A
Smorgasbord of Classes at BYU Genealogy Conference
by Sherlene Hall Bartholomew
I have the perfect solution for those of
you who are just back from a sweaty, sticky, sun-burny, scratchy,
noisy, stressful, costly, and calorific summer vacation:
While
planning next summer’s family or personal
activities, circle BYU’s annual Genealogy and Family History
Conference. This
year the conference took 500 of us, in air-conditioned non-jostled
comfort, through magnificent family history vistas, selected
from among 151 media-highlighted sessions. These time-tunneling, vision-expanding in-class
tours were made available early mornings through evenings,
July 29-August 1, all tailored to individualized levels of
experience. Classes by some of the best teachers around
were available to nurture beginners, as well as update seasoned
professionals.
I
just got back from this year’s confab,
my head spinning with all that was there to take in--none
of it fattening!
This
year Elder Spencer J. Condie warmed hearts, beginning the
conference with Tuesday’s devotional
address, in which he talked about LDS doctrine and some of
his experiences with family history.
At
other early morning forums during the week, Brother Kip
Sperry, co-director with Paul Smart of
this year’s conference, mentioned that the Church has announced
that a fully searchable 1880 U.S. Census index is now linked
with digital images of the original census documents.
As reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, “this service is the
result of an agreement between MyFamily.com Inc. . . . and
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which through
FamilySearch manages the largest repository of genealogical
records from around the world. The 1880 U.S. Census index and images, which
include more than 50 million names, can be accessed at both http://www.ancestry.com and http://www.familysearch.org .” The release quoted Glade I. Nelson, director
of the Church’s Family History Library in Salt Lake City: “Integrating the online index with the actual
images online allows users to search the census and go right
to an image of the original source online for viewing or
printing.”
Brother Sperry also shared exciting news
that full keyword searching is now available at Family History
Library Catalog on FamilySearch.org.
This
year’s local arrangements were handled
by Steve Trost from Conferences and Workshops. I want you to know what a feast dedicated
leaders prepare at gatherings like this:
First, the Appetizers:
I made a list of other “most exciting tips” to share from this
year’s Confab, but only have space to skim the surface. Here are some that caught my eye:
According
to Alan Mann, AG, a senior British reference consultant
at the Family History Library, adjunct
member of BYU’s faculty, and long-time Conference lecture
favorite, a sure way to find unknown relatives is to search
the RootsWeb Surname List at http://rsl.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/rslsql.cgi . There,
he asserts, you have a 99% chance of finding a living relative
working on one of your lines, especially if you take time
to enter the first sixteen surnames on your pedigree.
Did you know, he says, that Google, as a
search engine, now gets all of Yahoo, too? What find-time can be saved, just knowing
that!
Do you have ancestors in Orange County,
Indiana? Count yourself
lucky! That county
has everything on line—what an example for the others, and
what fun to visit, whether you have relatives from there
or not.
Curt
B. Witcher, MLS, FUGA, manager of the Historical Genealogy
Department of the Allen County Public
Library at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and a featured speaker at
this year’s conference, explains how the whole township is
important in a census search. “Don’t just stop,” he warns, “when you find
your ancestor. Keep
going to get the whole picture, including additional relatives
who may be in the same area.”
He explains that state archives are a sometimes
forgotten resource, as are state historical societies, whose
collections can be very important. And
did you know that state libraries have the largest collections
of state newspapers? As
he points out, they are often microfilmed, indexed, and available
on inter-library loan.
Mr. Witcher also has important tips for
how we, as researchers, can be both concise and precise in
our queries, either by letter or on-scene. He
explains that by demonstrating this respect for librarians
and their time, they can better aid our efforts, as well
as those of many others needing their attention.
Michael
T. Ritchey, a U.S. reference consultant, class instructor,
publications writer, and software specialist
at the Family History Library, recommends Census-Online.com
as a “must-try” resource. It
lists free websites, commercial websites, CDs, and books
for census indexes, records, and images. Resources
are arranged by state and county. If
you use only one census Website, use this, he says, because
it links to all the others. This, he details, is a great
portal that will get you to over 36,000 census links!
