Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Favorite Learning Experience This Past Month

Education is always a good thing, including in genealogy, of which Randy Seaver is reminding us tonight for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

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

1.  What was your favorite genealogy learning experience this past month?  In-person program? Online Webinar?  YouTube video?  Blog post?  Social media item?  Family history story?

2.  Share your favorite genealogy learning experience in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, or BlueSky post.  Leave a link on this blog post to help us find your post.

I think my favorite genealogy learning experience during the past month was an online presentation offered by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library.  Danielle Pritchett gave a presentation on "Navigating the Slave Schedules" in honor of Juneteenth occurring this month.  It was a realistic approach to using the slave schedules, and she emphasized that you cannot identify someone directly on those schedules, which were part of the census enumerations in 1850 and 1860.  You have to do a lot of research to justify identifying someone on a schedule as a specific person.  I definitely enjoyed the presentation.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Do You Have a Digital Genealogy Library?

This week's challenge from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is much more straightforward than some recent ones.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Do you have a digital genealogy library?  If so, what titles are in it?  If not, why not?

2.  Tell us about your digital genealogy library in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status  post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this suggested topic.]

I definitely have a digital genealogy library.  I unfortunately can't easily tell you the titles because I don't have a digital library catalog to go along with it.  But I can do a general breakdown along the lines of Randy's.

• I have a digital folder named Reference Information.  Within it are about 150 subfolders with broad categories such as Adoption, Black Research, California (and many other locations), DNA, History, Journals/Newsletters, Libraries and Archives, Paleography, Photographs, Prison Records, Source Citations, and Women.  Within each of those folders can be a variety of items, such as articles, photographs, and PDF's of books.  A folder can have as few as two items (because I only create a folder for a subject after I have at least two items for that subject) but no real limit for a maximum.  I sometimes will create subfolders if I have a lot of a specific type of resource.  I have a lot of public domain city directory PDF downloads in this folder under specific locations; they're usually in subfolders.  The Journals/Newsletters folder has a subfolder for each journal and newsletter I receive electronically.

• I have another folder named Research Aids.  These are things such as indices, instructions on how to complete a procedure, guides for using sites, and info on converting coordinates.

• I have folders for each of my family surnames and the surnames of extended family and friends for whom I continue to do research.  Along with documents and photographs relating to a given surname, I have some books and articles relating to specific surnames which are filed in the appropriate folders.

• I have a folder for Education.  It holds conference handouts and programs, syllabi, and recordings of presentations.

• I have a folder for my presentations and handouts, although I'm not sure I was counting that as part of my digital library.  I guess I should, though, huh?  It's about genealogy and it's digital.

That is a good representation of the majority of my genealogy digital library.  I have a lot of files taking up lots of disk space, that's for sure.  I'm not into downloading movies or TV series, and I don't play computer games anymore, so I had to find something to fill my hard drives.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Genealogy Goals for 2025

It's the beginning of the year, so it's time to think about what we want to accomplish with our genealogy, thanks to prodding from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. 

1.  What are your genealogy goals for 2025?  Consider genealogy research, education, organizing, service, writing, and whatever else you care to share.

2.  Tell us about your goals in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status  post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

My list is never as long as Randy's, but I'm not retired yet.  Most of my goals are the same as or similar to the ones from last year.

• Maintain regular posts on my blog.  I did a lot better in 2024 than the previous two years, so I'm hoping I have a rhythm again.  I have several ideas for posts already scheduled in my calendar.

• Finish going through the scans of the photo bonanza I received from my sister.  I probably made it halfway through last year.

• Work on finding a way to do more research on the man who probably isn't the son my aunt surrendered for adoption in 1945.  Even though I no longer think the mystery man is my missing cousin, he does resemble a known family member, so I want to determine if there is a connection.

• Get back to researching my unidentified biological great-grandfather.  Find more information on Bert Mundy, particularly a photograph, so I can either rule him out or keep him as a contender.

• Work on new genealogy presentations.  I have some ideas I've been batting around for a while that I need to finish.

• Continue my volunteer work with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and Genealogical Forum of Oregon African American Special Interest Group.

• Continue researching my own family.  I need to devote more in-depth research time to that and follow up on the many clues and document trails that I've discovered during the past few years.

• Determine a systematic way to go through my family tree databases and look for errors, omissions, and items that need to be updated.

