SCGS Jamboree 2017 - Saturday

Saturday morning I began the day with "Understanding DNA for Genealogy" by Jim Brewster of FamilyTree DNA.  It is a beginner level class on DNA and discussed the three basic types of DNA for genetic genealogy.  Jim explained about haplogroups and the various DNA tests and how and why they might be used.  He also mentioned the types of projects people can become involved in.

At 11:30 I joined Shannon Christmas for his talk on "How to Get More From Your DNA with GEDMatch.com.  This was categorized as suitable for beginners through advanced.  GEDMatch is a "third party" DNA vendor. They don't actually do DNA testing but they do provide a place to upload raw DNA data from any of the testing companies so that you can compare with others who have tested with any other company. In other words I can compare my DNA test from 23andMe with those who have tested at Ancestry.comDNA and FamilyTree DNA.  More matches = more chances of finding cousins! Shannon explained the free utilities available at GEDMatch as well as Triangulation and Matching Segments.

Lunch in the Quad between the conference center and the tower of the hotel was very pleasant and it is always fun to talk about genealogy with others.  Making new friends and greeting old friends. No one is lonely at a genealogy conference unless they choose to be!

After lunch, I went to Drew Smith's "Your Ancestor's FAN Club: Using Cluster Research".  Drew pointed out that we can often find records to tell our ancestors' stories in looking at their friends, acquaintances and neighbors.  Since people often moved together, we can follow a group to see their story.  Did your ancestor marry the boy or girl next door? Who did they work with, go to church with or serve in the military with?  Many times, the stories of our ancestors are intertwined with theirs.

After Drew's class, I stayed in the same room to listen to Randy Whited discuss ""Technology Resources for Deciphering Foreign Language Records".  Randy talked about the tools we can employ to further our understanding of what a foreign language record is telling us. He mentioned the use of dictionaries and wikis for translation helps and also using both Microsoft Word and Google Translate.. Randy also talked about types of records to be found and how record layout might be a clue to understanding the meaning of the record.

Both Drew and Randy's lectures are part of the streaming video available to watch until July 10.

My last session of the day was Lisa Alzo's "Creating Family History ebooks: Your Blueprint for Success". Lisa talked about the Self-Publishing Process and the dos and don'ts. Lisa also showed us some of the online tools that can be used as part of the process.  The writing process was discussed and mind mapping was explained. Lisa's syllabus has a wonderful list of self-publishing toolkit items. Lisa's best and last advice was to Write, Write, Write! Make time every day to write>

After five presentations, it was time to meet my roommate for dinner at the Daily Grill and then put my feet up while my brain tried to absorb all the information it had been exposed to.

SCGS Jamboree 2017 - Thursday and Friday

I arrived at the Marriott Hotel Convention Center in Burbank on Thursday afternoon just in time for the "No Host Social" and in time to meet my roommate before her last DNA session of the day. I was able to pick up my bag of stuff  so that Thursday evening I could look over the schedule of talks and try to decide which speakers I wanted to hear.

Friday morning was devoted to round table discussions of various topics including DNA, Societies. Professional Genealogists, and Genealogy Basics.  I went to the DNA roundtable discussions.  Tables were set up for the various DNA vendors as well as topics like Virginia/Carolinas, Scottish Genealogy and DNA and others.  Each table had a host who moderated the discussion and participants moved from table to table freely to explore their interests.  I spent time at the Virginia/Carolina table since one of my husband's lines began their migration to southern Illinois from Virginia through North Carolina.  Shannon Christmas was the extremely knowledgeable host and shared his knowledge graciously.

The afternoon sessions provided a wide variety of choices with 9 lectures per time period and four time periods with a 30 minute passing period. (Think high school change of class) The thirty minutes and necessary because the classes are held in the Hotel, Conference Center and two tented Pavilions just beyond the Conference center.

