Southern California Genealogy Jamboree-What an end to Jamboree!

Yesterday was day 4 of the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank, California.  This was the final day….until next year and what a great end it was for me.  I had 3 great classes and yet another wonderful surprise!

The day started with a class presented by Trevor Hammond entitled Getting to Know Fold3.  While I use Fold3 to look for my military ancestors’ records I know that I am not using all the features and search engines available.  Trevor was able to help us see many features and explain how Fold3 is constantly improving.  Now I also need to go in and complete memorial pages for my 2 known maternal Civil War Veterans-Joseph Cornell and Portis Coolbaugh (see previous blog posts).  If you have Military connections be sure to check out Fold3.  There are many pictures there from various wars and they are always looking for help in tagging people in the photos.  I also just had to ask Trevor about his Hammond line since that is one I research as well.  (We will need to correspond and see if he are related.  If we are, I will let you know in a future post.)

The second session of the day that I attended was presented by Kathy Warburton entitled Back Home in Ireland: Following the Trail to Patrick Murphy’s Origins.  Kathy had great reminders to gather all the information you can in the US first before going overseas.  (I have a Swedish ancestor Ebenezer Barry with a definite brick wall and this is a good reminder for me to look at neighbors in the area of Brooklyn he lived to try and find some other connections to Sweden.)  Kathy continued to give us tips and strategies for doing research like looking at name variations, coming forward in time to find ancestors children and grandchildren for information and to learn about the history of the country you are heading back to for information of the time your ancestor left.  She concluded by sharing a study she had done with very little basic information that showed how possible it was to find that elusive ancestor.  She gave me hope that I can find Patrick and Susan Hughes in Ireland one day….soon.

My third session of the day was presented again by Trevor Hammond entitled Finding Your Family on Newspapers.Com.  I have been thinking of getting a membership and after listening to all the great features on Newspapers.com and all the options to make researching easier like being able to save your clippings, being able to have a search tagged for following so that if anything new comes along you will be notified.

After lunch there was a drawing in the Exhibit Hall done by My Heritage.  The last number called happened to be mine and I won a deluxe subscription for a year!  How exciting!!  I already use My Heritage and I’m interested in seeing all the Deluxe addition features which I currently don’t have but should be very helpful.  Thank-you My Heritage for giving me a great ending to a wonderful weekend!!  I rarely win anything so this was some treat!


On the last day they asked us to wear T-shirts that commemorated our home towns.  Mine is a map of Long Island with the older lighthouses on it created by Don and Linda Lubov.
Fellow bloggers and friends, J. Paul Hawthorne and Diane Gould Hall, from The San Diego Genealogical Society compare their add ons to their name badges.  Also note the beads denoting that people are ‘Bloggers’.


I was glad to spend some time with big time blogger Randy Seaver also from San Diego.  Please check out Randy, Diane and Paul’s blogs for useful information for researching your ancestors.  Thank-you to Randy and Diane for mentioning my blog posts in their blogs.  I am so very new at this and enjoy learning from these 3 very talented people.  I am honored to call them my friends!


Something that always amazes me about Jamboree is how nice and helpful everyone is.  People came from all over.  I even met a couple from Anchorage (my birthplace) and we saw each other frequently during Jamboree.  Many friendships were made and so much information was learned.  Now to just have the time to put what I’ve learned to practice.  Stay tuned for future findings.
I hope you will be able to join us one day.

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

Enjoy the journey,
Debby

Southern California Genealogy Jamboree-Exciting Day 3

Day 3 at Jamboree was another great day of learning and meeting people along with an exciting end to the day!

This morning I was able to attend 3 great sessions and talk to some interesting and very nice people.

My first great session was presented by Jim Brewster entitled Getting Your Results Is Just the Beginning.  Jim has a great personality as a speaker and was able to show us many of the features on our Family Tree DNA website that will help us make those family connections that can help break through some of those brick walls.  Now I should be able to start making a little better progress toward making those cousin connections.  I also found a lot more information available to me on my page then I knew  was there before.

My second great session was presented by Geoff Rasmussen entitled Using the Latest Legacy Family Tree Software.  Geoff is a great speaker and I always enjoy listening to him when I have the opportunity.  He was able to show us many of the newer great features that the Legacy Family Tree program has to offer.  Like most technology we use there are so very many features that are available to make our life and researching easier that we don’t take advantage of.  I can’t wait to start using color coding of my family branches to help make family lines stand out.

My third great session was presented by Dr. Thomas Jones entitled Organizing Evidence to Overcome Record Shortages.  Thomas was able to take us step by step through how to find and organize information that comes from a variety of  sources that are not as common and organize them into valuable information.  He compared the process to taking a box of 200 puzzle pieces, many torn, discolored or missing and figuring out how to put them into as best a picture that you can to find out more about some ancestors.  The analogy was a great way to explain what we do as genealogists.  The answers we search for are not always right there for the finding.  He led us through an Irish case study that was amazing to watch.  I now feel a little more hopeful about finding some information on my Irish line and others when the typical information is so scarce.

Fellow blogger and friend Diane Gould Hall (Michigan Family Trails) and I were able to talk once again to Katherine Borges who is an enthusiastic, knowledgeable instructor and very easy to talk with.  Thank-you Katherine for your help and advice!


There is a large Exhibit Hall with many vendors for us to talk to.  While at the Family Tree DNA booth I was glad to be able to meet the author of Genetic Genealogy: the Basics and Beyond  Emily D. Aulicino.  Even though I have an undergraduate degree in Biology DNA for genealogy was a struggle.  I have enjoyed Emily’s book and found it an easy read with a lot of valuable information.  She is a teacher and able to present the information in a way that makes sense and the reader comes away with a wealth of information.  Emily has books to sell and I would highly recommend you stop by and see her while at Jamboree.  Thank-you Emily!


I was happy to see that so many of us from the San Diego Genealogical Society were able to make it to Jamboree.  We were able to get the word out and be able to take a group picture this morning.  Hope we didn’t miss anyone.  Our group includes fellow bloggers: Randy Seaver, J. Paul Hawthorne, Diane McClure-Lott, Diane Gould Hall and Kitty Cooper.


The day ended by attending a delicious banquet dinner.   The guest speaker, Kenyatta D. Berry: Secrets from PBS’ Genealogy Roadshow was a wonderful treat.  Kenyatta gave us some interesting insights about the filming of Genealogy Roadshow.  She was entertaining and refreshing, a true genealogist who happened to wind up on a reality TV Show and strives to keep the show as true as possible to the work genealogists do daily.


The most exciting part of the day for me came after Kenyatta finished speaking and was asked by our hosts the Southern California Genealogical Society to pick the winning ticket in a raffle.  My name was chosen and I am the very happy winner of a free registration to next year’s Jamboree!  WOW!!!  Can’t wait!!

What an EXCITING end to the day!  Thank-you to the Southern California Genealogical Society!!

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

Enjoy the journey,
Debby

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