• Continue to encourage my brother to start doing the number crunching that's necessary to really do good DNA analysis.  In particular, I'm hoping that work might help us discover who our mystery great-grandfather is (see above).

• Continue my genealogy education through Webinars.  Maybe try to go to an actual in-person genealogy event this year.

• If I really get caught up on other things, return to going through the documents relating to Emma Schafer and the constellation of people around her.  I used the documents as my Treasure Chest Thursday posts.  I began the series on July 20, 2015.  My last post was August 25, 2017, just before I moved to Portland.  Whenever I do get back to these I'll probably have to read through the entire chronology to refresh my memory adequately.

That's eleven items.  I think that's enough to keep me busy for the year.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Favorite Genealogy-related YouTube Channels

This week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver has us watching online videos, or at least discussing them.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Do you watch YouTube videos on a regular basis?  What are your favorite YouTube channels for genealogy research?

2.  Tell us about your favorite YouTube channels in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status  post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

Well, as usual, I'm an underachiever compared to Randy.  I am subscribed to only 29 YouTube channels total.  I am still not a huge fan of watching videos online, even after all these years of Zooming, so I have to admit I do not watch "regularly."

Of those 29 channels, four are not related to genealogy at all.  (What?  Something in my life that isn't genealogy??)  Of the remaining 25, my favorites are:

• Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.  They cover such a wide range of genealogical topics at ACPL that there is bound to be something related to your research.  I love that almost all of their presentations are available freely on YouTube afterward.

• Truckee Meadows Community College Library Open Genealogy Lab.  This is another place that has a wide range of topics.  When you sign up for their notification list, you also receive the summary after the presentations, including links that were shared, and announcements about upcoming talks from other organizations.

• Los Angeles Public Library Genealogy Garage.  Where else can you find recorded presentations on Armenian, Black, Chinese, Jamaican, and Scottish research?

• Partnership of Historic Bostons.  I enjoy these because while it's a narrow focus (Boston), it covers so much and the topics are so interesting.  I don't even have any Boston research right now, but I love their talks.

• Backlog Archivists and Historians.  I like Backlog's perspective.  These are professional archivists covering interesting subjects related to genealogy, such as handwriting.

• JewishGen.org.  Since Jewish research is one of my focuses, it makes sense that I would have a couple of Jewish channels on my list.  JewishGen is still considered the home of Jewish genealogy online, especially since it improved its coverage of non-Ashkenazi Jews.  Most of its weekly talks are later made available on the YouTube channel.

• YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.  This is focused on Ashkenazi Jews and topics beyond genealogy, but with more than 800 videos, there is so much you can learn here.

Like Randy, I prefer video to Podcasts, but overall I prefer reading to video.  I learn much better when I see the words.

Free Webinars on Weekends in June!

To complement MyHeritage offering free access to databases every day in June, Legacy Family Tree (which is owned by MyHeritage) announced that each of the upcoming weekends in June it will offer a themed track of Webinars, many of them brand-new presentations.  From the Legacy Family Tree Webinars site:

June 12–14, Technology

• Metadata for Digital Images, Thomas MacEntee (NEW!)
• Tracking Your Digital Breadcrumbs:  Bookmarks, Toolbars, Notes, and Other Applications, Cyndi Ingle (members-only webinar to be unlocked)
• Google Drive:  An Office in the Cloud, DearMYRTLE and Russ Worthington (older Webinar which will be unlocked)
• Top Tech Tips for the Technologist and the Genealogist, Geoff Rasmussen (older Webinar which will be unlocked)
• Tech Savvy Scrapbooking & Journaling for Family History, Annie Bowser Tennant (older Webinar which will be unlocked)
• Microsoft Word Series #3:  Formatting Tips and Tricks, Thomas MacEntee (older Webinar which will be unlocked)

June 19–21, Great Britain Research

• Finding Your 18th Century Ancestors in England, Paul Milner (NEW!)
• Finding Your 19th Century Ancestors in England, Paul Milner (NEW!)
• Why Did the Welsh leave Wales?, Penny Walters (NEW!)
• Black British Family History:  Research and Identity, Penny Walters (NEW!)
• Foundations of Scottish Genealogy 1 of 12:  The Top 3 Resources, Bruce Durie (older Webinar which will be unlocked)
• Foundations of Scottish Genealogy 2 of 12:  Who Are the Scots?, Bruce Durie (older Webinar which will be unlocked)

June 26–28, Black American Research (almost all new!!)