Try switchboard.com, he says, to find modern
directories. Did
you know that the best source for obituaries in the U.S.
is the local public library where your ancestor lived and
died? A good directory
can tell you where to write to find these libraries, with
their important records.
Brother Ritchey explains that with Internet
Explorer, Version 6, you can access all the Ellis Island
sites and can print off the images for free, where they might
otherwise cost you $25 each.
An important CD for active researchers is
the Passenger and Immigration Lists Index CD made available
at Genealogy.com. This
CD, he explains, makes it possible to overcome variant spellings
to search what is the largest index of published passenger
lists (otherwise, you might search several shelves of published
compilations). This
CD is especially important, he says, for searching passengers
whose ports of entry are not indexed (like New York City
from the mid-1840s to the mid-1990s). It also has hard-to-find colonial manifests—a
great source of information!
As Brother Ritchie points out, the IGI,
with over 600 million names, is an important source of documented
information, since one-half of its names are extracted, with
sources given. The
other half invites our own documentation, because those names
are submitted by persons with varying levels of research
expertise.
For
another view of some of the most valuable genealogy research
links, take a good look at Barbara Renick’s
site at www.zroots.com/links.htm where
she lists her favorite links, all click-ready! Sister Renick teaches at her Regional Family History Center and
provides energized, informative lectures at other important
conferences, as well.
That’s
just a taste of what can be learned at conferences such
as this.
Select from these Entrées:
Half
the fun is planning your attendance at a genealogy conference,
choosing which to take from among
such offerings this year as “Care and Feeding of Your Personal
Computer” (Alan Mann); “My Ancestor Came From England—Where
Do I Begin?” (Judy Jones); “Rookie’s Guide to Top U.S. Websites
and CDs” (Michael T. Ritchey); “U. S. Census on the Internet” (Barbara
Renick); “Mining the Motherlode: Using Periodical Literature for Genealogical
Research” (Curt B. Witcher); “They came for Land: Land Records and Ownership” (George Ryskamp); “Using Personal Ancestral
File (for Windows) with TempleReady” (Steve Cannon); “Finding
and Using Maps in Your Research” (Karen Clifford); “Composing
Family History thru Oral Interviews” (Don Norton); “Banks’ Bits
and Byts of Photo Editing” (Cindy Lee Banks, Stephen Banks); “Pixel
Perfect” (LaRene Gaunt), and Kory L. Meyerink’s well-appreciated
presentation, “Genealogical Fallacies: Poor Methods that Lead to False Conclusions.”
Other
possible choices involve specialty flings in individual
countries, as detailed by professionals
in Scandinavian, Swiss, German, Italian, Scottish, English,
Welsh, Canadian, and Native American research—not to mention
local fests celebrating research how-tos for every U.S. region
and specific states.
Other take-offs are devoted to computer
skills, learning how to use the latest PAF program, comparisons
of genealogy computer programs, skills for better documentation
of our research, and instruction for family history center
directors.
Virtual tour alternatives guide us in researching
specific types of records such as military, census, probate,
immigration, urban, and directories
Do you want to publish your family history? There
are courses each year at these conferences for that. Are
you intent on writing better family stories? More
is offered, also there. Aim
to sharpen your research techniques and learn more about
major repositories? You’ve
got it. Tend to “file by pile”? Learn how to organize your papers or, better
yet, place them in computer files. It’s
all there, along with ever so much more.
Dessert: Getting the Goods
And what is a vacation without shopping? The
main hall and separate rooms at the Harman Conference Center
are set aside for vendors, so that conference attendees can
view demonstrations, ask questions of sellers, and purchase
the latest. I’m afraid
I went a little wild, buying maps and other research aids.
For
example, at an Ancestry.com table I found a CD with 435,000
indexed, instantly searchable records
of English Parish Records for Lincolnshire, Leicestershire,
and Rutland—and that was just one of stacks available at
special Conference discounts! For someone like me, who has scrolled through
films of those B. C. (before civil registration) records,
that was $25 easily spent.
