RootsTech 2020 Is Coming and You Can Register Now!

Next year is the 10th anniversary of RootsTech.  It has changed quite a bit since its beginnings and is now the largest genealogy conference in the world (as far as I know).  And I will be there, because I had a presentation accepted!

I will be talking about how useful it is to learn something about the languages your ancestors spoke, as doing so increases the chances you will be able to find them in records and have better results from your research.  It's a brand-new talk, and RootsTech will be the first time I present it.

And if you are planning to go to RootsTech, you can register now!  Registration opened on Wednesday, and almost a thousand people signed up within the first few hours.  I don't think it can run out of spots, but better safe than sorry, right? You can click on the registration link on the RootsTech home page or go straight here.  The super special early-bird discount pricing is good through October 11, so do it soon if you want to save some money.

And I hope to see you next year in Salt Lake City!

IAJGS Cleveland: Tuesday and Wednesday

The best news about the IAJGS conference is that the temperature here in Cleveland has dropped quite a bit.  Today, for example, the high was only 79°, and there was even a breeze!  As I walk back and forth between my hotel and the conference hotel, I really appreciate that.

My Tuesday began slowly.  I hadn't been that enamored of any of the sessions in the first time slot, and I somehow just didn't manage to make it to even one.  Next, I wanted to go to Banai Feldstein's class on "Lesser Known Online Resources", but right before I was about to walk into the room, someone called out to me that she had something important for me.  It turned out that all she wanted to do was to introduce me to a new person in a local genealogical society, but by the time that had happened, I turned around and the room with Banai's session was already overflowing with people.  There was no way I was going to get in there.  I'm lucky that she (finally!) uploaded a handout to the conference site, so at least I have that now.

For lunch the Jewish genealogy bloggers got together.  We introduced ourselves, talked about our blogs, and generally had a great time hanging out with each other.  The only bad thing was that we were arranged in a not very comfortable fashion on some random seats in an open area.  Next year the blogger get-together coordinator said she just might break down and try to get us on the schedule for a regular room.

We look like a friendly bunch, don't we?

After lunch, I heard Jane Neff Rollins speak about the Clarion agricultural colony in Sanpete County, Utah in the early 1900's.  She used the colony as a way to demonstrate things to think about during research and reasons not to get into a research rut.  It was an interesting but sad story about the colony.  Most of the research suggestions she made were ones that I use regularly, but there were a couple I could think about more.

Then came my second presentation of the conference, apparently the only methods session that was scheduled.  I talked about why everyone should use source citations in their research, even when it's just your own database on your computer that you don't intend to share with anyone, and the various style guides available to help you construct those citations.  One of the points I emphasized was that if you already are familiar with a style guide, such as from college research or professional work, you will be much more likely to start doing citations if you just use that rather than force yourself to learn an entirely new style, such as one that is heavily pushed in some circles.  I consider it far more important to get the citations done, and that's more likely to happen if people feel they can use a tool they already know than try to convince them to do the citations in a style they will have to learn from scratch and therefore will put off doing.  Not only did it seem that attendees enjoyed the talk, one person came up at the end and specifically thanked me for my approach.  I have to admit, I felt pretty good about that.

My last learning opportunity of the day was Judy Baston's talk about "Documenting the Vilna Ghetto Library."  She is scheduled to give that presentation to the SFBAJGS later this year, but I won't be able to attend now that I live in Oregon, so I jumped at the chance to hear her.  It was fascinating to hear the history of the library and learn what documents existed in the Lithuanian archives regarding the library and its patrons.  I am constantly amazed to discover what types of material have survived and are available for researchers.

The last event of the day, however, was SFBAJGS attendees meeting up for our new tradition.  We try to get a photo of members at the conference to share online.  I think this time we have a total of about 18 members here.  We didn't manage to get everyone into one photo, but most of us have been captured for posterity.

Wednesday started with bouncing from one session to another.  In the first one, the speaker was pretty much reading from his handout, and that's never exciting, so I snuck out the back and went to Jennifer Mendelsohn's talk, "Think Like a Reporter."  While mostly a revisiting of several successful genealogy searches she has made, she did give several morsels of advice about how to approach research, not to rely on unsubstantiated information, and all-around good ideas.  Plus she is a very entertaining speaker!  So it was a lot of fun.

