Southern California Genealogy Jamboree

This is my 4th time coming to this wonderful Jamboree.  I had to take a break for a couple of years but am glad to be able to be back here.  I am always amazed at the high energy level here.  So many people excited and eager to learn more about doing genealogical research, finding new technology, records and websites.  I am also pleased with meeting people who enjoy the same thing I do and reminded of how helpful and friendly people can be.

I’ve had 2 full days of great classes and thought I’d share some tips I’ve learned.
Yesterday, I attended a great workshop presented by Paula Stuart-Warren entitled What next?  Workshop for developing Step-by-Step Research Plans.  Paula had some great practical ideas for looking at a document and determining what to do next.  I think the 2 things that really resonated with me were:

• don’t work alone-find someone to work with.  Different perspectives and knowledge levels give you lots of good ideas.
• when you get a new document jot down your first impressions and your questions/next steps.  I thought about the death record I had just found the day before of my maternal Great-Grandmother Susan Bentz Hammond.  I knew she died young of cancer but seeing her age listed as 29 years really shocked me.

Another great workshop yesterday was presented by Paul Woodbury entitled Developing a DNA Testing Plan.  Paul gave us a good plan for deciding who to do DNA testing on to help you with your research.  I realized I need to find some family members who were siblings of my paternal Great-Grandmother Sarah Rowan King in order to help me in my research on her mother Sarah Hughes Rowan.  So, I’ll be looking for the descendants of Joseph and William Rowan and Mary Rowan White.

This morning I went to two roundtable discussions-one on DNA and one on Genealogy.
During the Genealogy roundtable I sat at a table where the topic was  Irish Ancestry with Sheila Benedict leading the discussion.  I was able to get some great ideas for finding information in Ireland including several websites (like Ireland X O and Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters) which should be of some help. 

During the DNA roundtable I sat at a table where the topic was Y-DNA and Other Projects at Family Tree DNA with Katherine Borges leading the discussion.  Katherine was very helpful in answering our questions about Family Tree DNA and taking part in some of the Projects available.  I learned a few new things about reading my DNA profile and was pleasantly surprised to find out that she is a Project Administrator on the Warner Surname Project through Family Tree DNA where we have my father’s (Warner) Y-DNA.  Talk about an inside track to find out information!  I also leaned that my father’s lineage goes to Haplogroup G and that is believed to be from Wales.  We found the name of a man from Wales on the project who is matching my father.  A new contact to make!

I also had the pleasure today to attend a session presented by Drew Smith entitled Organizing Your Genealogical Communications.  Drew had some great tips on organizing your mail, email and participation in groups such as Facebook.  I know its difficult as you make more contacts and search for more and more information to keep it all organized.  This was a good time for me to hear this because with the continued contacts I make I feel it’s more difficult keeping it all straight.  And as my fellow blogger Diane Gould Hall (Michigan Family Trails) has also helped me see there are features I haven’t been using on the tools I have such as Evernote that can also help.  It was nice to meet Drew Smith and George Morgan of the Genealogy Guys podcast and let them know how much I enjoy listening to their podcasts.

Well, I’m exhausted and tomorrow is a new day.  What great new finds will there be?

Would love to hear your comments and any information you’d like to share.

Enjoy the journey,
Debby