Genealogy conferences are not only for experienced researchers. If you are just starting out, consider attending a regional event.
The just-concluded 40th annual Jamboree of the Southern California Genealogical Society is a completely volunteer-run event providing an excellent experience for researchers of all levels. Their team does a great job in providing the right mix of expert speakers, diverse topics and technological innovation, along with a good dose of creativity in out-of-the-box thinking.
More than 100 speakers presented sessions; there were seven programs at each time slot, and more than 1,500 researchers of all experience levels attended, making it one of - if not the - largest regional US conferences. the 400-page syllabus included speaker bios and session handouts, and was also available on CD.
This year, some 35 genealogy bloggers attended. Eight of us were on the second annual Blogger's Panel offering our own perspectives on blogging in general, and on genealogy blogging specifically.
PHOTO: From left, Lisa Louise Cooke, Dick Eastman, Schelly Talalay Dardashti, DearMyrtle, Craig Manson, the mystery Ancestry Insider, Leland Meitler, Steve Danko and moderator George C. Morgan of The Genealogy Guys.
The double session panel fielding questions and answers about genealogy blogging, while bloggers in the audiernce tweeted and blogged in realtime. Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings.com posted some 87 tweets over the course of the session; others posted photos of the panelists as we spoke.
Many speakers were interviewed for video or audio podcasts. I was interviewed by Drew Smith and George C. Morgan of The Genealogy Guys, and also by Lisa Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems..
Imagine attending a wedding, a birthday party, a graduation or a family reunion. Take photos with a mobile device - even a video of the bride and groom cutting the cake - and send it directly to your family site for other family members to see.
You can do this now, as one of the recently launched MyHeritage photo features that make it even easier to store, share and present digital photos online.
Some of the elements are the ability to upload photos from mobile devices, create slideshows from those images and tag them more quickly. The goal is to make the most of your family photos.
To really get your family members connecting and sharing photos, videos and other information, each member of your family site will receive unique email address and a PIN code. Any photo, video or document sent by your family site members via any mobile device will be published there.
The special email addresses prevent strangers from posting content to your family website, and helps MyHeritage identify who sent what item.
Just save the unique address in your mobile device and your email contact list. Members can also email photos and videos from web or email to the family site.
The innovations make your family site a safe place to store family images and documents and make them accessible to members.
It isn't only images, either. Imagine researching at an archive and finding documents, or in a library and finding family information in a rare out-of-print book, or an old family photograph - just take a photo of the document, page or photo and upload it to your site.
One way to view a large collection of photographs is via full-screen animated slideshows in various formats.
MyHeritage's CEO Gilad Japhet just created a "Ken Burns" style slideshow of his own family photographs. See it here:
Here's another way to present a slideshow, the album format using Barack Obama photos and even videos. See this presentation.
Other effects are also available, such as a traditional slideshow and others (3D walls, photo stack, etc.):
Human beings do make mistakes. Remember the old proverb: "To err is human, to forgive divine"? Genealogy's version should be: "To err is human, to correct genealogical."
Every family historian and genealogist knows that family trees may include errors.
Sometimes they are due to simple human mistakes (in writing down facts received orally, transcription or copying from other records or details wrongly recorded due to tragic events, such as deaths, which might skew relatives' memories) or bad handwriting. Sometimes errors may result from other relatives simply not knowing the truth (such as mistakes on gravestones) or realizing that the correction will be too expensive (again, gravestone errors). Occasionally, the reason can be chalked up to "let's make the story sound better," which may lead to additional embellishment as years go by.
Here are some Ancestry.com examples showing what might have happened - a 1904 Border Crossing record; 1910, 1920 and 1930 US Federal Censuses - for my TALALAY family, which became TOLLIN after immigration.
Border crossing
When my great-grandfather Aaron Peretz Talalay entered the US from Canada in November 1904, he was listed as Aaron Tallarlay. His wife, Riva, and children Leib (Louis), 2, and Chayeh Feige (Bertha), 9 months old, arrived in New York City in December 1905. He was born in 1873 and his age is correct, 31. Riva was born in 1875. As you will see, their ages seem to be wrong in all the census records below.I have not yet found Aaron's passenger manifest from the UK to Canada. It should be interesting.
1910 Census
In the 1910 Census, the family was listed (and indexed) as LOILON, although whether the initial letter was a T or an L is debatable. The record was found only by looking at record after record to find a likely couple. I believe my great-grandparents would have said TOLLIN, the enumerator heard TOYLIN and spelled it TOILON. My great-grandmother Riva (or Rebecca) is listed as Eva. It shows Aaron arrived in 1905 (it was 1904) and the family arrived in 1906 (it was 1905).Their ages are listed as 35 and 37, but the correct ages are 37 (Aaron) and 35 (Riva).