I went from there to the Resource Center, because Wednesday and Thursday at an IAJGS conference mean we have access to all the ProQuest databases, including the historical newspapers.  Woo hoo!  I found several little nuggets in newspapers, including the Minneapolis Tribune and the Chicago Tribune.  I was very happy with my new discoveries.

I had another group lunch on Wednesday.  This time it was for people who have finished or are currently going through the ProGen (Professional Genealogy) study group, which is set up for people who want to learn about how to be a good professional genealogist.  Getting together is good for networking and just to talk with other people who have similar interests.  Half a dozen of us had an enjoyable (and not horribly overpriced) lunch at the Hilton restaurant and got to know each other.

After lunch was another disappointing talk.  The speaker had very fractured English and poor spelling on his PowerPoint slides, plus the talk didn't really flow and was kind of like random thoughts strung together.  Plus, with a talk focused on an online site with records, he never included the URL.  And instead of lasting for an hour and fifteen minutes, the talk petered out at barely half an hour.  Oh, well, I had plenty of time to check my e-mail before the next session!

The next presenter wasn't very dynamic but was more on point with her subject.  I learned about the types of holdings that the Western Reserve Historical Society has, with an emphasis on Jewish records, of course.  One of the most interesting to me was the collection of records from the Bellefaire orphanage.  I remember helping someone research his family members who had been in the orphanage for some years.  At the time, I didn't know about the collection at the historical society.  Now I want to go back and find out who that research was for to see if these records might be of interest to him.

And the last item on my agenda for the day wasn't even for me, but for the SFBAJGS Webmistress.  As usual at the conferences, Banai Feldstein had scheduled a meeting for JGS Webmasters.  I try to go because Barbara doesn't usually attend the conferences.  This meeting didn't have any great revelations, but I covered the bases.

Now to rest up for Thursday and my last talk!

SLIG Wrap-up and More Research

It's taken me a while to reacclimate myself to my normal schedule after the week in Salt Lake City.  My class at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy had me getting up every morning in time for sessions that started at 8:00 a.m. (8:30 the first day), not even close to what I normally do.  (I used to be a morning person, but that was years ago.)

During Thursday and Friday in my class ("Swing through the South"), the outstanding session was one by Dr. Deborah Abbott.  The main title, "Follow a Case with Land", was not as informative as the subtitle, "Identifying Slaves, Slave Owners through Land Deeds and Other Records."  In addition to demonstrating how land records over several decades showed who the slave owners were, when slaves were manumitted (prior to the Civil War), and the close family relationships between the individuals in the example she discussed (including a slave owner acknowledging his children when he freed them), she also made an excellent point about something to keep in mind before you begin this type of research.  She emphasized that you shouldn't go into it being angry and ready to blame someone; you need to be impartial.  That's the only way you'll be able to interpret the records accurately when you find them.

Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist, was the speaker for the Friday evening banquet.  Her talk, "Suffer the Little Children", was about making sure that we don't forget to tell the stories about the children in our families, particularly those who died young.  Just because a child didn't grow to be an adult and have a family doesn't mean his story is less important.  It often takes more effort to find information about children who died young, but we need to do so to ensure that those stories are not lost forever.

I'm very appreciative of the scholarship I won to be able to attend SLIG this year.  It was a great educational opportunity.

I closed out my trip with a full day of research at the Family History Library on Saturday.  In addition to some client research, I reserved time to look for records for my own family.  The big success that day was finding the birth registration for my great-grandfather Thomas Kirkland Gauntt (father of the grandmother whose birth record I found on Monday), even though it was indexed incorrectly as Garrett.  I almost didn't look at it, but something kept pulling me back to that entry.  I'm so happy I followed my instincts!

May 23, 1870, Thomas K., male, (parents) James & Amelia Gauntt, (father's occupation) wheelwright

All during the week old snow had been on the sidewalks and rooftops, slowly melting and receding.  On Friday we had a new dusting, just enough to land and not melt in some places.  As I left the library Saturday and walked to the Trax station to go to the airport, a good amount of snow landed on my hair and didn't melt right away.  I figured that was enough winter for me!  I'm glad I live in an area where snow is not a regular event.