• African American Genealogy Challenges: What You Need to Know!, Shelley Murphy (NEW!)
• Grandma Said:  Verifying Oral History, Aaron Dorsey (NEW)
• The Second Middle Passage:  Following the DNA Trails, Melvin Collier (NEW!)
• Finding Calvin:  Following My Enslaved Ancestor through Multiple Owners, a Case Study, Renate Sanders (NEW!)
• DNA Corroborates Oral Tradition about the Parents of a Freedman, LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson (NEW!)
• African American Genealogy Resources at the Library of Congress, Ahmed Johnson (older Webinar which will be unlocked)

Register for the live introductory Webinar at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com/June, which will give instructions for viewing the presentations.

I'm surprised that the Black American research weekend wasn't scheduled the weekend before, which would have made it fall on Juneteenth.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What's on Your Genealogy Bookshelf?

I'm way too disorganized for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver!

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

(1) Teresa at the Writing My Past blog wrote a post about her genealogy bookshelf, even showing photographs of the books on several of her shelves.  Linda Stufflebean thought this was a good SNGF topic, so here we are! 

(2) Tell us what books, or types of books, are on your genealogy bookshelf/ves in your home.  Do you have a photo of them?  Are there specific books that you use more than others?

(3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a post on Facebook.

Well, I'm not only in the same boat as Randy, with too many books on too many shelves and impossible to gather in one photo, but I have lots more books not even on shelves — in boxes, in stacks on the floor, wherever I can fit them.  That's partly because I still haven't finished unpacking after my move (yes, it was more than two years ago, but I have torn rotator cuffs in both shoulders, so moving boxes full of books is not an easy thing to do) but also because I still keep getting more books!

That said, I took a photo of several of the books currently closest to my desk.  It's quite a random selection, as you will see.

Instead of laying them on a bed, I kind of organized them on the floor near my desk.  The photo seems a little blurry to me, but I didn't feel up to arranging everything again, and so here we are.

Starting from the left and working across, we have:

• The California Register, 1954, Social Blue Book of California
• History of the Alpha Phi Fraternity, 1872–1902, Ruth Sanders Thomson
• Figures de la première génération:  Les enfants du notaire Michel Roy et leur destin ("Important People of the First Generation:  The Children of Notary Michel Roy and Their Lives"), Raymond Douville, in French
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford
• Mary Mattoon and Her Hero of the Revolution, Alice M. Walker

• The Library:  A Guide to the LDS Family History Library, Johni Cerny and Wendy Elliott, editors
• Spirits of the Passage:  The Translatlantic Slave Trade in the Seventeenth Century, Madeleine Burnside and Rosemarie Robotham
• The Lanphere Family Research Aid, Shirley (McElroy) Bucknum, compiler
• The Southern Magazine:  Mississippi Edition, April–May 1934, Volume I, Number 2
• Family Tree Factbook, Diane Haddad and editors of Family Tree Magazine
• The Sea Captain's Wife:  A True Story of Love, Race, & War in the Nineteenth Century, Martha Hodes

• Census Substitutes & State Census Records, Volume 1:  Eastern States, William Dollarhide
• Census Substitutes & State Census Records, Volume 2:  Western States, William Dollarhide
• These Hundred Years:  A Chronicle of the Twentieth Century, as Recorded in the Pages of the Youngstown Vindicator
• Strange, Amazing, and Funny Events That Happened during the Revolutionary War, Jack Darrell Crowder
• The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society:  New Perspectives on Civil War–Era Kentucky, Volume 110, Numbers 3 & 4, Summer/Autumn 2012
• Nothing Like It in the World:  The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869, Stephen E. Ambrose

• Legacy Family Tree User's Guide, Millennia Corporation 
• A Directory of Old Boys of Trinity College School, 1865–1960, The T.C.S. Association
• The Mississippi Valley Historical Review:  A Journal of American History, Volume XLIII, Number 1, June 1956
• МАЛЫЙ АТЛАС МИРА ("Small Atlas of the World"), in Russian

It is rather an eclectic lot, I admit.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019

I always have fun with lists of questions for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but I have to admit I've never heard of the word "geneameme" before.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission:  Impossible! music!):

(1) Jill Ball reconstituted her "Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019" on 30 December 2019 and invited readers to participate.  