In 1915, when the family became naturalized citizens, the record was in the name of TOLINI. It took years to find the papers!
1920 Census
In the 1920 Census, the family is now listed (and indexed) as TOLINO - making them seem Italian - and my great-grandmother is now Rebecca. In addition to Louis and Bertha, there are another three sons. Bertha is listed as 14 (she was 16). The parents ages are listed as 45 and 40 but they actually were 47 and 45.
1930 Census
In the 1930 Census, this family is finally TOLLIN, as were all the other relatives in Newark, New Jersey and Springfield, Massachusetts. Bertha is not listed as she was married and living in New York, while Louis had finished medical school and was in Baltimore, Maryland. The parents were listed as 55 and 53, but they were really 57 and 55.
Read on for some hints to avoid repeating and compounding errors in your research.
The unsinkable Titanic wasn't, when it went down in the North Atlantic in 1912.
Most readers have seen television shows and movies based on the great tragedy, but how many of us have actually read the words of the survivors in contemporary newspaper coverage of the time? This coverage took place in a world without cable TV, cellphones, computers, satellite trucks or instantaneous communication?
When the Carpathia arrived in New York, figures on the number rescued varied. Carpathia reported 710 saved from what the White Star Line said was 2,180 passengers, and that others say was 2,340. The list of names given by the Carpathia on her docking in New York shows the rescued included 188 first cabin passengers, 115 second cabin, 178 third class and 206 of the crew for a total of 687.
"The tragedy of the Titanic was written on the faces of nearly all of her survivors. Some, It is true, who were saved with their families could not repress the joy and thankfulness that filled their hearts, but they were very few compared with the number of the rescued. These others bore the Impress of their time of darkness, when their people passed out in an accident that seemed like an insane vision of the night. Their faces were swollen with weeping. They had drunk more deeply of sorrow than is rarely given to human kind. But manv whose spirits were fainting from despair walked firmly enough down the gang-plank. Some walked unseeing in a kind of dreadful somnambulism of despair."
When I read that the youngest survivor had recently died - Elizabeth Gladys Dean, known as Milvina, was only two months old when she, her toddler brother and mother were rescued - I decided to see how the newspapers of the time handled this story. I used NewspaperARCHIVE.com as my source and decided to choose the Syracuse Herald in New York.
Dean was listed in the Syracuse Herald as recovering in New York City's St. Luke's Hospital, with her brother and mother (third on the list below):
Eyewitness accounts gave a strong picture of the best of humankind and the worst, of unsuspecting passengers who believed this was a trifling incident, of wives who refused to leave their husbands, of cowardice and bravery:
The stories illustrated how little the passengers really knew about what would happen:
In the US, more than 35 million people identified as Hispanic or Latino in the 2000 census. The census form provided for people to identify as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban or "other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino."
Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated in the US from mid-September through mid-October. Many organizations, archives and libraries organize special lecture series, classes, exhibitions and spotlight their holdings.
President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968 and President Ronald Reagen expanded it to a month. The time frame was set to include the independence and independence days of several countries: Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua.
Among the US-based organizations highlighting Hispanic heritage are Library of Congress, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the National Archives with the National Park Service.
There are many resources available for those researching their Hispanic heritage, both in the US and other countries.
Many Hispanics settled in New Mexico. The New Mexico History Museum held its grand opening in Santa Fe earlier this month.
The museum highlights the history of the state, including Native Americans, Hispanics and European immigrants and all of their contributions.
The exhibits trace the the history from pre-Colonial Era to the present. There's even a re-creation of a wall of petroglyph-type handprints; touch some and the words of Navajo, Apache and Pueblo Indians talk about their worlds.There are interactive displays, bilingual exhibits, a hand's-on room for kids where they can handle artifacts and watch films and more, .
Among its holdings are the digitized collections of the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library, which is the successor of the state's oldest library (established 1851), and part of the Palace of the Governors. A non-circulating, closed stack research facility, the library preserves historical materials in many formats documenting the history of the state, the Southwest and meso-America from pre-European contact to the present. Search its catalog here.
There is an obituary database here. Started by staff and volunteers of the Historical Society of New Mexico as early as the late 19th-early 20th century, serious efforts to maintain and add to it were begun in the 1930s. The database goes through the end of 2005.
While DNA testing for genealogical research is the best new tool that we have, it is sometimes hard to convince people to participate in a surname or geographic project.