Hump Day at SLIG

I'm more than halfway through my first Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), and I'm working on processing what I've learned so far.  The class I'm attending is "Swing through the South", which was originally going to be taught by J. Mark Lowe, but he unfortunately was not able to come.  Kelvin Meyers took over coordination of the course, and our other speakers are Dr. Deborah Abbot, Anne Gillespie Mitchell, and Michael Hait.

I chose this course about the South because it supports my volunteer work with the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California, where I am a board member and editor of the quarterly journal.  My volunteer work is how I earned a scholarship to attend SLIG this year.

There's no question that the best session so far has been Kelvin Meyers' talk about church records in the South.  This is obviously a subject dear to him, and his enthusiasm was clearly evident.  He discussed the First and Second Great Awakenings in religion in the United States and talked about prominent leaders in several religions.  He then explained which religions were predominant in each of the Southern states (though there were a couple of omissions).  He also supplied a fairly comprehensive listing of archives for those religions.  This presentation had a great amount of information I'll be able to use in future research.

The plenary session on Monday night, "Genealogically Speaking" by the Rev. Dr. David McDonald, was entertaining and enjoyable.  He had everyone laughing as he related family stories and reminiscences but became serious when he explained that recording and sharing those stories are so important.

Wednesday night the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen) sponsored classes, consultations, and light refreshments at the Family History Library for SLIG attendees.  I went to a fantastic talk on religious migrations to the United States, by David Dilts.  It was really interesting to see a timeline of how a round of religious dissent led to a religious split, and again, and again, and then how those disaffected migrated to this brave new land.  And his handout was jam-packed with information I'll be rereading to make sure I understand it all.  The night at the library was a new event for SLIG this year; it seemed to be very successful.

One of the really fun things at SLIG has been networking with the 350+ other genealogists gathered here in Salt Lake City to learn more about researching family history.  I've made some wonderful connections with people, and I'm looking forward to collaborating and sharing information with them in the future.

Of course, since I'm in Salt Lake, I planned ahead for some research at the Family History Library.  My big score has been finding the birth record for my paternal grandmother.  I learned she was born a year earlier than all of her later records indicate, which isn't that uncommon for someone born in the 1890's.  I was surprised and disappointed to see that her mother's name wasn't listed on the record, but at least it showed that her mother was born in England, so I'm sure it's the right person.  I did a little genealogy happy dance in my seat when I found her on the microfilm.

January 14, 1893, <no name> Gaunt, female, father Thomas, mother born in England

Two more days of classes are coming up, plus the closing banquet on Friday evening, when Judy Russell (The Legal Genealogist) will speak about researching children in your family history.  And I don't leave Salt Lake until Saturday night, so I have all day for more research at the library.  I still have a lot to look forward to!

I'm Going to SLIG!!

I am again a very fortunate person.  The genealogy gods are smiling on me.  I received the news tonight that I have earned a scholarship to the 2016 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy!

I have wanted to attend SLIG for several years, and I'm already looking forward to this great educational opportunity (even if it does take place in Salt Lake City in January!).  The class I'll be attending is "Research in the South", coordinated by J. Mark Lowe.  I chose this class primarily because of my volunteer activities with the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California and the Alameda County Youth Ancestral Project, both of which have large numbers of people with family roots going back to the South.  I look forward to sharing what I learn about research resources and techniques, particularly regarding lost and missing records, a common problem in Southern research.

I'm also looking forward to some research time in the Family History Library.  I didn't accomplish nearly as much as I hoped to when I was in Salt Lake City in February for RootsTech.

Doing the genealogy happy dance around the house . . . .

Wordless Wednesday

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 . . . .

November ZichronNote Has Been Delivered! (Electronically)

Hooray!  The November issue of ZichronNote has been put to bed, and it's still November.  The electronic version has already been sent to SFBAJGS members, and the print copy will be mailed out soon.  I really enjoyed the articles in this one.  (Okay, I enjoy the articles in every issue!)  Larry Fagan, one of our members, broke through a longstanding brick wall by availing himself of help from JewishGen classes and our brick wall session in August.  Heidi Lyss, a board member, has written about the "Jews in Utah" session at this summer's IAJGS conference and the direct connection it had to her own family research.  Jeremy Frankel has given us the second part of the story of discovering a lost branch of his family, and we learned that we now have part three to look forward to, with more revelations!  And this time even I contributed:  some updates, but still looking for a wedding photo of Jeanette August Meier Heller; and information about the JewishGen Memorial Plaques Database and how to contribute to it.

