Next week, I’ll be attending the annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies in Knoxville, Tennessee. This will be my first genealogy conference and I’m very excited! At first, I hadn’t considered attending this conference, because I thought it was only for genealogical societies. As it turns out, the first day is focused on societies, and the remainder of the conference is all about genealogy. Since Knoxville is driving distance for me, it just seemed dumb not to take advantage of this opportunity.
There are so many great speakers and the program choices are amazing; I’ve had a really hard time narrowing down the sessions I want to attend. In addition to the FGS sessions, Ancestry.com will be there on Saturday offering free classes; I’m planning to attend a couple of the Ancestry classes.
This is the plan:
Thursday
| Time | Session Title | Presenter |
| 8:00-9:00 | Keynote Session | J. Mark Lowe, Kent Whitworth |
| 11:00-12:00 | “Wanted Dead or Alive!” Looking for Southern Vital Records | Russell P. Baker |
| 2:00-3:00 | Advanced Web Methods & Sources | Karen Clifford |
| 3:30-4:30 | Federal Prison Records: Atlanta, Leavenworth, Alcatraz, and McNeil | Maureen Hill |
| 5:00-6:00 | Grandma, Who are You? | Cath Madden Trindle |
Friday
| 8:00-9:00 | Essential Skills for Transcribing and Abstracting | Linda Woodward Geiger |
| 9:30-10:30 | Planning “Reasonably Exhuastive” Research | Thomas W. Jones |
| 11:00-12:00 | Carriers of News and Knowledge: Post Office Records | Julie Miller |
| 2:00-3:00 | The Courthouse Burned: Alternate Approaches and Treasures | Wendy Bebout Elliott |
| 3:30-4:30 | The Genealogical Proof Standard: Building a Case When No Record Exists | Elizabeth Shown Mills |
| 5:00-6:00 | The Timeline: Linking Historical Events to Our Family History | Patricia Walls Stamm |
Saturday
| 9:30-10:30 | Getting the Most Out of Your Ancestry.com Subscription | Ancestry.com |
| 11:00-12:00 | The Anatomy of a Will, and the Records It Spawns | Christine Rose |
| 2:00-3:00 | Using Georgia’s Land Lotteries to Prove Family Relationships | Susan Sloan |
| 3:30-4:30 | Best Strategies for Searching Ancestry.com | Ancestry.com |
| 5:00-6:00 | The Lost State of Franklin: Ancestors Lost and Found on the First Frontier 1785-1788 | J. Stephen Cotham |
Details on all program sessions can be found at: http://www.fgs.org/2010conference/program.
I’m also looking forward to meeting many of my geneablogger friends who will be in attendance. See you there!
