Jean Wilcox Hibben to Speak in Mesa, AZ

I received the following flier last night at our Family History Society of Arizona chapter meeting. Hibben is a national genealogical speaker and presented at this same seminar in 2011. Not only is she a great teacher but she also entertains with her guitar and folk songs. You can't beat the price of $15.00!

© 2012, copyright Michelle Goodrum

What I Learned From Curt Witcher this Weekend

On Saturday, I had the distinct honor and pleasure of attending the Arizona Genealogical Advisory Board's workshop with Curt Witcher, Genealogy Center Manager at the Allen County Public Library. This was my first time hearing him speak live and he is as inspiring, entertaining, and educating as the recorded talks I have heard him give.

Here are take aways from each of the four talks he gave:

1. Roll Call - New Sites and Sources for Military Records and Research. This talk was jam packed with information and sites. One thing that I wasn't aware of is how powerful WorldCat.org is. Did you know that you can sign up for your own free account? WorldCat can literally be your research assistant. You can set up bibliographies and to do lists for a particular repository.
2. Using Government Documents for Genealogical Research. Local communities may have "yearbooks" of people who held positions in that community. This can be anything from mayor down to constables and town clerks. State and counties have Blue Books and Red Books which are like yearbooks. Have you sought these resources when researching your ancestors?
3. Pain in the Access: Getting More from the Internet for Your Genealogy. This was my favorite presentation. Mr. Witcher gave us  a step by step surfing strategy which I won't outline here because I would be giving away the heart of his talk! Suffice it to say that I now have another checklist to use when researching online. I will share some links that I was not familiar with.
• USGenNet
• Libraries on the Web
• State Archives - I'm pretty excited about this one right now because I think it's pointing me to some records that I need to access in Colorado.
4. SOS! SOS! Saving Our Societies: Answering Our Distress Beacons. There were many great points in this talk but two things stood out in my mind:
• People want to have fun and be successful doing genealogy. Is this happening for your society members?
• Them vs. US - There are more of "them" (meaning genealogists who were "born digital") than there are of "us" (genealogists who have been researching since before the digital age). What is your society doing to attract and engage "them"?

          It's important for societies to keep these and other points in mind in order to keep our societies alive and vibrant.

If you have the opportunity to listen to a presentation by Curt Witcher, I highly recommend taking advantage of it. In the meantime, I hope you picked up something useful from this brief summary.

 
© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Dick Eastman at the Family History Society of Arizona Seminar

Today was the Family History Society of Arizona’s seminar and annual meeting with Dick Eastman of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter as our speaker. Dick is a wonderful presenter who can take a topic and make it seem very easy  I find myself enthralled, learning new things and being affirmed that at least I am on the right track with some of the things I am doing. He gives me clarity. Here’s the top things I learned from each of his three talks.

Genealogy Searches on Google

Google has special syntax searches. One in particular caught my attention. On the Google search page, type the word "info:" and then the url of the webpage you are interested in. For example, if I do the following search:

info:http://www.turning-of-generations.blogspot.com/

This search returns about the url that you put in after the term "info:" including pages that link to this particular url and web pages that contain the term or url that you searched. It struck me as one way of finding out who's talking about you out in the blogosphere.

The Organized Genealogist

This talk was completely different from the usual organizing lectures I have attended that usually go over organizing you paper files or the folders on your hard drive. Dick gave this topic a really different and useful twist. One of the points he covered was the program called Evernote which can remember everything for you.. Since I have recently begun using Evernote, I found some very useful ideas presented.

Dick also mentioned a new product that is due to come out on the market soon called the Ion Book Saver. This device will hold a book while you flip the pages and take pictures. I’ll be anxiously awaiting Dick’s review when the Book Saver becomes available.

Conservation-Keeping Up With Technology

A question from the audience caught my attention during this presentation. A lady brought up that she has many Word documents from very early versions of Word that she is unable to open now. This issue could really apply to any program that has been repeatedly upgraded over the years. This is something hadn’t occurred to me. I’ll need to find, open and resave really old Word (or whatever) files in a newer version. I just figured that a Word file, no matter how old, could be opened in the current version of Word forever. Apparently that is not so.

Another question that came up had to do with a topic that I have investigated in depth in the past because there is a lot of conflicting information out there. Dick's explanation was incredibly clear. I wish I had asked him this question a long time ago! Since it's become a bit of a pet peeve for me, I am going to save it for a future post so check back in a week or so.

I love seminars. I always learn new things and enjoy the opportunity to see friends and meet new people who share a common interest. Bloggers Mary of me and my ancestors and Carol of Reflections From the Fence also attended (Carol and I had a blast carpooling). I hope you check out their blogs and see what they had to say.

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Family History Society of Arizona Fall Workshop October 23rd

The morning begins with a Round Panel Table of published genealogy authors with ASU professor Duane Roen as the moderator, followed by his class "The Writing and Preserving of Family History." In the afternoon will be a presentation "Historical Research" by ASU professor Eduardo Pagan, team member from PBS’ "History Detective".
There will be several classes to choose from during the afternoon sessions.

If you are interested, you can get a registration form from the FHSA website. Registration is due October 16th. The workshop is being held from 9:00 to 4:30 at the Glendale Adult Center, 5970 West Brown St. in Glendale, AZ (Brown Street is one block south of Peoria on 59th Avenue).

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum