Photos from NGS and Charleston

As promised, here are the few photos I got from NGS plus a couple from our visit to Ft. Sumter on Sunday.

Patty Roy, DearMRYTLE, and me

Drew Smith and me

 

DearMYRTLE, Tami Glatz, and me

Kim von Aspern, DearMYRTLE, and me (how did I always end up on the right?!)

Jennifer and Ellie Woods being interviewed by PBS

Linda McCauley, Cherie Cayemberg, Ginger Smith, and me

 

Here I am at Ft Sumter with Charleston in the background and the sun in my eyes.

Leaving Ft. Sumter

NGS 2011 Conference: 4th and Final Day

Today was the last day of the 2011 NGS Conference.  We are educated to the hilt, shopped out, homesick, and just plain tired.

Here are the classes I took today:

1. Social Security Records:  A Boon to 20th Century Family History:  Good class.  Learned some things, such as that during the initial Social Security sign-up period, 1937-about 1947, the SS-5 Application included employer information.  That could be interesting.  I do not know if that will be enough to justify the $27 cost for a copy of the SS-5, but it gives me another tool in my toolbox.
2. The Timeline:  Linking Historical Events to our Family History by Patricia Smarr:  I have been meaning to do timelines for my ancestors for quite awhile.  This class had lots of good website references for looking up historical events to add to a timeline and templates and sites for making the actual timelines themselves.  This would be a good item to prepare and add to my surname notebooks for each ancestor.  
3. Come to Morrow - Georgia's Research Mecca by Linda Woodward Geiger:  My favorite part of this class was learning what is available at the National Archives at Atlanta, which is right next door to the Georgia Archives.  I have only been in the NARA facility once, and I was totally overwhelmed.  This class helped me know what to expect on my next visit.  However, I was saddened to learn that there is a possibility that our Georgia Archives could close.  With recent budget cuts, they have already had to cut their hours to three days per week.  Hearing this news strengthened my resolve to get back over there and support them.
4. Debunking the Myths Surrounding the Military Personnel Records Center by Patricia Smarr:  I believe that most anyone who has requested military records from the Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, has faced some confusion and frustration.  Ms. Smarr lives in St. Louis and has found that the Records Center employees are very helpful.  I can understand that because I have had instances when after visiting a business location or library several times, the employees recognize me and are more friendly than they probably would be if they just got a letter in the mail from a complete stranger.  I did learn something big that I did not know - that 62 years after a veteran is discharged or dies, their file becomes an archival copy that is open to the public.  This puts recent roadblocks I have come up against with the Records Center in a new light.  

At the end of the day, we said good-bye to our friends, Cheryl Cayemberg, Jennifer Woods and her daughter, Ellie, Ginger Smith, and Dear Myrtle.  My friend and I headed to a Mexican restaurant to eat way too much, did a little Wal-Mart and A.C. Moore shopping, and then crashed in our motel room for one more night.  In the morning, we head to Liberty Square to take the cruise out to Ft. Sumter.  Linda McCauley is supposed to join us.  Then my genealogy friend and I will head back home.  I will be glad to sleep in my own bed!

This is has been a wonderful experience that I wouldn't trade for anything.  I will be spending the MONTHS ahead trying to work through the bibliographies and ideas that we were given.  My house may never be clean again!

NGS 2011 Conference: Day 1

Lessons of the Day:

1. Do not skip the opening session of the NGS Conference... EVER.  My friend and I thought that since this morning would be the only morning we did not have to be at the conference by 8am, we would take our time and skip the opening session.  So we arrived about 9:30, ready to enter the vendor area and get our free FamilySearch t-shirts!  We were walking around the vendor floor, getting acclimated to the layout when I saw two people who were also from Georgia.  Since I will talk to anyone, I stopped and showed them my name tag to indicate that we were also from Georgia.  The female looks at where we are from, which is printed right there on your name tag for anyone to see, and exclaims "Oxford, Georgia?!  One of your names was called this morning for winning a prize... but you weren't there.  They had to call about four names to find someone who was present to claim the prize!"  She went on to say that she thought it was my friend's name that was called.  That did it.  My friend was upset.  She blamed me (just kidding, I think).  Someone else finally told my friend that the prize she missed out on was a free registration to next year's NGS Conference in Las Vegas!  That just added salt to the wound.  The "funny" thing here is that this followed us the rest of the day.  I went to my class after lunch, ended up sitting next to a woman from Athens, Georgia, and when I told her I was also from Georgia, she looked at my name tag and said, "You missed out on a prize drawing this morning!"  !!!!!  WHY did everyone remember OXFORD, Georgia so well?  Why, when we only skipped this one session will we never live it down??  WHY OH WHY?!!!
2. Do not believe that you can remember what classroom your next class is in.  Always double- and triple-check it.  That way you will not end up wandering around, asking and getting bad directions that take you out to the loading dock, become determined that you cannot find your classroom, ask everyone you can find where that classroom is located when it actually doesn't exist, and you will not choose a different class to only get five minutes into it and realize that you had your classes mixed up and the class you should be in is next door, but it's too late to join it now.  Where did my memory go?
3. Once you are given a free gift, let's say... like a t-shirt, put it away in your bag IMMEDIATELY.  Do not carry it around, draped over your arm, and when you sit down to fill out an application for the Georgia Genealogical Society, lay it over the back of a chair.  Then when you finish your application, you simply walk away... and leave the t-shirt there.  (Yes, this really happened.)
4. Do not trust your GPS in a strange city to pick out a seafood restaurant.  The first two were dives in scary-looking neighborhoods... They may not have even been restaurants, they may have been strip clubs disguised as seafood restaurants.  So we ended up driving 12 miles to historic, downtown Charleston to A.W. Shucks, where we saw a ruptured water main and paid $8 to park nearby.  Fortunately, they were not busy, the food was wonderful, and we got there in time to eat and drink clean water before they had to close down because of the aforementioned ruptured water main.

There were some good times.

1. The classes were informative.  The three classes I took were Statistically Speaking:  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Vital Record Research; Everything you Need to Know about Footnote (my sub class); and Libraries, Archives, and Public Records Offices:  Understanding Resource Repositories.
2. I joined Footnote at a special conference rate.
3. We are now members of the Georgia Genealogical Society.
4. I got to meet Dear Myrtle, Dinah from Second Life, and Drew Smith in person.
5. I got to talk with a Family Tree Maker expert who showed me how to customize a cemetery report.

 Here's to tomorrow holding fewer lessons and more good stuff!

NGS 2011 Conference: Days 2 and 3

As many of you know, Blogger was down last night so I couldn't put out a post, and now I can't even remember what we did yesterday!  It was our long day - 12 hours - and it's pretty much a blur now.

I took the following classes:

1. Cemetery Records:  More than Tombstones taught by Lynda Childers Suffridge.  Like many genealogists, I love to visit cemeteries.  So this was an interesting class for me.  I learned about Mortality Schedules (Yes, I should have already utilized them, but I haven't!) and platting a cemetery.  
2. Organizing Your Research:  The Overlooked Step by Ann Carter Fleming.  Now I'm a pretty organized person.  But since organizing is an on-going and evolving process, there are always things to learn or tweak.   I have notebooks set up for my surnames with documents in each, such as death certificates, census records, marriage licenses, etc.  Now I have the plan to print out thumbnails or a list of the photos I have pertaining to that surname and file them in the appropriate notebook.  I also plan to sync my notebook "files" to my digital files so the order, topics, etc. are consistent.
3. Deliveries in the Rear!  Getting Family History Information through the Back Door by Jean Wilcox Hibben.  Jean is a dynamic speaker who I really enjoyed listening to.  She used examples from her own research "though the back door" to give us ideas for finding information about our own families.
4. Investigating Your Ancestors by Pamela Boyer Sayre.  This class was taught from the viewpoint of running a police investigation:  Scene of the Crime, Write Good Reports, Follow-up, Interview Witnesses, Identify the Likely Suspect.  As those of you who regularly read my blog know, I recently located my uncle's World War II military discharge papers at his county courthouse, and I learned in this class that sometimes Civil War soldiers would file their discharge papers with their local courthouses.  Something else to add to my Johnson County Courthouse to do list!
5. In the Wilderness and on the Battlefields:  The Reality of Your Ancestors' Military Service by Sharon Tate Moody.  If there is a theme for this year's NGS Conference, it would be the Civil War.  This class focused on the lives of Civil War soldiers and learning about their regimental histories - exactly where did your ancestor fight during the war?  I learned about the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion on Cornell University's website (http://myurl.com/bo248) which gives a lot of information about regimental history.  
6. Making Technology Work for Genealogists: Tools and Gadgets that Maximize Your Time by Anne Roach.  Anne chaired the RootsTech conference, and I can see how, because she is full of energy!  She told us about some awesome gadgets that made me oooh and ahhh and want them, such as a solar powered charger and a pen scanner.  I do love technology!

Yes, we took 6 classes yesterday.  8am-8pm.  It was a long day. 