(2) This week, let's contribute our answers to her questions about our genealogy accomplishments in 2019.  Copy the questions below and add your own responses.

(3) Share your responses on your own blog, in comments on this blog, or on Facebook.  Please leave a comment on this post so readers can find your post, and please let Jill know about your efforts by e-mailing her at jillballau@gmail.com.

Here are mine.

1.  An elusive ancestor I found was:

I did not discover the names of any unknown ancestors in 2019.

2.  A great newspaper article I found was:

I found several interesting newspaper articles about my cousin Sam Brainin on Newspapers.com, including one about a bad car accident he was in as a child.

3.  A geneajourney I took was:

I took three geneajourneys, to RootsTech, the Ohio Genealogical Society conference, and the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

4.  I located an important record:

Yes!  I found the passenger list for my great-great-grandmother Ruchel Dwoire (Jaffe) Brainin immigrating to the Untied States with four of her children.

5.  A newly found family member shared:

A cousin I discovered through a DNA match shared lots of information on his branch of the family, plus a photograph of my great-great-grandparents Gershon Itzhak Nowicki and Dube (Yelsky) Nowicki from about 1915, while they were still in Russia.

6.  A geneasurprise I received was:

When I posted a family photograph that I love but didn't know who was in it, one of my cousins recognized her grandmother and grandaunt, which was totally unexpected.  Plus the photo is probably of her father's bris!

7.  My 2019 social media post that I was particularly proud of was:

I am glad I took the time to write up all my family connections in "Now That's What I Call a Blended Family!"  It takes a genealogist to keep track of a family as complicated as mine.

8.  I made a new genimate who:

I've gotten to be friends with someone who comes regularly to the African American Special Interest Group at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon.  We're even working toether on a few genealogy projects.

9.  A new piece of technology or skill I mastered was:

Well, not quite mastered, but for the first time I was the speaker for a Webinar, and I did all the computer stuff for it.

10.  I joined:

Well, I rejoined the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.

11.  A genealogy education session or event from which I learnt something new was:

I always learn something from every conference and Webinar, but one of the standouts last year was Judy Baston's presentation on the Vilna Ghetto Library, which I attended at the IAJGS conference.  It was fascinating to see the kinds of documentation that have survived.

12.  A blog post that taught me something new was:

Jennifer Mendelsohn's "No, You Don't Really Have 7,900 4th Cousins:  Some DNA Basics for Those with Jewish Heritage" has incredibly useful information on how to work around the overabundance of matches that endogamy produces.

13.  A DNA discovery I made was:

For the first time, a DNA match connected me with someone on the Jewish side of my family I was able to place in my family tree immediately but didn't know already.

14.  I taught a genimate how to:

I did 25 presentations at conferences and genealogical societies, in addition to my volunteer work at the Gresham Family History Center and "Helping Hands" sessions for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.  I think I taught several "genimates" how to do a lot of things.

15.  A brick wall I demolished was:

I had been looking for my great-great-grandmother's arrival into this country for about 20 years (see #4).

16.  A great site I visited was:

"Old Photographs of African Americans" is a site that displays unidentified photographs for free.  People have been able to find their relatives' photos, which is wonderful.

17.  A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was:

I found a copy of London:  Then and Now by Diane Burstein at a thrift store, and it was a bargain.

18.  It was exciting to finally meet:

Like Randy, I also can't think of someone new and exciting I met in 2019.  I'm sure there was someone, but my memory is blanking.

19.  I am excited for 2020 because:

I am really looking forward to working more on figuring out who my paternal great-grandfather Mr. X was.

20.  Another positive I would like to share is:

I'm always excited about a new year of opportunities to learn about and share genealogy!

"Shaping Up" My Genealogy Education in 2018

For this month's Genealogy Blog Party, Elizabeth O'Neal has challenged readers to think about what they plan to do in 2018 to get their genealogy research into better shape.  Genealogy education is a great way to get in shape, and lucky for me, I love to take advantage of every opportunity I can to learn more.  So what do I have planned for this year?

I've actually already started my genealogy education for the year.  I attended the January meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon, where members came in with research questions and asked for help.  I also went to the (new?) black genealogy special interest group at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon, where a speaker discussed the research he had conducted on his family and how he was able to learn the fathers' names of some of his formerly enslaved ancestors.  I plan to go to each of these as much as possible during the rest of the year, as long as I am in town when they are scheduled.

