Sunday, June 3, 2018

Southern California Genealogy Jamboree 2018-Thursday

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WOW!!  Three days packed with genealogy learning, connecting with old friends and making new friends.  It is always so amazing to be in an environment were there are over a thousand people who share the same passion you do -all in one place at one time.  The energy level was so high for all three days.  I am so glad to have today to reflect and relax. 

The Southern California Genealogical Society does such an amazing job of pulling this Jamboree off.  This year was the 49th year they have done this.  The speakers were amazing, the venue is great and everything seems to run seamlessly, at least for us the attendees is always seems that way.  BRAVO and Thank-you to all the volunteers that pull this off!!  I know it is a tremendous job that takes hours and hours of planning and so much behind the scene work.  We do appreciate all you do!!

Fellow blogger and good friend Diane Gould Hall and I drove up to Burbank on Wednesday night to avoid much of the LA traffic. 

Thursday was a special additional day where you could take part in one of two special tracks for the day –a course of DNA study entitled Link through DNA or a family history writing day entitled Love Your Family LegendsI choose Love Your Family Legends because I want to be able to write more interesting stories about the information I have learned about my ancestors. 

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Here are some of my many great experiences for Thursday:

Jill Morelli’s talk entitled Just Do It! Self-Publishing Your Family History gave some really good information and tips about self-publishing and led me to believe I really can finally get my great grandmother’s over 100 letters from 1880-1910 published (see posts re Carrie’s Letters).

Lisa A. Alzo’s talk entitled Show, Don’t Tell: Creative Non-Fiction Writing for Genealogists discussed tips and techniques about how to share the factual information in more compelling and interesting ways so we can actually feel like we are walking in our ancestors’ shoes.  After this session I happened to see fellow blogger and friend Randy Seaver and told him I feel like I should go back and rewrite all my previous blog posts to make them more interesting…lol.  I can only hope my future posts will be more interesting.

Andrew Lee’s talk entitled Writing Compelling Family Stories took us through the understanding of basic story types, defining the basic story and the writing process. He left us with “A story is more than just a set of facts, a compelling story will transport the reader to the time and place and make him an observer to the events described.”  I think I need to have this as a sticky note posted in my work area to remember whenever I am writing a family story.

Crista and Susan Cowan ‘s talk entitled Writing Fascinating Family History One Story at a Time reminded us of the importance of writing down our own stories.  While we are so involved in telling other’s stories we forget about the importance of telling our own stories.  Mother and daughter team led us in a great fun writing activity where we got started writing our own stories.

Maureen Taylor’s talk entitled Photo Stories: How to Tell the Tales in Your Pictures showed us how to look beyond the person in the photo as we so often forget to do.  Even if you are lucky enough to know the names of the people in the photo there is so much additional information you can learn about their lives by carefully looking at the rest of the photo.  I used a photo my cousin Rebecca had shared with me of her great grandmother Ella Billard Terry riding in a horse and buggy that I will discuss in a future blog post.

Thursday night Diane and I decided to attend a banquet dinner where Diane Southard was the guest speaker.  Her talk entitled Rewriting History with DNA, Two Mindy’s, a Will and Country Music was an interesting tale of paper and DNA research to find answers to long asked questions and new family.


Stay tuned for information about Friday and Saturday’s classes.  If you have never been to Jamboree consider going next year for the 50th Birthday Bash!
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If you have any corrections or additions or stories to share I look forward to hearing them.
Enjoy the journey,
Debby

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