My first class today was “Essential Skills for Transcribing and Abstracting.” This was an very good class. I learned a number of new skills and guidelines. (By the way, I’ll be posting more complete descriptions of each class I attended – unless the presenter requested no blogging – in the coming weeks).
My next class was “Planning ‘Reasonably Exhaustive’ Research” with Thomas Jones. He is a great speaker and this class was excellent. I have a much better grasp of what consititutes a reasonably exhaustive search.
My last morning class was “Carriers of News and Knowledge: Post Office Records.” I have a couple of ancestors who were rural letter carriers and I was hoping I would learn how to get information on their civil service. I’m not sure I got that, but I did learn more about the kinds of post office records that are available.
Next was lunch with Jennifer Trahan, Linda McCauley, and Tina Lyons at a restaurant in Market Square. Afterwards we visited the Exhibit Hall to drop off our door prize entry tickets.
For the afternoon, I made a change in planned sessions. Instead of attending “The Courthouse Burned: Alternate Approaches & Treasure,” I sat in on “Murder at the Sawmill.” Pamela Sayre is a very entertaining speaker and she went through a fascinating case study.
Next up was the class I had most looked forward to: “The Genealogical Proof Standard,” by Elizabeth Shown Mills. If you are serious about genealogy and have a chance to hear Ms. Mills speak, run, don’t walk. This class was amazing and has inspired me to really increase the quality of my own research by putting the principles espoused into practice.
The last class of the day was “The Timeline: Linking Historical Events to Our Family History.” I got a few good tips from this, but I really wish I had attended the County Land Records class that was in the same time slot. I think I would have learned more. I’m a little intimidated by land records.
After the day’s classes were over, the blogger’s row (did I mention several of us were in the same set of afternoon classes?) headed back down to the Exhibit Hall for the door prize giveaways. A lady at our table commented that it was like being at Bingo, waiting on the prize to be called and someone to shout out. On my way out, I made an impulse purchase at one of the exhibit booths: the new edition of Genealogical Proof Standard: Building a Solid Case by Christine Rose.
The final event of the day was the War of 1812 Bicentennial Celebration Reception. We had cupcakes and waited on the big door prize (a trip to Salt Lake City, including air fare, hotel, food, and copy cards for the Family History Library) to be given away, but, of course, none of us won.
Tomorrow is the last day of my genea-vacation, so I’m off to pack.