Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Are Your Genealogy Goals for 2017?

It's the beginning of a new year, so for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Randy Seaver has us thinking about what we want to accomplish during the year:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible music):

1) What goals do you have for your genealogy research, education, and writing during 2017?  

2) Tell us about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment on Facebook or Google+ in response to this post.

These are my goals:

Personal Research

• Find the son my aunt gave up for adoption in 1945, find his descendants, or at least find out what happened to him.  My aunt is 91 years old, and we're running out of time to let her know.

• Determine who the biological father of my grandfather was.  I think I'm close, but I need to find some living descendants and see if they're willing to take DNA tests to confirm my hypothesis.

• Catch up on entering all the information I found in 2016 into my family tree database, including citations.

• Make sure I have uploaded the DNA results of all the family members who have tested to all possible databases.  Spend more time with the DNA databases looking for matches and contacting close matches to share information.  Work more with chromosome mapping; try the Lazarus tool on FTDNA.

• Share all the photos I've been scanning with family members from the appropriate lines and ask for help with identification of as-yet unlabeled photos.

• Look for a group that is planning to pool money for research in the Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine archive and join up, with the aim of finding documents on my Gorodetsky, Kardish, and Schneiderman relatives from Kamianets Podilskyi.

• Stay in better touch with cousins with whom I have already made contact.

• Figure out how to do some sort of research in Punjab remotely, so I can make progress on my stepsons' grandfather's family lines.

• Get back to working on Irish research, so I can make progress on my stepsons' grandmother's family, my half-sister's mother's family, and my friend's O'Gara family from County Roscommon and County Sligo.

• Any time I take a trip, check to see what research I might be able to do in the area while I'm there.

Education

• Go to the Ventura County Genealogical Society's family history event for Black History Month.  I am the featured speaker, teaching two classes in the afternoon, plus I have volunteered to help with general genealogy questions in the morning.

• Attend the Forensic Genealogy Institute in San Antonio, Texas in March.  I'm registered for three days of classes with Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist!  (Be still, my heart!)

• Attend the annual Sacramento African American Family History Seminar in March, where I will be teaching about Freedmen's Bureau records and also taking the opportunity to attend other classes.

• Attend Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank in June.  I'm teaching one class, but that gives me three days to go to a lot of other classes and learn more cool genealogy stuff.

• Attend (probably) the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Orlando, Florida in July.  (No, you are not the only one wondering why anyone would schedule a conference in Florida in July.)  I plan to attend, but it depends on whether I have a talk accepted and therefore can justify the expense of flying cross-country.  It appears I no longer have any relatives living close by Orlando, so I might have to (shudder!) pay for a hotel room.

• Attend the Northwest Genealogy Conference in August in Arlington, Washington, if I have a talk accepted.

• Attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference over Labor Day weekend, this year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  I won a free registration, or I wouldn't be able to go.

• Watch Webinars from Florida State Genealogical Society, Illinois State Genealogical Society, Legacy Family Tree, Minnesota Genealogical Society, North Carolina Genealogical Society, Southern California Genealogical Society, and Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, and whatever other ones I hear about.  I average about two per week.

• Attend local genealogy presentations, primarily at the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California, California Genealogical Society, East Bay Genealogical Society, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and Oakland FamilySearch Library.

• Make presentations at local genealogical societies and FamilySearch Centers and Libraries.  So far I'm scheduled for 16 talks, but I usually average about two dozen each year.

Writing

• Stick to my average of about three to four posts per week on my blog.  (I'm not anywhere near as prolific as Randy.  I don't know how he does it.)  I regularly post for Wordless Wednesday, Treasure Chest Thursday, and Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, plus additions to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page and opportunities to help with genealogy-oriented projects.  Beyond that, I write about family stories, research discoveries, the journals I edit, and things I find interesting in the world of genealogy.

• I want to update and expand my article on the research I did on my Cuban cousins.

• I have a translation project and two transcription projects I'm working on that I need to devote more time to.

• Write some book reviews that I'm behind on.

• Finish creating a name index for a book about Niceville and Valparaiso, Florida.

All of this should keep me off the streets and out of trouble!

My Extended Jamboree Weekend

Well, I had a great time at Jamboree this year.  Every day was full of informative sessions, and I saw many genealogy colleagues in person.  I started with the first session every day and finished with the last.  I didn't realize how much I was doing until I discovered I was too tired to write every night!  But I didn't want to miss a thing.

The highlight for me on Friday (my first day at the conference, because I didn't go to the DNA Thursday events) was the "Manumissions and Motivations:  Uncovering Possible Family Connections" session by Michael Nolden Henderson.  He discussed a case study from his own family research, where reading between the lines in a manumission and extrapolating the information pointed to the probable family connection it concealed.  He has done some impressive research on his family, going back several generations.  I also heard Gena Philibert-Ortega talk about "Women's Work:  Tracing Your Ancestor's Ouccupations and Volunteer Work", which surprisingly had only about 20 people in attendance in a room capable of holding more than 100.  The day's (and the weekend's) "lowlight" was the Librarian's Boot Camp, which ran from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon; I wish I had slept in.