I only went to two of four classes offered Friday afternoon since I spent quite a bit of time in the Exhibit Hall. Most of that time was with Kathy Meade of ArkivDigital. She spent time with me working on a record I had found in the Swedish Church Records and was able to help interpret the place my subject had moved to. This may go a long way to solving one of my Swedish brick walls. I did attend Michael John Neill's "Generating Genealogy Blog Content" and have been re-inspired to keep writing my blog. With all of the changes in genealogy software, I went to hear Bruce Buzbee speak on "Roots Magic: Home Base for your Online Research" so I could learn what's new.

At the end of the day, I was ready to meet a high school classmate for dinner and a visit.  We only get together when I am in California so it was a real treat.

Finding Church Records - a Family Search Catalog Discovery!

Recently I discovered a short-cut to finding parish records in the Family Search Catalog.  I was looking for the Church records for my mother's family, in Chicago during the 1890-1925 time frame.

In the search form for the Family Search Catalog, under place, I entered "Illinois, Cook, Chicago" and saw a list of records held for Chicago, selecting "Church Records" I saw that there are about 370 Catholic Parishes listed. 

 These parishes are in no particular order and it can be very tedious scrolling through that many  pages while reading the name of each church to avoid missing the one you are looking for.  While scrolling today, I noticed the author field. It was consistent and as follows: Catholic Church, St. Mel..."  So I tried using the author field for my search and it works!  Using only the author field, you get a list of all Catholic Churches in the Family History Library catalog and where they are located. 

 If you fill in the place field as well you get a specific parish.

I guess I learned something else!  There is only one St. Mel parish in the United States!  I hope this saves you some search time.  It appears to work for all Catholic Church records in the Family Search Catalog.

Memories of Mays Past

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Today is like many of the May 14ths of my childhood.  It is both Mother's Day and my dad's birthday.  Many of these combination May celebrations were also shared with a First Communion celebration. As each of the nine children in our family passed through the second grade, they made their First Communion.  In addition two of my brothers were born during the month of May. All of these events occurred during the first two weeks of May. Truly a period of celebrations!

I don't remember the exact celebrations but they undoubtedly involved cake and, in the case of birthdays, candles. Gifts were secondary to the occasion and of more sentimental than monetary significance.

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For Mother's Day we would go to Woolworth 5 & 10 store with whatever we had saved from our allowance and pick out a gift for mom.  Dime store jewelry and cologne were favorites. Those gifts were treasured as were the school crafted cards and gifts.

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First Communion gifts were usually a small missal and rosary set, black for boys and white for girls given by the parents. Grandparents and aunts and uncles might give a medal or other remembrance. This was in addition to the expense of a white dress and veil with new white shoes for girls and suits, ties and dress shoes for the boys.

I don't remember adults gifting each other for birthdays and holidays, and I am sure that our gifts for the birthdays of our parents were handmade cards and other small tokens of love.

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Easter Memories from the 1950s

Easter Sunday meant the celebration of the Risen Lord.  It meant attending church on Sunday morning.  A church with all the statues either replaced in their position or unshrouded from their purple coverings.  It was a day of joy and celebration with flowers decorating the altar in abundance. We prepared for Easter during the six weeks of Lent by making sacrifices and attending additional church services.  There were meatless Fridays, days of fasting, and personal sacrifices.  No candy for six weeks or attending daily Mass were popular personal sacrifices.

Good Friday was commemorated by abstaining from meat, fasting between meals and observing silence between the hours of noon and three o'clock. Then most businesses closed at noon or at least observed the practice of silence.  Many spent those hours in a church on their knees.  If you were at home, silence meant exactly that.  No talking and no radio.

Easter Sunday was a time to wear new spring clothes to celebrate Christ rising from the dead and His return to the world,  It is also a time of rebirth in the world of nature. Baby  animals are born, flowers bloom and trees leaf. This is the reason for some of the traditions that we observe.