My own DNA projects have experienced good participation with the exception of my own closest male cousins. This means I have representation from several branches (except my own) descended from my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. One of the mysteries is that some branches tell the story that one of his sons was an orphan left on the family's doorstep and brought up within the family - we don't know which son or even if the story is true. But I keep trying to convince them. Genealogy's mantra is "never give up!"
Traditionally, we researchers deal with paper documents (or online images of those documents) and follow the paper trail to our ancestors. This is kind of like the Yellow Brick Road to genealogical success. Documents include birth, death and marriage certificates, wills, property deeds, census and voting records, obituary notices and other sources to either prove or reject a connection. Without documents, there may be a rather substantial thick brick wall. One way to open a door in that wall is with genetic genealogy DNA testing, which will tell us whether two people are descended from a common ancestor or not.
This post will focus on Y-DNA (male DNA) which is much more valuable for tracing lines within a historical framework, while mtDNA (female DNA), is more suited to anthropological resources as mutations are much slower. Instead of looking at 1000 years or less, mtDNA gives a window onto what happened tens of thousands of years ago. The results are interesting but difficult to use in a contemporary genealogical sense.
Y-DNA passes unchanged from father to son. Thus it is useful to see if two descendants of one man are related, no matter how far back in time. If both are direct male descendants of one man, their DNA should match. This makes it perfect for genealogical purposes and can link people even if surnames differ, as some family lines may have spread out to different areas before surnames were required.
Y-chromosome DNA markers used for genetic genealogy have nothing to do with certain diseases or hereditary traits. The markers used are described as "junk" genes and can't be used to determine paternity or possible disease markers.
Have you decided to get started with DNA testing to answer questions? Here are some hints to try to get your family branches involved.
The caveat is that DNA testing is also good to avoid wild goose chasing as it will rule out families that do not connect. And when a genetic match is made, researchers will then be able to go on from there and perhaps find clues and more information previously unavailable.
Approaching family you know and asking them to test is one thing, but how do you approach strangers and ask them to participate?
The reactions of strangers may be suspicion, hostility, misunderstanding, not knowing what genealogical genetic testing really is and what it can demonstrate. Of course, the person may just not care about family history research.
The process may be complicated and may take some time.
New Yorker Judy Simon is an administrator and co-administrator of a few family and geographical sites at FamilyTreeDNA.com (which partners with MyHeritage.com) and she offers some hints and tips that may help you.
She operates on the theory of creating curiosity and interest on the part of strangers (as well as friends and relatives).
If she can grab their interest, she hopes she can persuade them to order a DNA kit and join the family.
The Internet changes so rapidly that family history researchers must be aware of how to access every possible resource, including those created by companies, organizations and individual researchers.
Digital genealogy expert Drew Smith has had a lifelong interest in family history. In real life, he is a University of South Florida academic librarian. He's a director of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa) president, well-known co-host of the weekly Genealogy Guys Podcast and contributes to Digital Genealogist magazine.
He has just authored "Social Networking for Genealogists" (Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, Maryland, 2009). I've just read it and wanted to let you about it.
While not a heavy tome, its concise 129 pages set out the nuts and bolts of how the social information revolution can benefit each of us on our journeys down Discovery Road. The book covers - in a concise easy-to-read manner - podcasts, RSS, tags, wikis, genealogy social networks, general social networks, message boards, mailing lists, sharing photos and videos, collaborative editing, blogs, sharing personal libraries and even virtual worlds.
Each chapter begins with a definition. The first chapter asks 'What is social networking, and what does it mean for genealogists and their research methods?" followed by:
social networking (noun): A way of using online resources and services to create and maintain a community of individuals who share a common interest.
While social networking used to mean meeting people face-to-face, it is no longer exclusively a physical term. While in-person relationships are an important part of human society, we can now locate people around the world who share our interests - a community of like-minded individuals.
Technology means, writes Drew, that we now "go" to our e-mail box as if it were our home's physical mailbox, or a website as it were a store or meeting. For 10 years, online social networking sites and services have seen a remarkable increase, and some have been designed exclusively for genealogists. Today, we also use general networking sites for genealogical research (such as Facebook and Twitter, which I have written about previously).
While family history researchers have been working on their families for hundreds of years without any technological assistance, other than a better ink or writing instrument, we now have many more resources to access in many different ways.
Wouldn't it be great to get your farflung family together and meet them in person? E-mail goes only so far.
Some families plan reunions every year or every few years and have been meeting for decades, while others have never organized a formal get-together.
We've been talking about this for our Dardashti family - there are so many relatives that we'll need a football stadium. Several years ago, we had a mini-reunion with descendants of six Talalai branches. It was probably the first time in more than 100 years that that these branches had been together since before most cousins began leaving Belarus and Russia for the US. We were all stunned by the familial and personality resemblance within the group, which included those who had remained in the ancestral towns until very recently.