Another conference benefit is the chance
to hobnob with other researchers from all over the world. What a potpourri of backgrounds, accents,
interests, and ideas they bring to the table—often over lunch
at the nearby Morris Center. I
have met and made friends there from such far-away places
as Switzerland and New York, as well as shared conference
highlights with neighbors from my own home ward.
Not
unnoticed by conference attendees is BYU’s proximity to such resources as its own campus Harold
B. Lee Library and Salt Lake’s Family History Library, valuable
draws for those who can extend their stay.
A Teen-Feed, too?
What I would like to see at these conferences
is more of our youth. Each
summer our ward sponsors youth trips and camps involving
the great outdoors. Why
not sponsor summer camps for teens that will exercise their
minds and souls in a different way, as they learn how to
search for their ancestors? (Such
mind-excursions can of course be followed by a good hike
up the canyon.)
I propose an extra BYU genealogy conference,
specifically geared for young people, who we know are much
more agile when it comes to managing computers and absorbing
information. Sans that opportunity, parents should not
hesitate to employ their adolescent children at adult confabs
already in place. No
doubt they will catch on faster than you, their parents,
and gain skills that will give them a lifetime of meaningful
pursuit and pleasure.
Delicious After-Tastes
Another side benefit of attending such conferences
comes in sharing what we learn there. My parents live near the Harman Conference
Center, in Provo, Utah, so it was convenient to visit them
between conference sessions. I
might never have taken such joy in “The Search” after my
ancestors, were it not for my mother, who sneaked in chances
to do family history, like some people pop bonbons. I will be forever grateful to her for communicating
her insatiable historical interest and personal delight in
finding new ancestors. Dad,
too, was a model of support to family history efforts by
Mom through the years.
|
H.
Tracy and Ida-Rose L. Hall, the author’s
most influential genealogy and family history mentors |
When I dropped by to share my excitement,
Mom and Dad caught some of that and were soon sharing personal
life sketches and mementos. I
had to miss a couple of the next classes, but I did not pass
that chance by, as I photocopied for myself 400-plus pages
of their history, before returning their precious originals.
Another time I stopped in, I found my mother
(who has undergone serious but successful cancer surgery
and therapy this year) gleefully reading to my dim-eyed (but
not short-sighted) father. She
was sharing one of the biographical sketches I photocopied
and that she had written for a stimulating BYU personal history
writing course taught by Don Norton, another presenter at
this Conference.
Now fortified in my resolve to enjoy family
history as it happens, I took time to bask in a treasured
moment, as my mother read to us with all the personality
and spirit she used to employ, reading stories to her seven
children, while we were growing up. I sat there wishing I had a video of this
experience with Mom reading (of course there are conference
sessions giving tips for projects such as that, too).
No Fasting these Sundays!
One
other resource I must tell you about is the Utah Valley
Regional Family History Center at BYU’s
Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL). Many
of you have family in Utah and come here summers, on vacation,
or to attend conferences such as are held at BYU. While
here, don’t forget these informative Sunday classes, held
every 2nd and 4th week, except on holidays.
Grandparents can get a break from all the noise (or parents
can leave children with grandparents, on similar motivation)
to do research at the HBLL (before or after Sabbath meetings),
from 10 am to 6 pm Sundays, or take outstanding courses there
on topics posted on their three-month calendar:
http://uvrfhc.lib.byu.edu/
Making Reservations
I
hope you have decided by now to sign up for one of next
year’s family history conferences (a separate
May conference devoted specifically to computers and genealogy
is also sponsored by BYU). For
information contact BYU’s Division of Continuing Education,
Department of Conferences and Workshops, on the web at http://cc.byu.edu/cw/cwgeneal/ . They
can also be reached at (801) 378-4853 and are housed at the
Harman Building, BYU, Provo, Utah 84602.
Carry-Out
If
your schedule cannot accommodate one of these family history
retreats, ask if you can order ahead
to get a copy of next year’s compiled presenters’ syllabus. That resource alone may be worth the modest
tuition ($169 this year) for attending a four-day feast,
immersed in Elijah’s vacation elation.
###
Submitted to Meridian Magazine, August 5,
2003, by Sherlene Hall Bartholomew, copyright 2003.
