The first seminar I attended was Katherine Hope Borges seminar “Exploring Your Surname“. Katherine covered the origin of surnames and connected that to DNA results. She is currently administering a One Name Study for Malcolm and affiliated families. I was delighted to hear this because I am a Malcolm descendant. I was actually planning on attending another seminar but wound up in the wrong room: the Jamboree schedule is laid out like a chart with the room numbers across the top and the times for the seminars running down the left side. On Friday during lunch I highlighted the seminars I was interested in attending.
The second and third seminars I attended were given by Lisa Louise Cooke who has a podcast on the internet called “Genealogy Gems” . Lisa spoke on “What You Must Know to Save Your Research From Destruction” and “Google Earth for Genealogists”. Lisa was very interactive with the audience and she had several useful tidbits for us. She validated what I learned previously: if you use a grant deed (like UC Riverside) to donate your research to an archives they become the owners of it and can charge people to access it. The archives can also dispose of it at will if specified in the grant deed. So, be careful to read the fine print. Lisa showed us how to draw up a Genealogy Materials Directive.
She has also created a tutorial DVD on using Google Earth for Genealogy.
I took another class from Lisa on Sunday which was “Tap Into Your Inner Private Eye: 7 Strategies You Need to Find Living Relatives”. Lisa mentioned that she had ancestors in Racine, Wisconsin where I spent most of my childhood. Afterwards I gave her my card and asked her to email me her Racine relatives and I would keep an eye out for them while I do my research. Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak spoke about Michelle Obama’s roots during our Saturday night banquet and Meagan spoke again on Sunday about her work with “Unclaimed Persons“. On Saturday Jean Wilcox Hibben gave a talk on “Shaking the Myth: Proving/Disproving Family Legends” . Jean addressed some components of analysis I remember from logic class and applied them to genealogy. She interwove the two. I also attended Arlene Eakle’s class on American Court Records for a refresher on courthouse research.
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