Does all of this sound like something you just have to read?  Well, remember, the most recent issues of ZichronNote are available only to members of the society. If you join (at the still very affordable annual membership rate) you get a subscription to the journal, help fund research projects, and support a hobby you enjoy.  And if you're interested in contributing to ZichronNote, write to me for more information.

IAJGS Conference Wrap-up: Days 5 and 6 (only a little delayed)

As always, I had the best of intentions.  I was going to work on this post while I was waiting in the airport to return to California on Friday, and it would be all finished by the time I got back, so all I would need to do is upload it.  But apparently I looked suspicious when I was going through security at the airport, and I got the full-blown, take-you-to-the-side-room inspection.  They kept me so long I was in danger of being late for boarding my plane.  And when I did arrive, I was sucked back into my regular schedule immediately.  But there were some pretty good sessions (and no duds!) the last two days of the IAJGS conference, and I wanted to share the information.

The most interesting session for me from the final two days was the presentation on Newspapers.com (but then again, I am the newspaper queen).  I have had some real frustration working on this site, so I was hoping there would be good information.  The speaker, Peter Drinkwater (who mentioned that he used to work for Footnote.com before it was bought by Ancestry), did a thorough job of going through the entire site, showing ways to search, options that are available, and generally explaining things very clearly.  Newspapers that are on Ancestry were brought over to Newspapers.com, but they will also stay on Ancestry.  Newspapers.com has added many more papers and has some larger newspapers, such as Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle, albeit only for the years 1922 and earlier (the public domain years), but that makes the site a more approachable option then the ProQuest databases, which are institutional subscriptions only.  While most of the newspapers are from the United States, a smattering of papers are from Canada, the UK, Ireland, and Panama.  The newspapers on the site are scanned with OCR; Drinkwater did a good job of explaining how that works and the fact that the search database is just a big bunch of words.  One nice thing about the site is that you can register directly for a free account, with no need to give them a credit card number for a trial and then cancel.  Registering gives you better search results than if you search without signing in.  Another feature is that if you do have a subscription and later cancel/don't renew it, any clippings you have saved to your profile are still accessible.  Drinkwater invited attendees to submit suggestions of newspapers that the site could add and mentioned that they prefer to work with microfilm rather than printed newspapers, the latter being much more expensive to image digitally.  One think Drinkwater couldn't explain, however, was the decision to use so much space on the site to show the top half of a random issue of each newspaper in the list of newspapers available.  (As a side note, one of the attendees was someone who also does presentations on newspapers, though less focused on teaching others how to use them effectively; she mostly talks about her own family stories.  She made snide remarks throughout the presentation.  Near the end she commented about getting too many "false positives" when she did her searches, but amazingly enough Drinkwater was not able to replicate those results when he used her search term.)

We had a two-fer on Thursday and Friday.  Oleksiy and Nadia Lipes, a husband-and-wife research team from Ukraine, gave presentations on the types of Jewish genealogical records available in Ukrainian archives and on how documentation of Ukrainian pogroms that occurred between 1917–1921 can be used in genealogical research.  Some of the document types they showed examples of in the first session were metrical and rabbinical records, business reports, Soviet registration documents, census/revision lists, householder lists, tax books, refugee letters, passports, and notarial documents, and several types of documents related to pogroms in the second session.  So the good news is that lots of documents of many different types are available.  The bad news is that most of these are not indexed, so any research can take a long time.  But there is a wealth of information in the archives.

Other speakers I heard were Joel Spector, who showed the growth of the Jewish population in Russia by analyzing data through the 1897 census; Rony Golan, who talked about how to communicate better with Israeli researchers and relatives (in great measure to help promote next year's IAJGS meeting in Jerusalem); and Mike Karsen, who volunteered to help a friend tie up a loose end in his family research and ended up spending several few months tracking a woman acquitted in a Chicago murder trial across the country and through several marriages.

Oh, yeah, and my talk on searching for maiden names was on Friday morning. :)  I was pleasantly surprised that I had about 40 people attend my presentation.  I figured between my talk being in the last time slot on the last day of the conference, and the scheduled tour of Ancestry.com happening at the same time, I was going to have half a dozen people show up.  But everything went well, attendees asked some good questions, and someone suggested an excellent resource I'll add to the presentation the next time I give it.  So it was a great finale for the conference.

