

The best talk I attended on Friday was also by Judy, this one on justices of the peace.  After pointing out that, while originally the position was held almost exclusively by men of high social standing, not-so-prominent men could be JP's, Judy gave several examples of historical JP's, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin.  A couple of unexpected justices were Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones (no, not about the genealogist), and the famed Judge Roy Bean.  We heard about the first known black American JP, Macon Bolling Allen, who was appointed in 1848 in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and the first female American justice, Esther Hobart Morris, appointed in 1870 in Sweetwater County, Wyoming.  Judy covered the varying responsibilities of JP's, what kinds of records might exist, and tips on finding the records.  Again, most of these are not online.

The other session I found particularly useful on Friday was a computer lab on finding and using online newspapers.  Yes, I know, I am the genealogy newspaper queen of the Bay Area :), but there is always more to learn.  The focus of the class was on telling attendees about large free online newspaper collections.  (They included the Wikipedia newspaper archive page I contribute to regularly.)  A short slide presentation showed the basic process of how newspapers are digitized.  Then everyone was instructed to go to the Indiana Digital Historic Newspaper Program site, create an account, and sign in.  After that we were told to do a basic search. None of that is too exciting, right?  The useful part was when the presenters explained in detail how the system to correct mistakes in the OCR worked.  This correction system is valid in almost all Veridian newspaper databases, so I tried it with the California Digital Newspaper Collection, which I use as an example in several of my newspaper talks, so I know of some specific mistakes there.  It was interesting to see the search results change after making a correction.  The search engine no longer finds the incorrect word, but when you search for the corrected text, the results still display the incorrect OCR reading.  I'm going to be adding this to my talks.

Other cool things on Friday were scanning another batch of photos at E-Z Photo Scan (thanks again, Arnold!), meeting Eric and Karen Stroschein of the Northwest Genealogy Conference (where I am scheduled to be a speaker), doing a group photo of California Genealogical Society members here at the conference, helping at the Association of Professional Genealogists booth during lunch, getting my photo taken with Randy Seaver (because I won my RootsTech registration through his contest), and talking with Schelly Talalay Dardashti, Thomas MacEntee, and Dear Myrtle.  The only real downer was the people at the GenealogyWallCharts.com booth.  They paid to have a promotional card inserted in the registration packets, saying that there would be free blank charts and free black and white charts available.  It seems that they didn't plan adequately for the number of attendees, whether ones asking for the promised charts or printing out color charts at the booth, and the booth people got grumpy and snappish and told me there weren't going to be any more free charts.  Sorry, guys, not a good impression to make on a (former) potential customer.

The other negative was that FGS' position as red-headed stepchild meant that less attention was given to that end of the conference hall.  Not only did the containers of ice water run out and were not refilled, even the attention to maintaining the women's room was minimal, and trash overflows were common.

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My other comments about the conference are here for Tuesday and Wednesday, and here for Saturday and my overall impressions.

FGS Conference: Society Day and Librarians' Day

Here I am in lovely Salt Lake City.  It's February, but those of us here for the joint Federation of Genealogical Societies and RootsTech conferences have been enjoying relatively mild temperatures of 50's and even low 60's, rather than the snow we had been anticipating.  No complaints!

The FGS conference began on Wednesday, one day earlier than RootsTech, with Society Day.  It became clear very quickly that FGS is the red-headed stepchild in this joint-conference relationship.  Its sessions are tucked away in a far corner of the Salt Palace, much closer to JB's Restaurant than to where the RootsTech sessions will be.  If attendees actually have the audacity to want to attend sessions from both FGS and RootsTech on the same day, they're going to have quite a walk to travel between the two.  The exhibitor hall doesn't even open until Thursday — when RootsTech starts.

Getting back to Society Day, however, I figured I should attend as many sessions as possible, since I'm a board member of three genealogical groups.  I had hoped I would find helpful nuggets in at least one of the sessions, and indeed I did.  Two talks were particularly useful.

