This last month has been an absolute whirlwind. I don’t know exactly where to start. I have done so many wonderful genealogy related things.

Dear Mother, Love Daddy

I have sent out several copies of the book for review in the last month. I will keep everyone posted when the reviews are published. Additionally, I gave away quite a few copies at Jamboree in Burbank. Hopefully, word of mouth will help increase the book’s readership. The Los Angeles County Library now has a copy of the book. I am not sure if it will be part of their circulating collection however. If not, it will be housed in their genealogy department. The copy that I donated to the Sacramento Public Library system is now being processed. It appears in the online catalog, but it is not yet available for check-out. Pardon me for being a little bit of a book geek, but my book has a call number! 949.7022

Dear Mother, Love Daddy is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble online. If you live in the Sacramento area, Trent’s Bookshelf in Elk Grove also has copies available for sale.

Professional Learning = Jamboree

The biggest, best and most amazing part of the last month was Jamboree. In case you don’t know what it is, Jamboree is a genealogy conference put on every year by the Southern California Genealogical Society in Burbank. This is a national level conference. Genealogists and speakers from around the country attend Jamboree. I was extremely impressed by the caliber of speakers, the organization of the event, and the dedication of all the volunteers who made the conference a pleasure to attend.

The exhibit hall was filled with booths sponsored by Ancestry, Roots Magic, ISOGG, you name it! One of my favorite booths was NEHGS. They had a vast supply of many of their current publications. I was very good and didn’t buy anything. Everyone was very friendly and willing to share information.

I stayed for the whole conference including the added DNA day. I attended two workshops: Judy G. Russell‘s Order in the Court and Dr. Thomas W. Jones‘ Documenting a Respectable Family History. As well as the two workshops, I attended twelve one-hour lectures over the course of three days. My head was spinning from all the great new resources I have to explore (now that I am home). I have done very little research on my ancestors on the other side of the pond so I was very interested to listen to Michael Brophy‘s sessions on Irish genealogy and Michael D. Lacopo‘s sessions on German genealogy. On the DNA day, I was wowed by CeCe Moore‘s sessions on using DNA to help adoptees. It was also a pleasure to finally see Blaine Bettinger speak in person. I loved his session on using pop culture to teach DNA. Think Game of Thrones with the Baratheons and Lannisters.

In addition to all the knowledge I obtained, I was able to finally meet some of my colleagues and fellow bloggers in person. What a thrill! I attended a meet-up with fellow ProGen alumni as well as connected with Geneabloggers and the NextGen genealogy network. Some of the amazing people I was able to meet and hang out with were:

Blaine T. Bettinger, PhD, JD, fellow ProGen 21 group alumnus
Melanie Frick, a fellow BU certificate holder and NextGen genealogy founder
Thomas MacEntee, leader of Geneabloggers and all-around genealogy go-to guy
Jacqi Stevens
Jill Morelli
Linda Harms Okazaki
Sheri Fenley
Elizabeth O’Neal
Kim Cotton
Laurie Desmarais

Several of the above blogged about their time at Jamboree so if you want a different perspective, check out their blogs!

If you missed Jamboree, many of the sessions were recorded and are available for free until July. Other sessions are available for a fee.

Local News

The San Joaquin Genealogy Society will be featuring a half day seminar with genealogist Gena Philibert Ortega on July 14th at the Stockton public library. The seminar is free but registration is required through eventbrite.

Discovering Your Past

The biggest news of the month is that I am now the “expert” genealogist for a new show called Discovering Your Past. My friend Dan Young is the host, and the show is produced by Access Nashua. We had our first recording session this morning via Skype. A couple weeks ago I sent Dan out on a genealogy mission. While doing research for my family narrative about Nathaniel Hobart of Holbrook, Massachusetts, I realized that one of his grandchildren had moved to Nashua, New Hampshire. And that’s when Dan entered the picture! He was able to do some on-the-ground research for me. We have been talking about the show for several months now and it is finally becoming a reality. The first episode (which should premiere this weekend on YouTube) features an interview with me about the book Dear Mother, Love Daddy as well as Dan’s adventures answering my genealogy question. I will post an update this weekend when the link goes live.

Miscellanous

The New England Historical and Genealogical Society has a feature in their weekly newsletter titled Ask a Genealogist. A perk of being a member is being able to ask the staff questions. And yes, even professional genealogists have questions! NEHGS won’t do specific research (you can hire them for that!) for you but if you are looking to find information, they can steer you in the right direction. I recently submitted a question about finding information on 19th century sailing vessels. My ancestor Capt. Finney Leach was a ship’s captain stationed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. I wanted to know where to find information on his vessels and his naval service during the War of 1812. My question was chosen for their weekly newsletter (although I remain anonymous). You can read Rhonda McClure’s answer here.

Before I left for Jamboree, I received my ProGen certificate in the mail. You can find me on the alumni page under ProGen21.

©2015 written by Deborah Sweeney
Post originally found: https://genealogylady.net/2015/06/17/monthly-update-june-17-2005/ ‎