I don't think I'll be able to go to next year's conference, unfortunately; it's probably a little more than I can afford.  I hope everyone who attends has a great time, though.  I'm thinking ahead to 2016, when the conference will be in Seattle.  That's just up the West Coast from me!

Earlier commentaries on the conference:
Days 1 and 2
Days 3 and 4

More IAJGS Conference: Days 3 and 4

I'm still here at the IAJGS conference, and I am happy to report that I had much better luck starting on Tuesday with the sessions I attended.  There were still a couple of duds, but nothing like the disasters of the beginning of the conference.

Some of the presentations have been particularly good.  The standout for me on Tuesday was Jane Neff Rollins, who spoke about finding and using labor union documents for genealogy research.  My great-grandfather was in unions and supported them, plus my aunt's uncle (I do research for family members also) was prominent in his union.  Rollins gave an excellent overview of several types of records that possibly could be found, but it will depend on the specific union and what records it saved.  I would be thrilled to find my great-grandfather in union membership lists, meeting minutes, photographs, or a conference agenda, which are just some of the items that were suggested.  Of course, one of the difficult things is finding where these records might be held, but the University of Connecticut has a page with links to several labor archives around the country.  Those are not the only places union documents might be, but they're good places to start.

Another interesting talk on Tuesday was the story of a Jewish man in Russian Latvia who helped fight for Latvian independence but ended up dying in a Latvian prison during World War II.  Not only did the speaker, Eric Benjaminson, explain several of the more unusual documents that he obtained regarding his cousin's history, he also tried to present a plausible perspective of the Latvians who helped this process along its way.  While that part of his talk was obviously conjecture, I have not seen that included in a presentation before.  He was trying to give a broader view of the history.  His ability to look at the other side's perspective might be related to his thirty years of experience as a diplomat.

I also heard a great talk from Vivian Kahn about 2,000 years of Jewish history in Hungary.  The only disappointment on Tuesday was a lecture by someone whose point seemed to be less to transmit information than to share his anger.  I decided I didn't want to be angry all day also and left early.

Wednesday was not quite at the same level as Tuesday but still informative.  The most useful presentation was about researching Canadian family from outside Canada.  Marion Werle talked a little about the history of Jewish immigration into Canada and then covered a broad range of records that exist, including all the normal ones plus some others, such as colonization records and 1940 national registrations.  Not all of them are actually available to people outside Canada (unless they are Canadian citizens), but she even suggested some ways to deal with that restriction.  She also listed sites on which many records can be found.

It wasn't a presentation, but I led a very productive meeting of Jewish genealogical society newsletter editors.  One of my volunteer positions is IAJGS communications chairman, and the main responsibility is working with the newsletter editors.  This past year I unfortunately was not able to keep up with that as well as I would have liked, but I was really inspired by some of the ideas suggested at the meeting.  One idea I hope to implement is making sure that all newsletters and journals have an index of articles published over the publication's history, possibly hosted on the IAJGS Web site.  Too many genealogy articles don't get enough publicity and disappear too soon, and an article index would help prevent that wealth of information from being forgotten.

I spent a few hours in the resource room on Wednesday searching in ProQuest historical and newspaper databases.  On one day of the conference ProQuest allows access to the databases, most of which are not available as personal subscriptions.  The resource room is usually packed on ProQuest day, with a line waiting at the door.  I don't know what happened, but I never saw a line and the room was never full.  On the other hand, I found very few articles, so maybe I'm not the only who has mined those databases pretty thoroughly already.  But it's still great that we have access for a day.

The other presentation I heard on Wednesday was by Rose Feldman of the Israel Genealogy Research Association.  She spoke about the Jewish Legion and other Jews in Eretz Israel (Palestine) during World War I and a little later.  IGRA researchers have been trying to locate as many documents as possible that document the participation of Jews in Palestine during the war.  They are still discovering documents in unexpected archives but hope to find even more,

Looking forward to two more days of conference, and then some research at the Family History Library before I head back to California!

Earlier commentary on the conference:
Days 1 and 2

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 ....

The IAJGS Conference is Coming Soon!

