More Genealogy Nuggets -Jamboree Jogging 2010 – Part 3

[This post is part 3 of 3 about the sessions attended at the Southern California Genealogical Jamboree 2010.]

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak at SCGS Jamboree 2010
Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak at SCGS Jamboree 2010

Saturday Sessions Continued….

Gena Philibert Ortega: Preserving Heirlooms – Gena, author and expert genealogist is the  newsletter editor of World Vital Records.

Genealogy Nugget: Heirlooms tend to like the same conditions we do; never store documents and photos in the garage or attic.  They like mild temperatures and low humidity.

Bonus Nugget: Never store photos in those sticky page ‘magnetic’ photo albums because they can damage the photo  Move photos to acid free, lignin free photo sleeves.

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak: Neglected History. Megan is the creator of RootsTelevision.com and the founder of UnclaimedPersons.org, a volunteer group that assists coroners and medical examiners. Her most recent book is Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History.

Genealogy Nugget: The Pavilion was filled to over capacity meaning I stood the entire time.  No notes from this one!

Saturday Night Dinner: Keynote Speaker Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak: The Search for Michelle Obama’s Roots

Genealogy Nugget: be organized and document your research as you go.  This was a talk about the process Megan used to find the First Lady’s roots.

Sunday morning and the last day

Susan Kitchens: Tools to Capture Family Stories:  The Interviewer’s Brain, Ears and Mouth – Susan is a writer, blogger, graphic designer, and award winning author. Animated and fun, Susan shared lots of tips to capture those all important family stories.

Genealogy Nugget: Documents especially photos spark memories.  Don’t delay capturing your loved one’s stories. Use a time line around which to structure your questions.

Rhonda McClure:  Researching in Québec – Very knowledgeable about Québec research, this expert genealogist is the microtext floor supervisor and staff genealogist at NEHGS.  She is a nationally recognized lecturer and author.

Genealogy Nugget: Notarial Records include a wide assortment of documents including property deeds.  In early Québec you will also find wills and marriage contracts. The 1867 Cushing’s Notarial Form Book gives a list of different contracts a notary would create (written in English). This form book is available on Ancestry.com.

Bonus Nugget: Crown land records are the British records beginning in the 1763 of the Eastern Townships and counties on the Ottawa River which were surveyed and settled by the British and by Loyalist Americans.  The petitions for land or the patents-certificates contain information such as petitioner’s family, parentage, military service, time of settling the land and more.  The patents usually include the name of the grantee, a description of the land and the date of the grant.

Lists of Lands Granted by the Crown in the Province of Québec from 1763 to 21st December 1890. Québec:  Charles-Francois Langlois, 1891 is a book of transcriptions of information from the land patents.

Maureen Taylor: Hairsteria: Hair in the Family – Maureen is an expert on the intersection of history, genealogy and photography and the author of a number of articles and books including one on this very topic of Hair.  She showed lots of photos of weird and wonderful hairstyles over the ages and did side by side comparisons to modern day celebrity hairstyles.  What goes around, comes around, it seems!

Genealogy Nugget:  Beards and mustaches were accepted styles after the Civil War as it was seen as patriotic.  (Sideburns et al).

Curt Witcher: Finding the World with WorldCat – Curt is the Manager for The Genealogy Center of the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, IN where he has worked for more than thirty years.   He has a Masters Degree in Library Science.

WorldCat is the largest bibliographic database in the world, providing users with data on more than 1.5 billion items found in more than ten thousand libraries and record repositories world-wide.

Genealogy Nugget: Use the advanced search to find 1) family information using the surname 2) find geographic information 3 ) ethnic information 4) religious and organizational information 5) occupational information.  WorldCat is a great way to find small church books, local books and archival collections.  Take the time to play using various search combos.

Are you wishing you had more information about these sessions?  SCGS has the Jamboree syllabus copies for sale.

I did lots of Jamboree Jogging and attended twelve classes AND made it to the Genealogy Gems podcast recording and two dinners…AND did the cemetery tour, not to mention all the socializing.   It was an action packed three days. The genealogy nuggets barely scratch the surface of the great info we received.  I’ll be putting into action some of what we learned and blogging about it here.

Related posts:

Geneablogger Welcome Bag Sponsors

Tombstone Tuesday – Jamboree Evergreen Cemetery Tour

Jamboree Jogging 2010 – Part 1

Jamboree Jogging 2010 – Part 2

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