Personal Genealogy Update – First One!

 I have been so busy preparing for the holidays and have neglected my genealogy hobby.  It’s hard to find the time to write a blog post, let alone work on the family tree!  I decided to at least post about what I’m thinking genealogy-wise because just because I don’t have time to work on it, doesn’t mean I’m not thinkin’ about workin’ on it!


I’ve been asked to speak at our Genealogical Society of Cobb County’s Beginner’s Course in February – 2 lectures, and the handouts for those are due on the 8th of January.  I’ve had months to put them together, but there was always something pressing that needed to be done and, after all, I had plenty of time!  So, now they’re due soon and the holidays are here.  Conundrum!  I’ve been working on them in my brain and have it all mapped out, so it shouldn’t take me long to plunk it onto a presentation format, get the handouts done and create the bibliographies.  I will also be the president of said society beginning 2011 and have to create the agenda for the January 4th board meeting. 


I was given a poster-size blank pedigree chart from a fellow genealogist and last month got a copy made so I can keep one as my master.  I plan to fill it all in with pencil so I can eyeball the 8 or so generations and see the gaps.  This will help me to focus my research.
In addition, I can hear the research that I did in North Carolina back in November screaming at me from my office “come look at all of these wonderful photos of original land and probate records and add us to your database with transcriptions”!  I can hear you, you don’t have to scream. It’s fun to see relationships stated right there within a Will and be able to add folks to the tree!


I also plan to do a research plan for my Virginia ancestors as my husband has another meeting in January in Colonial Williamsburg for a week and I plan to hit the John D. Rockefeller library running!  Weeee!


I have two chapters to read for the ProGen study group this month as well.
I’ve prepared for the IGHR registration at Samford University.  Printed all relevant materials and put them in a packet, wrote to a veteran and asked questions about courses and accommodations, marked my 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices for courses and put that January 18th registration date reminder on my calendar!


I’ve mulled over the idea of pre-writing some posts in January for some of the carnival of genealogy ideas.  Not having time during the year to write as frequently as I’d like is a common problem, but if I could carve out a chunk of time to write say 5 posts for one carnival and add them to the cue, maybe that will make for more frequent posts for my readers in January.


I finally got a copy of my original DAR application back from my chapter.  Somehow I never got my copy when I was installed, but I have it now.  I need it to work on my supplemental applications.  Last I checked, I have 11 or so more patriots and found a father and son during my NC trip to add in.  WOW.  I never even thought I would have ONE patriot!  I am still trying to absorb the idea.  As an adoptee, I had convinced myself I would never know my ancestors and now this! 


I did add a couple of pages to my blog.  The “About Me” page and the “Surnames” page.  Been meaning to do this for a long time.  The assignments we’ve been given for ProGen has given me a lot of ideas for blog pages.  Perhaps I’ll add a page for organizations and societies I belong to and another page for my Bookshelf.  I haven’t decided yet. 


So, that’s what’s happening!  See how busy I am working on genealogy even though I am not doing the fun part of my personal tree!  Sheesh!  I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday and keeping those screaming genealogy criers from your office quiet until you can play!

©2010 Joanne Schleier - All Rights Reserved.

FGS Conference 2010: Recovering Back Home

My husband, Chris, and I just returned from the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Knoxville Tennessee. It ended yesterday and our drive home was only three hours. This is only the second genealogical conference I’ve ever attended, but I know from other conferences, including FGS last year in Little Rock, Arkansas, that there is a lot to absorb in a small amount of time. So I push myself to the limits, eat on the run, make sure my mornings include a cup of Java, and maximize every minute of each day.

Even though it’s only been a few days, there are sacrifices which we all have to make. When we arrived home my bird feeder was empty, my mailbox was full, my plant looks like this,

and my bananas look like this!

Oh and silly me... 
Ancestry.com had offered free scanning of old photos and documents. Since I’m already working on my own scanning project I thought I could take advantage of this big company's scanning capabilities. All you had to do was sign up ahead of time for a session, bring your items to scan, and they would do it for you and digitize them giving you a free thumb drive! Well, I thought they had those high-speed scanners that would scan your printed photographs at high speeds - like 100 per second. So I brought this:

Boy, was I wrong! 

The scanners they brought were for large or oversized photos and documents which were manually (meaning one at a time, by a human being) laid on the flatbed and a button was pressed which triggered the cameras button. They must’ve thought “this woman is crazy”! But they were kind enough to scan probably a couple hundred loose photos onto two thumb drives. I’m very grateful because it’s less work for me, but I sure learned my lesson not to do that again!

I couldn’t possibly tell you all of the neat tips and tricks that I learned at the conference. That’s why they have a conference after all. But I can give you at least one. When you travel anywhere for researching and your using your thumb drive, make sure you put an address label on it with your identifying information in the event you lose it.

I will usually attend a conference with a list of items I wish to purchase from the vendors in the exhibit hall. The only thing I had on my list was the Professional Genealogy book because I just signed up for the ProGen course and it begins September 1st. I spied another book which I had been told about and wanted, not for genealogy but for the Living History work that my husband and I do, called Woman’s Life in Colonial Days.

Most people know I love my Legacy Family Tree Software and in Little Rock I had purchased AniMap. I played around with it a little but I haven’t been utilizing it because I don’t know the software very well. I found this AniMap tutorial CD at the Legacy vendor. And my one and only impulsive buys was also a Legacy product Map My Family Tree - because I would love to start using more maps in my research.

Everyone who registered for the conference was given 30 tickets to drop into the boxes for drawings at the vendor tables. This year significant prizes were given away including an iPad, a cruise, a trip to Salt Lake for seven days and so many other goodies I can’t list them all here.

I don’t want y’all to hate me, but the truth is - I always win prizes from drawings - ALWAYS. Last year I won a year subscription to OneGreatFamily.com. My friends tease me about winning all the time and it’s a big joke! I had my eye on the iPad this year. Friday night they announced the big giveaways and one of my friends from our local society one the trip to Salt Lake! The names were all announced and I didn’t win a thing.

However, I never checked the bulletin board at the end of the conference which announced other drawings not part of the slew of grandiose announcements Friday night. While driving home my husband says to me rather nonchalantly “oh by the way, I checked the list on the bulletin board and you won a premium account with MyHeritage.com for a year!” Well I’ll be!!! I had picked up a free copy of their software on disk, but this!?!?

I’m not sure whether or not to tell my friends or they might un-befriend me!

As we get back into the swing of things, prepare grocery lists, answer e-mails, follow up on phone calls, nose-to-the-grindstone and all that kind of thing, here’s one last tip. Take all of your conference materials, handouts, CD’s, vendor materials, contact’s business cards, - the whole banana, and consolidate them so you can sort through it after the return-home rush of tasks. I have very little that I’ve kept, as I try to weed out things along the way, but everything I have has found its place in an expandable pocket which I’ll keep in my office by my computer to work on in small bites.

My next big event is the Atlanta family history Expo 2010,November 12 & 13th in Atlanta. My goal is to sort through all these conference materials before then. Wish me luck!

Copyright © 2010 Joanne Schleier