Today was a light day with only 5 classes.  My classes were:

1. Child-Naming Patterns:  A Great Tool to Assist With Family Reconstitution by Richard Woodruff Price.  I had actually never given this much thought.  I knew that children were often named after their parents, grandparents or even deceased siblings, but I did not realize that different areas/countries/religions of the world had actual naming patterns they go/went by.  It was interesting.
2. What's New at Ancestry.com by Anne Gillespie Mitchell and Jen Hodnett.  For Family Tree Maker users, the greatest news to come out of the NGS Conference has been the announcement by Ancestry.com that with FTM 2012, it will be possible to sync our family trees between the software and Ancestry's online trees!  Yea!!  There have also been some great improvements to the search functions on their site. I can't wait to try them out!
3. Photography, the Civil War and Your Family Pictures by Maureen Taylor.  My favorite class so far.  Being a genealogist AND a scrapbooker, I absolutely adore family pictures.  Maureen shared so many great examples with us and gave us pointers to discern if a photograph was taken during the Civil War Era.  She has a new website, Ask MaureenTaylor and I believe I will send her a few of mine and see if she'll answer me!  I have found that stalking can be quite helpful.  
4. Speaking from the Grave:  Exploring Your Ancestors' Probate Files by Sharon Tate Moody.  This is a complicated topic with lots of law terminology.  Thank goodness Ms. Moody included a list of definitions for us in our syllabus.
5. Blank or Prize?  What You Need to Know About Georgia's Land Lotteries by Linda Woodward Geiger.  This class reminded me that I need to study metes and bounds and the headright system!  I also need to visit the Georgia Archives website to check out the District Field Notes and Plat Maps, whatever those may be!

We also stopped by the Archives.com booth to pick up a passcode for a 6-month free trial membership.  There they told us about The Archives.com Grant.  You can get $1,000 to fund your family history or preservation project!

The mission of the Archives.com Grant is to help fund important individual and communal initiatives that contribute to the promotion and advancement of family history research and historical preservation.  These might be projects to preserve historical documents, restore culturally significant artifacts, transcribe records, promote awareness of historical events, etc. The grand is awarded monthly through Archives.com, and a special grant recipient will be chosen here at NGS.

Whether you are in the planning stages or are currently working on a project that needs an extra boost to get off the ground, you are encouraged to submit an application. 

Grant recipients will receive a $1,000 award to fund their project and a feature on the Archives.com website, including pictures and a description of their project.

If you are a NGS participant you're eligible to apply for this special grant award.  Go by the Archives.com booth, get an application, fill it out and turn it in by 11 am Saturday, May 14th.  The winner will be announced Saturday afternoon.  You do not have to be present on Saturday to be eligible.  Archives.com will contact you via e-mail or phone if you've won.

By submitting this application, you agree to the Grant Rules which are available for reference at the Archives.com booth and online at their website.  If you have any questions, please go chat with them!

Remember if you cannot get an application turned in by 11 am tomorrow morning, visit Archives.com for information on applying for one of their monthly grants.

Time to rest up for the last day tomorrow!

Oh, and I have been taking pictures, but I forgot the cord to connect my camera to my laptop.  So I will have to share them after I get home.  NGS will just go on and on and on.

NGS 2011 Conference: Travel Day

My genealogy buddy and I left about 10 am headed for Charleston!  After a lunch stop, a stretch-our-legs stop, and a pit stop, we made it here about 3:15.  We checked into our motel and then headed over to the convention center to check in and get our conference materials.  We had a little time, so we went to the Tanger Outlet for some shopping.  Then we went to Jim 'N Nicks to attend a blogger dinner hosted by FamilySearch.  It was a great time.  I got to meet some bloggers who I have followed a long time, including Dick Eastman and Kimberly Powell.  I got to see my blogger friends, Jennifer of Climbing my Family Tree (and met her lovely friend and fellow blogger, Cherie!) and Linda McCauley of Documenting the Details.  I also met Audrey Collins, Ginger Smith and Greta of Greta's Genealogy Blog; I am sure I am forgetting someone - I'm sorry!!  FamilySearch employees shared our table with us and it was very interesting dinner conversation.  The most important thing we learned from Jim Ericson of FamilySearch is that there really ARE Indian princesses!  LOL

 
Paul Nauta with FamilySearch Public Affairs told us some details about all of the records they have added online recently, including the following (not a complete list):

• Civil War Pension Index
• South Carolina Probate 1671-1977 (select counties)
• U.S. 1890 Census of Union Veterans and Widows
• U.S. Civil War Soldiers Index 1855-1865
• Louisiana Confederate Pensions 1898-1950

FamilySearch also provided the following:  "And in a separate announcement..., FamilySearch announced that the Civil War Era records project was just launched.  Volunteers will be indexing millions of historic records from the Civil War period to help family history sleuths gather the pieces of their family stories that extend to that period.  There is also a FamilySearch Civil War wiki page where specialists are contributing online content dedicated to regiments and states."

"In the last year, FamilySearch, with its growing base of volunteers, has published almost 500 million historic records online - free for the public to search or view."