Although I didn't attend the Friday banquet, I heard the next day that the speaker, David Rencher, gave my blog a callout.  Linda Okazaki, the California Genealogical Society president, told me that he showed an image of my post about the situation with the Solano County Archives in conjunction with his discussion about records preservation and the roles that genealogists can play in publicizing that type of information and bringing it to the attention of others.  That's pretty cool!

Saturday was full of great sessions.  Unfortunately, several of them were scheduled at the same time as mine, so I couldn't go to them in person!  But I was able to hear Michael Strauss talk about "Secret Societies:  Finding Your Ancestors in Fraternal Organizations", which was educational and fun.  He has found information about some truly "interesting" organizations, and he's a very enthusiastic speaker.  Karen Mauer Jones' presentation, "Low Bridge, Ev'rybody Down:  Navitaging the Erie Canal Records", and Connie Lenzen's on "Strategies for Adoption Research and Finding Other Missing Persons" were also full of useful content and methods.

Sunday was a shorter day, but many sessions still sounded really good.  The best was Pam Vestal's talk on "Voting Records:  Genealogy's Best Kept Secret."  While I don't think of voting records as that big of a secret, she has found some unusual items, including the fact that Multnomah County, Oregon voter cards asked for full names of the parents of the person registering, making them another place one can look for maiden names.  I also enjoyed the Rev. David McDonald's session, "An Illegitimacy:  A Mid-19th Century German Immigrant to the U.S.", and I have finally heard a presentation by JewishGen's Warren Blatt, who spoke on "Polish-Jewish Genealogical Research."

Part of what kept me so busy was the extra volunteering I was doing.  I was a room monitor for four speaker sessions and a research assistant for three time slots.  I also spent about an hour and a half at the California State Genealogical Alliance information table on Friday afternoon and spoke to a few people about the organization.  And CSGA helds its board meeting on Saturday, which I attended, because I am a board member.

I was able to do some socializing, though.  I went to lunch with seventeen other genealogists who have gone (or are going) through the ProGen Study Group, and now I have faces I can put to several names.  I also was part of the California Genealogical Society group photo, where I learned a fantastic way of organizing people for group photos.  I hope I remember it the next time the occasion arises.  And I ran into several friends just walking around.

I have to say I had a successful conference.  I learned a lot, saw old genealogy friends and made new ones, and had a great time!  About the only thing that could have made it better would be if I had won one of the door prizes, but I guess you can't have everything.

As if all that hadn't been enough, the day after the conference, I wrapped up my long weekend by speaking at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles on Monday evening.  My presentation on finding women's maiden names went well, and a lot of people had great questions.  I left immediately afterward and made it back to Oakland at 3:00 a.m. Tuesday.  My car then proceeded to die on me later on Tuesday morning, but it managed to last long enough for me to pick my birds up from boarding and get them home.

I haven't driven to Los Angeles in a few years, and I have to admit I was surprised by the changes in what I saw on the way south.  There used to be several citrus groves along I-5, but now most of them appear to have been pushed aside in favor of stand after stand of almond trees.  Until I got close to the Grapevine, I had seen only one citrus stand.  Even down south I saw (yet more) almond trees.  There used to be many plantings of grapes, but this time I saw only a few.  Apparently almonds really do rule.  Also missing up north were the fun rhyming highway signs from Shane P. Donlon, who probably had been inspired by Burma Shave.  Now that I think about it, a lot of those signs were in the now-missing citrus groves.

One thing that hadn't changed was how many rivers, creeks, and other water courses were bone dry:  Ortigalita Creek, Salado Creek, Kern River, Arroyo Pasajero, and far too many more.  Of course, the Kern River flood canal ("flood" being a euphemism for agricultural run-off) wasn't wanting for water.  And somehow, Orestimba Creek managed to have a reasonable amount of water.  But it sure was a dry-looking drive down.

My Summer Speaking Trifecta

I am so excited!  I'll be attending three genealogy conferences this summer, because I've been fortunate enough to have talks accepted at each of them.

In June I'll be at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in beautiful downtown Burbank, California (anyone else remember Laugh In?).  The conference begins on Thursday, June 2, with an all-day Genetic Genealogy event.  The Genealogy Jamboree proper will run from Friday, June 3, through Sunday, June 5.  My talk on finding religious records is scheduled for Saturday morning at 11:30 a.m.

Come August I'll be in Seattle, Washington at the 36th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.  The conference begins on Sunday, August 7, and continues through Friday, August 12.  This presentation will be about the research I've done to learn about my cousins who immigrated to Cuba from Eastern Europe.  The program schedule hasn't been released yet, so I don't yet know when this talk will be, not even which day.

One month later, I'll be at the International Black Genealogy Summit (IBGS) in Arlington, Virginia.  That conference will take place Thursday–Saturday, September 1–3.  The first day is registration and an opening reception, with the programming on Friday and Saturday.  I'll be talking about online historical black newspapers in the first workshop session, bright and early Friday morning at 9:15.

This is the first time I'll be speaking at Jamboree and IBGS, and my first time attending IBGS.  I'm really looking forward to these educational opportunities and the chance to get together with so many other genealogists.  I'm going to have a lot of fun this summer!