The only trip on my agenda this year is to RootsTech in February.  I had a talk accepted, which gets me in the door.  I usually go to presentations in almost every time slot, so I know I'll be learning while I'm there.  Plus the Family History Library is nearby, and they might be having some seminars during the week.

I plan to go to be a local one-day family history conference in March.  RootsQuest, which is free to attend, will be held in Forest Grove at the LDS church.  There will probably be three or four class sessions.  I look forward to seeing what the schedule will offer.

The other thing I'll be doing a lot of, as usual, is listening to Webinars.  I regularly look at the free offerings from FamilySearch, Florida State Genealogical Society, Georgia Genealogical Society, Illinois State Genealogical Society, Legacy Family Tree, Minnesota Genealogical Society, North Carolina Genealogical Society, Southern California Genealogical Society, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Utah Genealogical Association, and Wisconsin State Genealogical Society.  It is amazing what kinds of educational opportunities can be found while sitting in front of your computer!

Thank Yous for This Year in Genealogy

I'm never certain that I say thank you often enough to everyone who deserves it.  Having a blog means that I can at least make sure that I publicly thank as many of my genealogy colleagues as possible, so they and everyone else know how appreciated they are.

I want to start with the groups that generously hosted me as a speaker during the year.  I am thankful that they considered my contributions helpful for their members and hope to be invited to speak again in the future.

Davis Genealogy Club
Sacramento Public Library
RootsTech/FamilySearch
Ventura County Genealogical Society
Oakland FamilySearch Library
San Francisco History Days
African American Family History Seminar
Sacramento FamilySearch Center
East Bay Genealogical Society
Solano County Genealogical Society
Corona Genealogical Society
Genealogy Jamboree/Southern California Genealogical Society
California Genealogical Society
International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies
Northwest Genealogy Conference/Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society
Contra Costa County Genealogical Society
Santa Clara County Historical and Genealogical Society
Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon

I also want to thank those groups where I was privileged to learn from others.  I'll never know everything, but I try hard to take advantage of opportunities to learn whenever they are available.

African American Genealogical Society of Northern California
California Genealogical Society
Contemporary Jewish Museum
Contra Costa County Genealogical Society
East Bay Genealogical Society
Florida State Genealogical Society
Georgia Genealogical Society
Illinois State Genealogical Society
Legacy Family Tree Webinars
Minnesota Genealogical Society
Mt. Diablo Genealogical Society
Oakland FamilySearch Library
San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society
San Francisco Holocaust Center
San Francisco Jewish Community Library
San Francisco Public Library
San Mateo County Genealogical Society
Southern California Genealogical Society
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
USDAR Mt. Diablo Chapter
Utah Genealogical Association
Wisconsin State Genealogical Society

And while many individuals helped me during the year, some simply went above and beyond what would have been expected and truly made my year better.  I especially want to thank Thom Reed of FamilySearch, without whose invaluable assistance I would not have been able to navigate RootsTech; and Alan, one of my readers, who helped me reunite a special photo with its owner.

Thanks also go to the readers of my blog.  I appreciate that you take the time to come along with me and learn new things about genealogy.  I hope you have enjoyed this year's trip and come back for more next year.

So happy new year to everyone!  Be safe but have fun!

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!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Survey of Genealogy Activities

This week's challenge for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun sounds similar to the one Randy Seaver posted on May 21 of this year, but this time he has given specific questions and made the exercise less open-ended, which actually makes it easier in a lot of ways.  But it's a lot longer!

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible music, please!):

1)  Answer these questions in my survey about your genealogy resources and usage:

a)  Which genealogy software programs for your computer do you use (e.g., Family Tree Maker, Reunion, GRAMPS, etc.)?

b)  Which online family trees have information submitted by you, in either a separate online tree (e.g., Ancestry Member Tree) or a universal (collaborative) online tree (e.g., WikiTree)?

c)  For which subscription genealogy record providers (e.g., Ancestry) do you have a subscription?

d)  Which FREE genealogy record providers (e.g., FamilySearch) do you use regularly?

e)  How much time do you spend each week doing actual genealogy research online?  [Note:  not reading, or social networking, but actual searching in a record provider.]  Estimate an average number of hours per week.

f)  How much time do you spend each week doing actual genealogy research in a repository (e.g., library, archive, courthouse, etc.)?  Estimate an average number of hours per month over, say, a one-year period.