I announced previously when I learned that my talk "Bubbie, Who Are You?:  Finding the Maiden Names in Your Family Tree" was accepted for this year's International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies 2014 International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah from July 27–August 1.  The preliminary program has now been posted online, and while adjustments might be made between now and the conference, the bulk of the schedule is likely to remain the same.

There are plenty of interesting topics scheduled throughout the conference.  Some of the talks I am particularly looking forward to are "Newspapers.com" (which has great information but I have found an awkward site to use), "Jewish Life in Bessarabia as It Is Reflected in Bessarabian Newspapers, 1850–1930" (one branch of my family lived in Bessarabia from about 1894–1927), and "Sticking to the Union:  Using Labor Union Documents for Genealogical Research" (my great-grandfather was a strong union member and supporter).  I know I will learn a lot this year, as usual!

I discovered that my presentation is scheduled for Friday, August 1, the last day of the conference.  The last day is only a half day.  Traditionally, this is the day with the lowest attendance, and many people plan their trips to depart Thursday night.

That doesn't make Friday a throw-away day, however.  Last year's conference showed that IAJGS is trying to schedule interesting talks for Friday in an effort to encourage more people to stay through the entire conference.  One of the most useful sessions I attended last year, Vivian Kahn and Rony Galan's quick-and-dirty Hebrew for family history researchers, was on Friday, and the room was packed.  I hope I draw that many people to my talk this year!

Salt Lake City, Here I Come!

Hooray!  I received notice that my talk on finding women's maiden names was accepted for the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies 2014 International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, which will take place in Salt Lake City, Utah!  This has become one of my favorite presentations, because it covers so many different possible places you can find information.  The conference will run from July 27–August 1, but I won't know for a while on what day my talk will be.

There is always a great selection of presentations at the conference, and I know I'll have the opportunity to learn a lot.  Of course, the big attraction of going to Salt Lake City is that the Family History Library is there, with all of those books, maps, microfilms . . . and I'm only going to be two blocks away . . . it's going to be awfully hard to choose between conference sessions and going to the library for research.  Maybe I can add a couple of days on to my trip . . . .

Since I mentioned one talk, I guess it couldn't hurt to list the other presentations I have scheduled for the year, right?  I mean, as long as I have your attention and all . . . .

April
12:  Read All about It!:  Using Online Newspaper for Genealogical Research, Oakland FamilySearch Library

May
10:  Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust:  What's Buried in Cemetery Records, Oakland FamilySearch Library
17:  Calling in the Pros, Merced County Genealogical Society

June
7:  Read All about It!:  Using Online Newspaper for Genealogical Research, Solano County Genealogical Society
12:  Using the Subscription Newspaper Web Sites at FamilySearch Centers and Libraries, Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society
14:  The Flim-Flam Man:  The Con Man Who Helped Discover the East Texas Oil Field, California Genealogical Society
21:  Where There's a Will:  Probate Records Can Prove Family Connections, Oakland FamilySearch Library

July
9:  Get Me to the Church on Time:  Finding Religious Records, East Bay Genealogical Society

September
6:  Grandma, Who Are You?:  Finding the Maiden Names in Your Family Tree, Oakland FamilySearch Library
8:  Where There's a Will:  Probate Records Can Prove Family Connections, Livermore-Amador Genealogical Society
17:  They Died in San Francisco:  A Little-Used Source of Pre-1906 Deaths, Genealogical Association of Sacramento
21:  Anybody Home?:  Using City Directories in Your Research, Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento
27:  Read All about It!:  Using Online Newspaper for Genealogical Research, California Genealogical Society

October
18:  Get Me to the Church on Time:  Finding Religious Records and Grandma, Who Are You?:  Finding the Maiden Names in Your Family Tree, Digging for Your Roots Family History Seminar

November
5:  Jewish Genealogy:  Why Is This Research Different from All Other Research?, Oakland FamilySearch Library
6:  Grandma, Who Are You?:  Finding the Maiden Names in Your Family Tree, Genealogy Society of Vallejo-Benicia
15:  A Better Way to Do Slave Research:  Records of the Freedmen's Bureau, African American Genealogical Society of Northern California
22:  Vital Records and the Calendar Change of 1752, California Genealogical Society

Any any time you're wondering what I might talking about next, you can always check the list of my scheduled presentations.  I try my best to keep it up-to-date.  And please say hello if you attend one of my talks!