One of my boards, the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, is working on a new policies and procedures manual, and Ann Staley of the Jacksonville Genealogical Society taught an informative class on that subject to start the day. She clearly defined the purpose of a P&P manual and outlined a good process for putting together or updating one.  Though she unfortunately didn't include the URL's in her handout, she showed three good examples of other societies' manuals which are available online.  I'll be tracking those down and downloading them to use as inspiration for the SFBAJGS project.

Later in the day, genealogy tech guru Thomas MacEntee's topic was "Technology Initiatives for Genealogical Societies."  Thomas always has great information, but I had seen that his handout dealt with several topics that had come up in discussion in recent board meetings, so I was really looking forward to hearing the specifics.  One of the best pieces of advice he mentioned was that if you create a free Web site using Weebly.com and already have your own domain name (such as http://www.sfbajgs.org/), you can transfer your newly created site to your domain, again for free.  That could be helpful not only for the society, but maybe even my own Web site!  He also mentioned that a society that sponsors a FamilySearch Wiki page no longer is required to maintain that page (though assistance is always appreciated), so it is an excellent publicity opportunity to do so, and kind of missing the boat not to.  He even described ways to use Pinterest (which I truly have never understood the point of) that may have convinced me to start using it as part of the SFBAJGS publicity efforts.  I definitely got a lot of bang for my buck from his session.  Overall, I was pretty happy with Society Day.

I actually arrived in Salt Lake on Sunday night and spent all day Monday doing research at the Family History Library.  I came fairly well prepared and retrieved/scanned about forty documents for my own family, plus about another fifty for other people.  It was a great beginning for my trip!

Even before Wednesday, though, I had begun my conference educational opportunities.  On Tuesday, I attended the Librarians' Day sponsored by ProQuest.  We enjoyed five speakers (and a great buffet lunch).  Curt Witcher from the Allen County Public Library spoke about how librarians need to change their established methods to work better with the new types of patrons who come in.  He particularly picked on what he considers to be the obsolete, old-fashioned reference desk — or, as he termed it, the "fort" — and how it divides the librarians from the patrons.  An archivist from The National Archives (of the United Kingdom, and yes, that's with a capital "T") discussed how TNA's online holdings help bring people into the archives in person to do more research.  Librarians from the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Ohio and the Tulsa (Oklahoma) City-County Library talked about genealogy tourism and how repositories can help bring tourist traffic to their areas.  Though these talks aren't directly applicable to my volunteer work in the Oakland FamilySearch Library, there were some points I'll be bringing up when I get home (such as the reference desk as a fort to hide behind).

The big news that came out of Tuesday was during the talk by Bill Forsyth from ProQuest.  He revealed that HeritageQuest Online (HQO), long a staple offering from libraries and often accessible at home by library card holders, is undergoing a major overhaul.  HQO has partnered with Ancestry.com and is scheduled to roll out a new interface and new collections next month, in March.  The search pages on HQO will now be in the Ancestry style and will have more flexibility, such as Soundex and sounds like, instead of only exact spelling.  Several U.S. census databases will be added, such as the nonpopulation schedules.  I freely admit I have never liked the HeritageQuest interface, and I was very happy to hear that HQO hadn't gone the FindMyPast route and hired programmers to create a new, subpar interface when a good one was already available.  HQO will continue to be available through libraries, so if you have been able to use it through your local library Web site with your library card, that shouldn't change.  My only concern is that we have yet another company in bed with Ancestry.com.  "Incestuous" is becoming an understatement when describing the interrelationships in the genealogy marketplace.

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Additional comments about the conference are here for Thursday and Friday and here for Saturday and my overall impressions.

I'm Going to RootsTech and the FGS Conference!

Right now I feel like an incredibly lucky person.