g)  How much time do you spend each week adding information to your genealogy software program (either on your computer or online)?  Estimate an average number of hours per week over, say, a one-month period.

h)  How much time do you spend each month at a genealogical society meeting, program, or event (not a seminar or conference)?  Estimate an average number of hours per month over, say, a one-year period.

i)  How much time do you spend each month on genealogy education (e.g., reading books and periodicals, attending seminars, conferences, workshops, Webinars, etc.)?   Estimate an average number of hours per month over, say, a one-year period.

j)  How much time do you spend each week reading, writing, and commenting on genealogy blogs, Web sites, and social media?   Estimate an average number of hours per week over, say, a one-month period.

2)    Answer the questions in a blog post of your own (and please drop a link as a comment in this post), in a comment to this post, or in a Google+ or Facebook post.

Here's my breakdown:

(a) The only genealogy software program I use regularly for my own family tree information is Family Tree Maker, v. 16.  I also have:

• Reunion 9
• Mac Family Tree
• Legacy Family Tree
• PAF
• Personal Ancestry Writer
• Roots Magic
• and I think one or two more

I keep the other programs handy to be able to open other people's files if necessary.

(b) I have submitted no information to any online family tree anywhere.  I have a page with the names I am researching on my own Web site.  I have also discovered that a distant relative of my brother-in-law has entered my mother's information on Geni.com.

(c) I have a paid subscription to FindMyPast.com, because it's the only way I have found to have access to the British newspaper collection.  I still think the interface sucks.

(d) My definition of a free genealogy record provider includes those databases I can use for free at my local Family History Center (technically, FamilySearch Library), in Oakland, California.  These are the sites I use regularly.

• FamilySearch.org
• JewishGen.org
• SephardicGen.org
• Chronicling America
• FultonHistory.com (another site with great material but an awful interface)
• FindAGrave
• USGenWeb
• FreeBMD
• RootsWeb
• Google
• Wikipedia
• Ancestry.com
• Fold3.com
• Newspaper Archive
• 19th Century British Newspapers
• ProQuest Obituaries
• GenealogyBank
• Newspapers.com
• VitalSearch

(e) Online genealogy research each week averages about 15 hours.

(f) Repository research each averages about 3 hours.

(g) I don't spend a lot of time adding information to my own family tree program.  It's probably only about 2–3 hours each week.

(h) Genealogy society meetings and events run about 15 hours every month.

(i) Genealogy education takes about 15 hours of my times every month, once I take into account conferences and seminars.

(j) Reading, writing, and commenting on genealogy blogs, sites, and social media runs about 20 hours each week.

Yikes!  My weekly total is about 70 hours each week that are devoted to genealogy.   That sounds about right, but I hadn't realized it was so high.  This year is probably running a little higher than average due to the number of conferences and seminars on my schedule (SLIG, San Francisco History Days, Sacramento African American Family History Seminar, CSGA [twice!], Jamboree, Ancestry Day, Civil War Teachers Institute, IAJGS, IBGS, and the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society's John Colletta seminar).  And this total didn't even include volunteer work!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your 2016 Genealogy Education Plans

What a coincidence!  Tonight, right after I returned from a week of genealogical education at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), Randy Seaver asked about genealogy education for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

1) What are your genealogy education plans for 2016?  Local society meetings or seminars?  Regional or national conferences?  Weeklong institutes?  Genealogy cruises?  Podcasts?  YouTube videos?  Webinars or Hangouts on air?  Magazines?  Web sites?  Blogs?

2) How much time do you invest in genealogy education?  Why do you do it?

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

1.  My genealogical education plans for 2016:

* I started out by attending SLIG this past week.

* I will almost definitely attend a local Ancestry Day that is being planned.

* I will be at San Francisco History Days (the revitalized version of the former San Francisco History Expo).  Though it is not specifically focused on genealogy, learning about history is very important for genealogy research.

* I will be giving a talk at Jamboree and plan to attend several sessions there.

* I will be giving talks at both the spring (hosted by Fresno County Genealogical Society) and fall (hosted by California Genealogical Society) meetings/seminars of the California State Genealogical Alliance, but each will also have other speakers, and I'll have the opportunity to learn from their presentations.

* I plan to attend as many of the presentations offered by the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society and the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California as I can.  I am a board member of both societies and attend as many meetings as is possible and practical, but sometimes I have schedule conflicts.

