Thursday started out with our Keynote Speaker being J. Mark Lowe and his topic was "Coffins, Uns and Ziplock Bags". He was an entertaining speaker. He mentioned how when he was a boy he used to go to the cemetery as a boy and was told things about people buried there and did not connect those things until he was an adult later in life. He also mentioned how, in the South, they would take jars and put their contact information inside and what they knew about an ancestor and put it on the tombstone hoping someone would come along and contact them.
My first class was Clue-to-Clue: Tracking a Family Over Time and Miles presented by Jean Wilcox Hibben
The main points she went over were to start with yourself and what you know and work back to the unknown.
Use the internet for your research. Some sites you can use are;
- Ancestry.com
- FamilySearch.org
- NARA – www.archives.gov
- CyndisList.com
- www.stephenmorse.com
- www.Fold3.com (free at FHCs and NARA, Riverside County, CA)
Search in Family History Centers. Go to historical societies and libraries, court houses and other public repositories, cemeteries and churches.
My second class was How to Wring a Record Dry by Nancy Waters Lauer.
First topic in her class was when you are doing genealogy there is a thing called the "Genealogical Proof Standard". It expects that you do a reasonably thorough search, you have to make sure you have complete and accurate source citations, you need to do an analysis and correlation of the collected information, you then come up with a resolution of any conflicting evidence and then you write a soundly reasoned, coherently conclusion.
The next topic was "Evidence" There are two types of evidence; Primary vs. Secondary. Primary records were records created at the time of the event. Secondary comes after the fact by a person that was not there when the event occurred.
Next you need to classify each record category, was it wills, land, census, probate, etc...
What are the documents attributes? Is it a printed form, handwritten, typed, original or copy, what language etc...
When using compiled records you need to understand that they may not be complete, they may not be transcribed accurately, or they may not tell the whole story.
Questions to ask about the document: who created the document, what do you know about the document’s creator, who else was cited on the document, why was the record created, where did you obtain/view the record, and what do you know about the document?
Last topic was gleaning everything you can from Census Records. Be sure to look over all the different records.
Population Schedules
Agricultural Schedules (1850 – 1885)
Defective and Delinquent Classes Schedules (1880)
Enumeration District (ED) maps (1880 to present)
Industry or Manufacturing Schedules (1810, 1820, 1850 – 1885)
Mortality Schedules (1850 – 1885)
Slave Schedules (1850 – 1860)
Social Statistics (1850 – 1870)
Special Census of Indians
Veterans’ and Widows’ Schedules (1890)
The third class was "Here Comes the Bride & There She Goes by J. Mark Lowe".
The first thing to consider looking at is Maps because you and look at the county boundary changes over the years. Many times people stayed lived in the same spot but the county boundaries changed so their records would be located in a different county than you might expect.
For marriage records you may want to look at a variety of documents such as registers, bonds, licenses, minister returns, parent guardian permissions.
Also don't forget to look at alternate sources for marriage such as:
Family Bible Records
Military Pension Applications
Land Transactions
Will and Estate Records
Census Records
Tax Records
Mortgages .
Court Minutes
The last subject he went over was to get to know the marriage and divorce laws of the time and he gave us a sampling of "Early Marriage and early Divorce Laws" .
The fourth class was Putting History Into Family History by Hannah Z. Allan. She was the youngest presenter there. She was also the most enthusiastic of all the presenters.
She went over the following questions; Why Should I Incorporate History Into My Ancestor's Life Story, How Do I Incorporate History Into My Ancestor's Life Story, What Records Do I Use, and How Do I Solve Road Blocks?
When you add history to your ancestors story you add richness to your ancestor’s life and it can help to fill in gaps and help to solve road blocks. It is also a good way to teach history to others who may not have found it interesting but in the context of an ancestors life becomes interesting. We learn that by asking questions and talking to living relatives and using other people’s accounts we can begin to have an insight as to what their life may have been like and it may help us to determine what events your ancestor may have participated in and if we look at the local, state and national and even world history of their time we can see how events of their time affected your ancestor and family, while considering their age, gender, status, residence, etc. Also don't forget to research secondary materials. There are a number of records to help us do this; from town histories, newspaper articles, oral histories, journals, letters, literature written by others, maps to manuscripts. To help solve road blocks if you review local and national histories, events, laws migration patterns, trends and consider age, gender, status, residence, nationality, race, etc... we can begin to find information that will help lead us to new sources of information that we may have not thought of before. She also went over a list of records at historical societies that would be helpful, such as: Pioneer Index, Biography Index, Serials, Books and Pamphlets, City Directories, Land Indexes, Vertical Files, Newspapers, Manuscripts, Vital Records and Indexes, Photographs, Maps, Sanborn Maps, State Records, and Scrapbooks.
Throughout the class she used her grandfather as a case study to show how one could go from a name and date on a piece of paper to a person with a life and a story you could tell to others and a man you could connect with and be proud to call your ancestor.
The following was the last class of the day and it was a lot to take in but very helpful. Errors In Original Records? How To Spot Them; What To Do by Stephen Kent Ehat
When you find what you believe to be an error in an original record he explains what to do (the following is taken from the syllubus).
"1. ... what to do when you suspect an error in,... an “original record”? First, ... look at all of the sources you can possibly find,... cite what evidence you relied on to reach your conclusions but also discussing how you have reached your conclusions. ...explain in great detail why you think a mistake was made. ... Be a genealogy detective
2. If you ... handle an “original record”... do not make any changes or notations in the original record itself.
3. Put in your notes as accurate an explanation as you can of what the error is that you perceive, an explanation of what you think the correct information is from as many sources as you can find pertinent to the supposed error, a description of each source of information that you rely on to support any aspect of your analysis. ...