How do you plan a family reunion? Here are 12 steps to help:
1- Get organized.
Breaking down the responsibilities among a group of people is a good idea, but you'll need a chairperson which may be you as this might be your idea! Some tasks - depending on how big the event is - include committee meetings, making lists of volunteers and jobs, keeping to a calendar, getting people to follow through. Think about committees for food, activities and publicity.
2- What type of event?
Reunions can be informal or formal, planned on a budget-conscious shoestring (important these days) or an anything-goes gala. A picnic may be the easiest and most cost effective. What about a dinner at a restaurant? A camping trip? A theme park? A family cruise? A family ski vacation? There are many possibilities.Distance and cost are important considerations.
3- Choose a date.
Think about the season, holidays. How long will the event be - a day, an evening, a weekend or longer? Try to plan for off-season. A family reunion planned for June will compete with weddings and graduations. Will seasonal weather that might impact activities and participation?
4- Track down relatives.
Will this event be for all descendants of one immigrant ancestor or, for example, just one branch of your grandmother's line? The larger the group, the more planning is necessary. And the more people expected, the more expensive the event may be (larger venue, etc.). How to find lost relatives? If you are a good family history researcher, you may already have many names and addresses available. Use the social networking benefits of Facebook and Twitter, as well as genealogy social networking sites, like MyHeritage.com, to find long lost relatives. Of course, if you've kept a list of relatives' addresses, phone numbers and emails all along, it will be a snap to update. Better late than never should be your motto. Start building your relatives' list now.
5- Reunion location.
Small groups can meet in a someone's backyard, a small resort or a theme park. According to Family-Reunion.com, choices also include camping out, a hotel weekend, bed-and-breakfast, the family's ancestral home or town ( a roots trip), a dude ranch, a family cruise, etc. In the summer, pool access would be welcomed by participants, especially for younger relatives. Remember that the more expensive the event, the fewer the number of attendees.
A family history or genealogy conference can be a life-changing experience. Have you considered attending one?
Everyone at the event will be interested in and passionate about family history and in finding more information about his or her ancestors. Each event provides an educational and networking opportunity to connect with researchers and experts, learn new information or skills and ask questions.
Some beginning researchers feel they don't know enough to attend such an event, but I think everyone will benefit. Researchers of all skill levels will become inspired, meet interesting people, learn new skills and methods, receive expert help, and hear breaking news about technologies and new resources.
Beginner sessions are always scheduled; experienced researchers make efforts to help newcomers. Most importantly, remember that even professional genealogists were once absolute beginners - learning never stops and there are no silly questions!
Through the years, I've attended conferences in several countries. I've always learned something new, met others researching my geographic area, and seen new resources and innovation. Many people I met years ago are good friends today.
Family historians and genealogists are friendly; people often ask me why. We never know if the next person we meet might just hold the key to our personal mystery of history. We share information, help with strategies, offer advice and we hope that, as we help newcomers, they in turn will help others.
You might sit next to someone researching your families, villages or towns. Researchers who focus on specific areas or topics may form special interest groups to share information, collaborate to develop resources to help others. These groups may hold meetings or meals with speakers and are a great way to meet the experts.
How do you know if a certain event is right for you?
- What pieces of your family puzzle do you want to investigate?
- What sessions target your quest?
- When are those sessions scheduled?
- Who are the expert speakers?
- Look at the conference site for all details.
- View and printout the program, marking topics of interest.
Do check for more general topics, such as geography or changing borders, reading different alphabets, organizational skills for a project or how to break through sticky research problems may also be of interest.
Are there books or software you'd like to see before buying? Will a vendor have it so you can buy or order a copy? Will a resource room offer maps, databases and reference books?
Each event attracts experts, including international archivists from countries your ancestors may have lived. There may be opportunities to meet with the experts in one-on-one sessions, and volunteer document translation assistance may be available.
There is an obituary database 
While DNA testing for genealogical research is the best new tool that we have, it is sometimes hard to convince people to participate in a surname or geographic project.
Documents include birth, death and marriage certificates, wills, property deeds, census and voting records, obituary notices and other sources to either prove or reject a connection. Without documents, there may be a rather substantial thick brick wall. One way to open a door in that wall is with genetic genealogy DNA testing, which will tell us whether two people are descended from a common ancestor or not. 
The Internet changes so rapidly that family history researchers must be aware of how to access every possible resource, including those created by companies, organizations and individual researchers.
A family history or genealogy conference can be a life-changing experience. Have you considered attending one?
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