* I often go to talks presented by other local genealogical societies and our local Family History Center.  (In fact, I'll be learning about mortuary records at the next meeting of the East Bay Genealogical Society.)

* I listen to as many Webinars as I can fit in my schedule.  It's very convenient to have learning opportunities you can do at home.  I regularly watch Webinars from Illinois State Genealogical Society, Legacy Family Tree, North Carolina Genealogical Society, Southern California Genealogical Society, Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, USCIS, and a few other organizations.

* I usually take one or two online courses each year.

* I have subscriptions to Avotaynu and the Association of Professional Genealogists' APG Quarterly.

* I read about two dozen genealogy blogs on a regular basis and several dozen others less often.

* I hope to attend this year's IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy and International Black Genealogy Summit, but whether I will be able to depends heavily on at least one of my submitted talks being accepted by each.  I would like to attend another institute, but I don't know if it will be possible, due to costs.  (I need to earn another scholarship!)

* I give about two dozen genealogy talks during an average year, and they are an opportunity for me to learn from other genealogists as much as they are for me to share what I know.

2.  I probably spend an average of one to two hours each day on some form of genealogical education.  I do it because there is always something new to learn, and it is an investment in both my professional work and my personal life.  I try to apply what I learn to my work, my volunteer activities, and my own research.

The Forensic Genealogy Institute in Dallas, Texas

For the past few days, I have been in Dallas, Texas, where I participated in a great genealogical educational opportunity.  I attended the Forensic Genealogy Institute, offered by the Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy (the second time they've done this).  Forensic here means "genealogical research, analysis, and reporting in cases with legal implications" (from the CAFG home page).  I and about two dozen more genealogists -- most of us professionals, but some just starting to test the waters -- had more than 20 hours of instruction that included real-world work examples and resources.  Sessions covered an overview of different applications of forensic genealogy, legal and ethnical considerations, the role of the forensic genealogist, and business aspects.  We each earned a Certificate of Completion (not to be confused with being certified!).

I have been researching my own family history for almost 40 (!) years now, and other people's for close to 15 years.  Working as a genealogist has no set educational or experience requirements, so the background I already had in history, research and analysis techniques, writing reports, multiple languages, indexing, etc. was enough to get me started.  Over the years I have attended many, many talks on genealogical topics and techniques and have learned quite a bit.  But I was impressed with how much information the institute managed to cram into our heads over such a short time.  The case studies and real-world experiences related by the instructors were by far the most valuable part of the institute.  I recommend that anyone considering forensic genealogical work watch the CAFG Web site and sign up the next time the institute is scheduled (current plans are for next March).

Another enjoyable aspect of the institute was actually getting to meet several people I've previously communicated with only by e-mail.  It was a pleasure to meet Dee Dee King, Leslie Lawson, Kelvin Meyers, Michael Ramage, Debbie Parker Wayne, Amy Coffin, Janis Martin (who has the same birthday as I do!), and Charlene Pipkin in person.

Upcoming Presentation for San Joaquin Genealogical Society

I will be the speaker at the March 17, 2011 meeting of the San Joaquin Genealogical Society (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sjgs/).  I'll be presenting my talk on using online newspaper archives for genealogical research.  I'm looking forward to meeting the genealogists in Stockton!

"Newspapers Online" Talk in San Mateo

Saturday I gave a presentation to the San Mateo County Genealogical Society (http://www.smcgs.org/) on using online newspaper databases in genealogical research.  Almost 60 people came, and we kept adding chairs.  The talk went very well, and everyone said I explained things very clearly and that the examples were excellent.  One person told me she felt "inspired!"  That's the kind of thing you love to hear as a speaker!  It was a great group, and they've asked me to give another talk later this year.

Right after my talk I drove as quickly as I could to get back to Oakland so I could attend the Blogging 101 workshop at the California Genealogical Society (http://californiaancestors.org/), where I learned how to get this blog going, thanks to Craig Siulinski (http://augustlegacy.blogspot.com/).  He was a patient instructor and walked everyone through the process.  It obviously worked -- my blog is here!

I think my Saturday represents a fundamental truism of genealogy -- we can always learn more, and we often can teach someone else something that will help that person with his research.  Take advantage of educational opportunities as often as you can, and reach out to others to give them guidance with their research if you can.