4. Make your notes published so others may benefit from your work. Invite responses. If you are not sure, make it known. Be willing to adapt to constructive criticism.
5. Ancestry.com and other research tools often allow you to add alternate indexing information,
giving you the option (in Ancestry.com, for example) to choose either “transcription error” (indicating the incorrect information appears in the Ancestry.com index) or “incorrect in image” (indicating that the original document contains incorrect information, this latter option not changing the
indexing, but instead adding a note that an error appears in the original record)."
Friday we did not have a keynote speaker but started off with a class that would be very helpful for a lot of genealogists in their note-keeping and organization. "How the Genealogist Can Remember Everything with Evernote!" Presented by Lisa Louise Cooke. This got me very interested because I use Evernote but not very much and I was interested to see how I could effectively use this for genealogy. After going through the basic stuff on how to get the program on your device, signing in, and etc... she showed us how to clip things from the web, use our scanned items on Evernote. "You can use the Clipping Tool that you add to your web
browser, or you can open the desktop client on your computer, and then in your computer task tray right click the Evernote icon and select “Clip Screenshot.” You can put multiple tags on your notes so that you organize them by tags or find a particular set of notes with the same tag. You can share your notes on other social sites and by email. She even mentions that you can add to Evernote's usefulness by adding other programs such as, Skitch, AudioMark, CamScanner, Instapaper, and Whiteboard Share.
Once you are signed up for Evernote there is a help section link on the program and on the website you can go to to get answers to questions. Also every so often they send to you in your email, helpful links to articles or videos to help you work with Evernote more efficiently.
The next class was Pre-1850 U.S. Research Methodologies by Karen Clifford.
As many of us know, the farther back in time you go the harder it is to find records because the fewer records there are to find. The handwriting gets harder to read, records are in multiple places because governments are evolving, boundaries are ever-changing and if you are not aware of these changes you wont know what records to check or where they may be, and a slew of other problems that causes it to be hard to find records.
There are steps to tackling pre-1850 problems. First, put your data, involving an individual, in chronological order, highlight key words and dates. Second, study research and understand record types,
methodologies, and locations of sources covering your region, state, county, and town if necessary. Third, Learn the history of that time period and of the area and nation. Fourth, Descendants often know things about their parents and grandparents. Do you know other descendants of the ancestor you are seeking besides yourself? Fifth, see if you can find other printed genealogies of your line to see if anyone has done any of the work. "Those items found on Internet public member trees might often conflict with other postings. At this point you need to determine if one is correct and the other is wrong, or if both have part truths?" Sixth, "Put the clues for each person in a comparison chart so you can compare years of events with the same year as historical events and sources and this can lead to a brand new source and eventually eliminate
those erroneous statements of fact given about one person from another." Seventh, record and organize your research as soon as you are done with it, if you don't you may forget insights you had while researching. Eighth, Figure out which source will help you find the record you seek. Ninth, pre-1850 records:
A. Pre-1850 census records
B. Tax records, voter lists, and any list that enumerates the male population.
C. Cemetery and probate records.
D. Intestate papers.
E. Religious newspapers or periodicals.
F. Periodicals containing family records
G.Land records.
H. Minister's notes.
I. Original land grants.
J. Naturalization papers.
K. Original church records.
L. War of 1812 service records.
M. Invalid pension applications.
N. Land claims records in the 1800s.
O. Original manuscript collections found in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections
When you find a pedigree you think looks promising, don't just add it to yours without verifying that it is yours. Someone could have done the same and it could be erroneous. Don't treat hearsay as fact, Don't expect to find all the information about your line on the internet, as cool as it is you still have to go out and do some research of your own.
After this class I attended a class I did not intend to go to but it was okay that I did so because I got to learn some stuff I did not know. LDS.org – New Family History Calling Resources by Todd Jones, is the class I wound up going to.
If you go to this site
http://lds.org/familyhistorycallings you will find training for whatever calling you have in your branch, ward, or stake. You will find Overview Videos, Roles and Responsibilities, Core Training, Resources, and Quick Links to other sites and tools. There are tips to help you do your job better. I have learned from several places here and online to start with stories, make it fun, watch the videos, check up on them see how they are progressing, and give guidance where needed. It also has guidance for priesthood leaders in regard to temple and family history work. It also gives us steps in how to increase people submitting names for temple work. They also gave us other places to go for learning familysearch.org (this is for your research), familysearch.org/tree-training (this is a place to go to learn how to use Family Tree), familysearch.org/ask (this is a place to go if you need help), lds.org/familyhistoryyouth, (this has ideas on how to get youth involved)
My next class was Your Ancestor Was In A Newspaper! by STEPHEN KENT EHAT.
He went over some newspapers we could get access to online:
ancestry.com
newspapers.com
genealogybank.com
worlditalrecords.com
proquest.com (free at BYU library)
wikipedia (list of online newspapers)
footnote.com
archive.com
This is a nice little list to get started with but I believe in no way all inclusive.
My last class of the day was Preparing a Valuable Research Portfolio by Kelly R. Summers. This was an all inclusive list of the things you need to do to become an accredited genealogist. There are several levels to it and there are many hours of research, lots of references information about your region of study and a test. I still am unsure if I want to put that much effort into becoming certified so I will leave it alone for now.
That is all the information I have for those of you who wanted to know what was the genealogy conference like and what I learned. Family History is more than family group sheets and pedigree charts it is knowing your ancestors as well and knowing about them, it is knowing the circumstances in which they lived and the choices they made, it is the stories, and pictures and other information that helps that person come to life, and it is the feelings we get when we do the work to find them and get to know them that helps our hearts become closer to them.