Randy Seaver, who publishes the Genea-Musings blog, is a blogging ambassador for RootsTech.  He ran a contest for a free full-conference pass to RootsTech, taking place February 12–14, 2015 in Salt Lake City.  Randy asked entrants to list a session they wanted to attend and a vendor they wanted to visit.  I said:

1.  I want to attend the "School Daze—Finding the School Records of Our Ancestors" session because I know several schools associated with my family members and I would love to be able to find school records for them.

2.  I hope NIGS is one of the vendors, so I can stop by and visit with the always pleasant Louise St. Denis.

Randy had stated that the choice would be made by a random draw.  For some reason, only seven (!) people entered his contest.  And I was the winner!!  So I started doing the genealogy happy dance.  And Louise even wrote to me to say thanks for the mention.  (She really is a very nice person.)

But it gets better.

Dee Dee King of Forensic Genealogy Services very generously has provided scholarships to a small number of genealogists every year since 2010.  Through her assistance, I was able to attend Jamboree in 2011 and the Forensic Genealogy Institute in 2013.  This year I applied for a scholarship to attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) conference, which is being held in conjunction with RootsTech next year and starts a day earlier.  And yesterday Dee Dee let me know that I had won a scholarship for FGS.  So I was able to add an FGS pass onto my RootsTech registration, and I'll be attending the ProQuest library event the day before the FGS conference begins.  More genealogy happy dance around the house!

And of course I'll post from the conference about all the great stuff I'll be learning.

Hmm, maybe I should go out and buy a lottery ticket or something . . . .

IAJGS Conference Days 1 and 2

Here I am in beautiful Salt Lake City!  I have been told it was 100+ degrees the past two days, but it really is a dry heat, so it's much more comfortable than when I used to live in Florida.  On the other hand, I do appreciate the air conditioning at the Hilton Hotel, which is where the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is being held this year.  We've already gone through two days of the conference, and this is the first chance I've had to write about it.

I was told several years ago by a former boss that if you go to a conference and learn one thing that you can take away and use in your work, that's a successful conference.  Going by that, I'm doing very well so far — I've had one session each day where I learned new techniques I could take away and use, plus I've had some great social get-togethers.

The biggest surprise for me so far has been the sessions I have found the most interesting.  On Sunday I went to a presentation by Crista Cowan of Ancestry.com on search tips for the site.  Now, anyone who knows me has probably heard me rant about Ancestry and how they present records on the site (along with a lot of other things).  The main reasons I decided to attend the session were that there wasn't really anything else in that time slot I was interested in, and I thought it would be amusing to see what Cowan had to say.  I figured it was going to be nothing but a sales pitch.

Cowan opened by emphasizing that the presentation was only about search and that she wouldn't answer questions about any other topic.  She then asked attendees what burning questions they had about searching on Ancestry.  My contribution was to ask why entering terms in fields on search pages returned results that didn't match those fields when I specified exact matches only.

After noting several questions, she told us, "You know that Ancestry ad where they say you don't have to know what you're looking for, you just have to start looking?  Well, they're wrong.  That's for those people who are just starting, so they can find something and then they'll buy subscriptions."  That was an indication that the class was going to be more worthwhile than I thought!  She was refreshingly honest about how Ancestry markets.  She said you absolutely need to think about what you're looking for, which I've been saying for years.  She also agreed with what I tell people, which is that you should never search from the home page.  Just like me, she always goes to the advanced search page.

I already use most of the hints she told us about, such as going to the database you need when you are looking for specific information, marking "exact only", restricting by location, searching without names, and more.  And she told us the reason the search pages are not set on exact search by default (which someone asked about) is for new researchers, because otherwise they probably wouldn't find anything and then wouldn't want to pay.

Some technical aspects she discussed were also informative.  If the database is index only and has no images, Ancestry didn't create it, so it is licensed from someone else; Ancestry usually does not make corrections to those databases.  Most of the databases with images have indices that Ancestry created.  The reason a search term must have a minimum of three letters is because otherwise it takes too much processing time on their servers (something I had learned previously from Steve Morse, who has improved search pages for many Ancestry databases on his One-Step Webpages site).  At the bottom of the advanced search page, if you change the collection priority to Jewish, the Soundex search will be based on Daitch-Mokotoff instead of American Soundex (which could turn out to be very helpful to me).

