2020 AG Renewal Accepted

This morning I received notification that my renewal of accreditation as a genealogist with ICAPGen was accepted. This required several different types of reports and items that include:
1. A signed Ethics Agreement
2. Education and Skill Building of a database maintenance project for a family from New England, 1 page review and a 5 page client report.
3. Education and Skill Building of 20 hours of viewing webinars focused on New England research, a 5 page report with notes from each webinar.
4. Letter of Genealogical Activities 2015-2020 some specific for New England, a 5 page report.
5. A client report for research on a family with history in New England. This included a 10 page report with background information, a research objective, research results summary, detailed research results, additional information, conclusion, suggestions for further research, and footnotes. There was also a 5 page research log. That is 31 pages total. The main 10 page client report was peer reviewed and scored.
This was a challenging process and I am so relieved to have passed a second renewal. Every five years after my original acceptance this process is repeated. My most important suggestion that I will share is to start early and submit it three months in advance of the deadline. It is also helpful if one is not working on other client projects as this requires a very organized and thoughtful process of producing the reports.

Enjoying Summer and the Relaxed Schedule

A week from Saturday is the actual first day of summer. With the longer daylight hours sometimes we might run out of energy before darkness even comes. As the stress of busy schedules becomes more relaxed we may become distracted from our family history work. Writing blog posts about the work being done seems to be more difficult as well.

SLIG 2014 Part III - Our Group Project

On Tuesday morning Paula handed out the group project information and we were all very anxious to look it over. Our group of three, the lawyer who did our data entry, the military expert and the online researcher, quickly dissected the information from the original document for George C. Pollard. It contained the following:

SLIG - Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy Part II

On Wednesday our schedule was for classes all day at the Radisson. We began with two morning classes by Josh, the first Clustering and More: Maximizing Your Online Searches and second More than Just People: Lessons and Hints from Public Directories. He has a true talent for using multiple resources to extract supporting information while researching. One of my classmates and I went downstairs to the onsite restaurant for lunch. We met two ladies waiting in line to be seated and agreed to share a table with them. Our visiting was fun and we found ourselves rushing back to class.

SLIG - Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy Part I

My last post was written two weeks ago, where did the time go? It flew away to preparation and attendance at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. The week prior to departure was filled with all the usual life complications and obligations. When boarding the Southwest Airlines flight on Saturday, January 11, many of those things that occupy my time were left behind. There was no lap top or other electronic devises in my suitcase, and several forgotten items later required purchase in Salt Lake City. The most important resources on this trip were my two friends from Portland. One flew with me and the other met us in the Radisson Hotel upon arrival.

Genealogy Connections on Facebook

Lately in conversation the amount of contacts with my friends on Facebook has come up. At the current time I have 621 friends, many of whom are genealogists. Every day there are many comments from these friends relating to the work they are doing and situations arising from their contacts with other genealogists. For my family contacts I maintain a separate list so they are my first read of the day. When time allows I like to take a moment to read the comments of others, many of them funny, entertaining and occasionally sharing challenges in their lives.

RootsTech 2013 Live Streaming Classes Part 2

The classes shown through live streaming are listed in my previous post. Here is a brief overview of each of the ten classes.

Friday March 22

Researching Ancestors Online by Laura G. Prescott

Genealogy Research Online – Sites and Strategies That May Surprise You

This class should be a must see for any serious genealogist. Laura first covered some positives and then some negatives of genealogy research on the Internet. She discussed, How to be a responsible contributor and user of online genealogical information.

Her list of Usage Rules includes: Share, Be accurate, Double check data received, Respect copyrights, Ask Permission, Cite Your Sources, Respect privacy, Take your time, explore, get wonderfully lost and have fun.

The syllabus includes a list of eleven commonly used websites many of which require subscriptions. She also referenced 101 Best Genealogy Websites for 2012 and Professionally Preferred Websites for Family History.

Some of the free websites that she demonstrated included: Cyndi’s List, The US GenWeb Project, DoHistory, Library of Congress, NUCMC, Academic Archives, Dead Fred, One-Step Webpages, Find A Grave, Bureau of Land Management, LibraryThing, and HistoryLady.

Rootstech 2013 Live Streaming Classes Part 1

RootsTech 2013 Live Streaming Classes

The classes shown through live streaming are listed in my previous post. Here is a brief overview of each of the ten classes.

Thursday March 21

The Future of Genealogy – Moderated by Thomas MacEntee, panel: Lisa Louise Cooke (Genealogy Gems Podcast), Dick Eastman (Eastman’s Online Newsletter), Daniel Horowitz (My Heritage), Alan Phillips (Unlock the Past), Dear Myrtle (Dear Myrtle Podcast), D. Joshua Taylor (findmypast.com)/brightsolid

RootsTech 2014 Live Streaming Key Note Presentations

For my own benefit this is a quick review of what I learned and discovered watching the three keynote sessions. My next blog will be about the ten classes.

First I want to note the great emcee Shipley Munson. It felt almost like he was introducing a game show and he did a fine job covering the basics each day. As head of marketing for FamilySearch, one can feel the enthusiasm he has for the family history audience.

Sleep Deprivation and Genealogy

Oh, it feels so good to sleep and the more we age the more important that shut-eye time is to us. As genealogists we often get involved in a research project and when we are on a roll of success in our work it is very hard to stop. This might mean that we end up working almost through the night until we come to a point where we can take a break without losing the momentum in the search. A late night person who is semi-retired can usually sleep in as needed, but others have obligations in the morning that require them to be alert and functioning adults.