"ENLIST TODAY

Collections are continually being added, and we (FamilySearch) need the support of the community to help index these records to make them searchable.  You can also make history come alive by contributing to the Civil War wiki pages.  While participating you can:

• Find your civil war ancestors.
• Learn about the histories of the local regiments that fought in the war.
• Travel back in time to learn about the historical events that helped shape a nation and the family trees of millions of Americans.
• Help make more of these records freely available to the entire community."

To learn more or volunteer, visit:  FamilySearch.org/CivilWar

The learning starts tomorrow!

Monday Musings

There has been lots going on recently, genealogy speaking, in my little corner of the world.

       1.  During their sale on April 11, I signed up with 23andme, a genetics testing service, and ordered two DNA tests - one for me and one for my mom.  We have been wanting to do this for quite awhile, and the sale was too good to pass up.  I mailed my test back a week or so ago, and Mom mailed hers today.  In 6-8 weeks from the time they receive our samples, we should get our results.  For me, there were three compelling reasons for having our DNA tested:  First, to maybe find some "new" unknown cousins; Second, to find the area of the world our ancestors came from (I'm pretty sure I know, but there may be a surprise or two!), such as Western Europe, etc.; and Third, to see if there are any genetically linked health issues that might show up.  There is something that runs through the Ranney side, and we are anxious to see if anything is indicated in our DNA. 

           Of course, our next goal would be to find a male relative to do a DNA test.  Unfortunately, there are only cousins left, and we do not believe any of them would consent to do the testing.  Hopefully, when we get interesting news from our tests, we can share that and get someone on board.  Hope springs eternal.

      2.  I downloaded FamViewer, an app for my iPhone.  You can upload a copy of your GEDCOM to this app and have your family tree at your fingertips - wherever you may be!  It is a pricy app at $9.99, but well worth every penny.  I got mine at the iTunes store. 

      3.  For Mother's Day, I took my mom to the Atlanta History Center to tour their beautiful gardens.  While there, I could not resist popping into the Kenan Research Center to do a little research.  I had located three books on WorldCat that were at the Kenan Research Center, so I specifically went to look at those.  I have been researching my Drake ancestors recently (who were from near  Adrian, Emanuel  County, Georgia), and all three books were about Emanuel County, two being newspaper abstracts from around that area and the third being a cemetery listing.  I found a few tidbits of information; nothing earth shattering - at least not until I got home.  Which brings me to...

     4.  As I mentioned, I have been researching my Drake ancestors lately.  This led me to research the families of my great-grandmother, Emma Harrell Drake and her mother, Catherine Odom Harrell.  During the course of my research, information was found that the Harrells are buried in the Harrell Cemetery and Catherine Odom is buried in the Odom Cemetery, both of which are in Emanuel County.  I had never heard of either cemetery.  The book of Emanuel County cemetery listings I found in the Kenan Research Center had directions to and a listing of who is buried in each of those cemeteries.  I made copies of those pages and while looking over the Harrell Cemetery listing, I decided to do some searching for the listed names on Ancestry.com.  Bingo!  By searching carefully through census records spanning several decades, I was able to find the names of my 3rd great-grandparents, James K Harrell and Nancy Beasley Harrell.  Now I have another limb on my tree!  I also discovered that James and Nancy were from Darlington, South Carolina.  I never knew I had South Carolina roots.            Let me break down the family connection so it won't (maybe not) be so confusing:

          Me > Gilbert Tapley, my father >> Nealie Drake Tapley, his mother >>> Emma Harrell Drake >>>>
          (her father) William Robert Harrell >>>>>James K. Harrell and Nancy Beasley Harrell and
          (her mother) Catherine Odom Harrell >>>>> Elijah Samuel Odom and Rutha Goff Odom

     5.  Researching these lines led me to do new searches on GenealogyBank.com, and I found many more     obituaries and other newspaper articles about people in my tree.  I must get some of those scanned in during the next ScanFest!

     6.  For my anniversary, I got a Flip-Pal personal, mobile scanner!  I had not read a single bad review of this product, and now that I own one, I understand why.  It performs perfectly, and I am so ready to go visit cousins and scan some family photos!

     7.  Tomorrow morning, I leave for the NGS conference in Charleston, South Carolina.  This is my first time at NGS, and I am very excited.  I know it will be exhausting, and my head may burst from all of the information I receive there, but I am excited anyhow.  I hope to stay awake long enough each evening to write a post here about my day.  My first order of business upon arriving in Charleston, besides checking in at our motel and registering for the conference, is attend a blogger dinner.  I believe it will be great fun to meet and chat with other genealogy bloggers. 

So a lot has been going on around here... though it seems that with how busy I have been, there should be more than 7 items listed!