At the end of the presentation, when she was doing her wrap-up, she had not addressed my question about receiving irrelevant results when I requested exact matches on a search page, so I asked again.  The specific example I cited was searches in the California voter registers, where I can specify a register year of 1946 and receive results from other years but that have street addresses of 1946.  I had long suspected that the cause was that the database of search terms was not mapped to the fields on the search page.  She confirmed this in a roundabout way by telling us that typed documents, such as those voter registers, are not transcribed by people but are OCR scanned.  That means that the terms are not coded in search fields, so when you search for anything, it's just a word in the database.  As far as I'm concerned, that means the search page shouldn't have fields such as first name, last name, or year, because it's misleading.  There should just be a line for keywords.  I have the same problem with newspaper databases such as NewspaperArchive.com.

The other informative session I attended was on Monday, by Josh Taylor of FindMyPast/BrightSolid/DCThomson and the Federation of Genealogical Societies.  He spoke about ways to get members of the younger generations — "21sters" — interested in genealogy and active in genealogy societies.  This was essentially the same presentation of his I heard a couple of years ago, but he has updated it and refined some of his opinions.  I went to this primarily because I volunteered to introduce him and be the room monitor, but I hoped there might also be helpful information that could be applied in the societies I belong to.

His big message for attracting the younger generation is that you have to connect online and use technology.  You also have to abandon old-fashioned approaches such as pedigree charts and citations, because those don't appeal to this generation.  He did not say it directly, but the message was that people accustomed to instant gratification don't want to take the time to learn how to research, prove, and document information.  They just want to know the answers and then move on.  While I don't agree with trying to implement that part of what he said, he had some ideas about marketing and outreach that could be interesting to try.  One was reaching out and trying to build community partnerships, such as with schools and youth organizations, and maybe sponsoring a writing contest or scholarship.  Another was having some sort of table or event at a mall, where the younger generations hangs out.  He spoke about Reddit but admitted that answering a bunch of questions online for free didn't readily translate into someone becoming involved with a society.  Something that wouldn't necessarily apply to 21sters but could help attract more inquiries was to have your society listed at the local convention and visitors bureau.  There were a lot of ideas, which I'm going to have to type up and bring to my next couple of board meetings for discussion,.

The networking opportunities so far have been wonderful.  On Sunday several professional genealogists got together and talked about what kinds of research and other professional work we do and how we might be able to work together and help each other.  On Monday IAJGS President Marlis Humphrey held a media lunch for bloggers, writers, journalists, etc., apparently the first time this has been done at an IAJGS conference.  She discussed some of the marketing concepts IAJGS is considering and how outreach can be improved.  And Monday evening a bunch of us Jewish bloggers (and James Tanner, who is not Jewish) sat down for an informal bring-your-own-dinner meeting.  We talked about our blogs, why we started them, and what kinds of things we write about and generally schmoozed for a couple of hours.  It was really nice to meet a lot of people face to face and not just as e-mail addresses and URL's online.

There have been some significant disappointments at the conference, unfortunately.  One speaker just talked about personal anecdotes from his family; another mumbled and didn't project into the microphone; at three sessions the speakers read directly from their typed notes and didn't look at the audience.  (At one of those, I could see from the reverse side of the paper that text was formatted as from a journal, so I walked out and figured I'll search for the article and read it myself.)  Two talks gave no information about how to research the topic, just showed several examples of information with no context.  Another speaker started off by saying that there was a lot of material to cover so we had to get going, then spent the first ten minutes telling us what she wouldn't be discussing.  And the worst was an hour of excruciating, painfully executed English that was mostly not understandable, which ended with a shill to get money.  And to think the conference isn't giving us evaluation sheets for the talks!!

But tomorrow (Tuesday) is another day!  Which I really need to get some sleep for ....