In our house, Easter eve meant that it was time to decorate the hats that the girls would wear to church the next day.  Earlier in the week, each of the girls was allowed to choose one of our straw hats to wear with her Easter dress.  Then we would go to the local "dime" store and pick out a flower spray and ribbon to trim our hat.  The decorating was done on Saturday night when Mom would use a needle and thread to attach the flowers and ribbons to the hats. With five daughters this was never a small project, and it was long before glue guns. After the hats were ready, it was time to fill the Easter Baskets with candy treats and small gifts. Sometimes they included new lace trimmed ankle socks or new white gloves. Sometimes the boys got new socks or ties. It probably depended on who needed what to complete their outfit.

On Sunday morning we would walk the block to church as a family,  We were quite a sight in our Easter finery.  All of the boys in suits or jackets with white shirts and ties.  The girls in pastel dresses with flowered and beribboned hats and Mom with the corsage that Dad had purchased for her on her left shoulder. Dad was very proud when the eleven of us would arrive at church and fill an entire pew!

I don't remember the holiday menu but there was definitely a holiday dinner, sometimes including anunts and uncles.  Easter Baskets included outside toys.such as kites, glider planes, jump ropes, and jacks.  It was Spring and time to celebrate the great outdoors!

TBT - Birthplace of Johannes Adolf Waldemar Hansen 4 October 1852 Oslo Norway

Photo courtesy of Anders De Lange

Suddenly Seven - Happy Blogiversary to Me!

Sometime around the 10th of February, at the kick-off of the Winter Olympic Games, a challenge was issued by Thomas MacEntee  to become a better genealogist.  I think it appealed to be because my husband and had attended the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary.  The premise  was to set genealogical goals for ourselves and at the end of the games determine how well those goals were achieved.  Then we could aware our selves medals of achievement!

Here are the challenges of those winter games and what I did. (or didn't do)

Winter Genealogy Games are over!

The Winter Genealogy Games have now ended and I have been reflecting on how much I have achieved.
To even enter the games I needed to create this blog. Next I created a flag to represent my heritage.


1 Go Back and cite your sources - I have been citing sources and earned a Bronze Medal.
2 Back-up Your Data -I have completed task C making a new DVD back-up of all my digital
media. I also have MOZY back-up my data daily and store it on their servers. That
qualifies for a gold.
3 Organize Your Research - I have individual files for each family line I am researching and I
also have digital folders for each family. A silver!
4 Expand your Knowledge - I learned how to create a blog and I played around with googlemaps.
I also created a WORDL using the names of the families I am researching. Another gold!
5 Write, Write, Write! - I wrote a summary of my blog and listed the names I am researching. I
also am participating in the 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy Challenge. One more gold!
6 Reach Out - I index regularly for both ancestry.com and familysearch.org. I check message
boards to see it I can help with a request, and I have begun following several different
genealogy blogs. Gold again.

Summary: 1 Bronze, 1 Silver, and 4 Gold not bad for a newbie!

I began slow but was proud of what I accomplished and determined to continue to grow as a genealogist.  To that end, in the past 7 years:

•  I have posted 399 blog posts.
• I have joined a local genealogy group and created and maintain a website for them, began giving presentations on various topics, organiized 4 consecutive community programs to raise awareness of our group, and I am currently program chair for the group. 
• I have joined several state genealogy societies as well as the Federation of Genealogy Societies.Attended several national conferences such as RootsTech 2015, FGS 2014 & 2015, and the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree several times.
• I volunteer one day a week at both my local public library and local Family History Center to help others with finding their stories.
• I have taken several Genealogy Cruises where classes were taught on "sea days"
• I am currently participating in Thomas MacEntee's  "Do-Over" with emphasis on source citations and file structure and organization.
• I currently manage 6 DNA kits and am trying to get a handle on DNA and how it all works.
• Preparing the membership application for my daughter to join the DAR since we found her connection to John Ferguson, a Revolutionary War Patriot.
• Preparing for my second trip to Salt Lake City for research purposes.
• Continuing to write of my Genealogy Adventures!

I am proudest of the fact that I have continued this blog for the past 7 years and the chance it has given me to measure my growth.  Pre-blog I was a solitary recearcher alone at my desk,  This challenge has helped me make hundreds of like minded friend who are always ready to help.

Learn - Do Be!  I love my life!!