The Art of Communication for Genealogists

How we communicate whether in person, through snail mail, over the phone or through online messages can quickly determine the results that we do or do not receive. Like playing the game Telephone, where one person passes on a message and then it continues to be passed to all the participants until the last person reveals the message they heard. Usually after the message has passed through several people it bears little similarity to the original message.

Online Webinar Presenters

After posting the article on the upcoming 2013 webinars, I thought it would be interesting to note who the presenters were for the past several years and upcoming year combined, as posted on the websites of the top three organizations. For the three combined organizations, Illinois State Genealogical Society (ISGS), Legacy Family Tree (LFT), and Southern California Genealogy Society (SCGS), there were a total of eighty-two speakers. SCGS has forty-four speakers from 2012-2013, with most speaking one time. Legacy Family Tree has forty-one speakers from 2010-2013, with many speaking multiple times. ISGS has 22 speakers from 2012-2013, with all speaking one time.

Office Cleaning - BYU Class Materials

The last few days I have been going through the course materials for the classes I took from Brigham Young University seven to ten years ago. Some of the material was pretty dated at the time of the courses, so now it is even more outdated. The materials of most interest to me are the submissions and writings I created as part of the courses. In my office there was an entire shelf filled with fourteen notebooks, one for each of the genealogy related courses. Today I have only six notebooks left and eventually may decide to discard even more.

Reading is Addicting for Genealogists

This year I read some very interesting books. First I read, Albion's Seed, by David Hackett Fischer, published by Oxford University Press, 1989, 946 pages. Then I read  From Deference to Defiance, Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1629-1692 by Roger Thompson, published by the New England Historical Genealogical Society, Boston, 2012, 593 pages. These two books helped to expand my knowledge of how the United States came to be and I highly recommended them. The more I read the more I want to know and understand my own heritage. The first book I borrowed from the Genealogical Forum of Oregon and the second book I purchased from the New England Historical Genealogical Society.

Living Life Fully in Old Age as a Genealogist

Today it has been one year since I broke my arm. While it took only four months to heal, the impact of the fall has lasted much longer. It was a very long process, from extreme pain and unable to fend for myself, to the ability to once again use my arm freely. A challenging part of recovery was I had to type one-handed with my left hand, as I am right handed. Seven years earlier, in 2004, I injured the same arm in a car accident and went through rotator cuff surgery. The blessing with the surgery is that I had a morphine drip for the first few days, followed with some other major painkillers. As fate would have it I do not respond well to the stronger painkillers and can only tolerate them for a short time.

Interesting Blog Statistics

On June 25, 2011 I wrote a blog post entitled, "Genealogy Education - Enhance Your Research." That post has been the most viewed for some time and today it reached 500 views. That is more than double of any other post and more than the next two combined, which are, "Genealogists- How Our Brains Assimilate Information" with 231 views and "Genealogy Serendipity Moments - The Unvarnished Truth" with 205 views. The other two with more than a hundred views are, "Genealogists Shopping List" with 163 views and "Genealogy Serendipity Moments - The Rigg Family" with 153 views. These five out of 154 total written posts continue to be popular.

Updating and Comparing Your Family History Research

Back before computers made it so easy to have a database of my family history work, I relied upon a 15 Generation Pedigree Chart for researching away from home. This chart allowed me to have a quick reference of the work on my various family lines. Over the years I have gone through at least three of these, as I literally wore them out and taped them together. Today I usually just use the standard 6 Generation Pedigree Chart that I print from my database for the family line I am currently working on. Traveling with a flash drive makes that an easier task. One thing I like about the larger chart is I could see where my lines intersect and I color-coded each family group by country of origin. My ancestry is about 1/4 Norwegian, 1/8 German, 1/4 English, and 1/8 Danish.

Researching Massachusetts Records in the FamilySearch Catalog

This is an article that was published in the Bulletin, a quarterly of the Genealogical Forum of Oregon, in December of 2011. August is proving to be a busy month, so I am posting articles written for other venues.

For this article we are focusing on researching by location. As an example the review covers the Massachusetts state records, Middlesex county records and the records for the town of Holliston. One of the best resources for doing a place search for such records is the catalog at familysearch.org. You will usually first search by the town, then the county and finally by the state. A useful tool when doing such a search is to print or save to your computer the index of topics found for that locality, and then make notes as to what is available, noting ones you wish to pursue.

My Most Utilized Websites Found in Top 500 and Then Some

This week I received an email about the Top Seventeen Most-Visited Websites. The link took me to the following website.

Most Popular Sites 2012: Alexa Ranks The 500 Most-Visited Websites

http://www.alexa.com/topsites

From this information I created a list of the top twenty websites that I frequently visit or receive information from.

How a Genealogy Conference Happens

Last weekend the Genealogical Council of Oregon held their bi-annual conference in Eugene, Oregon. The two key coordinators for the conference were Connie Lenzen, Conference Chair and Beverly Rice, Program Coordinator. Connie made the arrangements with the facility and kept track of progress in all areas of conference preparations. The conference was held for the third time at Lane Community College, Center for Meeting and Learning. It is a lovely venue and they included a nice lunch as part of the package. They provided site maps and a layout map for the vendor area.