Today is the first day of this year’s Family History Expo in Atlanta. This is the third year that Family History Expo has come to Atlanta (technically Duluth) and I’m pleased to say that the crowd size looks very similar to last year, possibly even a little larger.
The keynote speaker was Robert S. Davis. I listened to two of his talks last year and loved them, so I was looking forward to hearing him again. His keynote talk did not disappoint. I learned a lot about Georgia and Georgia records – and I’m no novice in this area.
After the keynote, the bloggers sat around talking about DNA testing.
The first talk I attended was Jennifer Dondero talking about using Google Earth for research. I’ve heard Lisa Louise Cooke talk about Google Earth a couple of times, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. This was a very different kind of talk. Lisa Louise Cooke’s talk is more of a how-to-use Google Earth and how to use it for telling family stories. Jennifer Dondero’s talk is about using it for research purposes, specifically about mapping out land records. Jennifer focused in on Georgia records and showed us some examples using Georgia Historic County Maps. Very cool! I can definitely see myself using this. These maps came from the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries at the Newberry Library.
The second talk I attended was another Jennifer Dondero lecture called “Clueless” about using and analyzing the information you have to go further. This was a case-study talk and I LOVE those.
- Tip: There are published abstracts of deeds for the parent counties of Gordon County, [GA]. Start with what is easy. You may need to go to the courthouse or look at microfilm, but start with the book first.
- Tip: Know about the tax laws at the time.
- Here’s a link to some information about
Georgia tax records that are available.
After this my attention turned to my own talks: “Non-Genealogy Tools to Help Your Family History Research” and “Content Planning for Genealogy Bloggers.” I won’t recap those here, but I did promise the attendees some follow-up posts.
Dinner with some of the blogger crowd rounded out the day.
