Blog

Jeffrey Vaillant concludes his reports from Raleigh with this one from Saturday, May 16, 2009:

The day began with another brisk walk to the Convention Center, passing by the State Capital monuments “To Our Confederate Dead” and “To Our Confederate Women”. My abolitionist-unionist brain struggles with the reminders of the Civil War, or as is called here, “The War of Northern Aggression.”

This day’s learning started with Locating and Interpreting Naturalization Records presented by Gladys Friedman Paulin. Two more morning sessions followed: Order in the Court: Ancestral Trials and Tribulation by Sharon Tate Moody and Okay, I “Got the Neighbors”…Now What do I do with Them!!! by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

I skipped lunch and walked back to the hotel to type up my experiences since I had fallen behind. When I left for the afternoon program I was greeted with a rain downpour and some Southern hospitality in the form of a helpful stranger with an umbrella. Speaking of weather, it has been warm and humid – afterall, this is the South.

The final two lectures were Our National Treasure: The Library of Congress by Pamela Boyer Sayre and What Is a Reasonably Exhaustive Search? by Laura Murphy DeGrazia. Wow, what a lot of learning!

Back to the room to conclude the notes and to start digging in to all the great ideas gathered over the last four days. The NGS will be in Salt Lake City next year starting in late April. It is a great learning experience well worth the time and expense. Thanks for reading and see you at the next CGS meeting – I’ll be the guy with the dark circles under his eyes.

Read the entire series:
Day One: NGS 2009 Report
Day Two: NGS 2009 Report
Day Three: NGS 2009 Report
Day Four: NGS 2009 Report

CGS member Jeffrey Vaillant continues his reports with this one from day three, Friday, May 15, 2009:

After a very full Thursday, Friday dawned bright and early, but I confess, I missed the dawn and the 8 a.m. session. I hustled to the Convention Center to gather in Thomas W. Jones’ presentation Problem Solving with Probate, followed by Barbara Vines Little’s session Tax Records: A Wealth of Information.

The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) lunch speaker was Dick Eastman who spoke about The Organized Genealogist which he admitted he was not. He did give hints about using Google, RSS, digitizing and backing up as tools of efficiency and perhaps to have time to be more organized.

After lunch, Patricia O’Brien Shawker presented Getting the Most Out of Vital Records then Alison Hare from Canada gave an excellent account, John Green: Whose Father Was He?

I spent some time on the tradeshow floor learning what was new with familysearch.org and ancestry.com and scored on the familyseach pilot site when I found the record of my grandfather’s third marriage in 1907. Now I have to figure out what happened to that one since he married my grandmother in 1909. For every fact there seems to be three questions.

The NGS Banquet featured J. Mark Lowe and Lesson Learned from a Carolina Traveler. It turned out to be a roast of Helen Leary, CG, FASG, FNGS, who was pleasantly surprised. Her two sons were present to enjoy the event.

Tomorrow, Saturday, will be another big day.

Read the entire series:
Day One: NGS 2009 Report
Day Two: NGS 2009 Report
Day Three: NGS 2009 Report
Day Four: NGS 2009 Report