Thursday, May 5, 2016

OGS conference 2016 and ideas to pursue inspired by the event

I attended the Ohio Genealogical Society's 2016 Conference at the Great Wolf Lodge near Cincinnati April 28, 29, 30.  It was an excellent conference!  I came home with the usual problem:  so many things that I want to do and so little time after having been out of town much of last week.

However, I decided to write this post after chatting with Mark Stickle via an e-mail that he sent me today.  Mark and I sat together by chance at one of the classes.  I had enthusiastically encouraged him to blog as I have found blogging to be a huge addition to my life.  Mark wrote me today that he had already posted twice on his blog site since the conference.  The URL for Mark's blog is:

http://cliounbound.blogspot.com

Mark's post yesterday was about the conference itself.  I totally agreed with the coffee suggestion.  I found it hard to hold my eyes open during the classes just after lunch.  I dreamed of Starbucks, but did not find that I had quite enough time to get to my car and drive to the local Kroger and back in the amount of time allotted for the break.

The other thought that I had while reading Mark's blog was that I wished for some informal time with other researchers who had similar interests.  The Great Wolf Lodge is smack dab in the middle of the area in which the Quaker families moved in the first decade of the 1800s.  The Miami MM white brick building is the oldest continually used building in Ohio, and it is just down the road from the conference site.

I probably know as much about the migration patterns of those families who moved into the area as anyone.  By chance I had ancestors who lived in Randolph and Guilford Counties in NC.  I had ancestors who lived in Newberry County, SC.  I had ancestors at Wrightsboro, Ga.  And I had ancestors who lived for a short amount of time in both the area of Virginia that is now Grayson County and in the area of Lost Creek MM in Tennessee.  Some of these ancestors had moved to NC from Nantucket.  Some of these ancestors had moved from Philadelphia area to NC and then farther south.  Some had been associated with the Eno preparatory meeting associated with Cane Creek MM in Orange County, NC.  All of the families were either Quaker or associated with the Quaker families.  I would have liked to have had the opportunity to have had some sort of an informal gathering with other researchers who may have had interest in the area in which the conference was being held and chatted about if indeed our ancestors could have migrated together, known each other, attended church together, been a part of the "FAN" club in their neighborhood.  Perhaps there could have been a way for participants to have bought a box lunch and had several interest groups in place for one or more of the two hour lunch breaks?  Or a dinner event in which tables could be joined by area of interest being discussed during the meal:  DNA?, a particular area of Ohio?, in my case: Quaker or migration into the area in which the event was being held.  

Mark's blog post that he wrote today (May 5, 2016) is about Obituaries.  It has inspired me to think about a project that would be great fun and would let me try out some of the new skills that I learned at the conference.  I have never spent time looking at the obits of siblings, uncles, aunts, and other miscellaneous family of some of my ancestors.  I could use new skills learned in the class: Cool Tools for Online (and Offline) Newspaper Research given by Lisa Louis Cooke  and in the the class by the same speaker: Finally! A Methodology for Using Google for Genealogy.

If you want to be inspired to use obituaries as I have been, take a look at Mark's blog post:

http://cliounbound.blogspot.com/2016/05/obituaries-saving-best-till-last.html

Two more thoughts that I want to remember for future use:

1.  Mark had glowing words for Dr. Michael Lacopo and his classes.  I only attended one of his classes, but it was EXCELLENT!....One of those crazy serendipity events that sometimes happen did indeed happen in his class.  Dr. Lacopo mentioned that Barbara Vines Little had sat in on one of his classes (quite the compliment....) and had added to the information that he was presenting that the original Parish register of Goochland County 1756-1797 is found in the Small Library at UVA.  This would be the information found in the Douglas Register.  I will double check that I have this correct.  I think that this is what I understood.  This information is NOT found at LVA.  Since I am in the process of proving my connection to William Farrar and his wife, Cicely, this is very interesting information for me.  My Perrin Farrar and his wife, Sarah/Sally Lacy were married in this county in this time period.  There seem to be quite a few events that happened in this county in that time period for this family.  I would like to view the original documents.

2. I had to laugh at Mark's comment that I copied below!  I only wish that I had thought of using these very words for my own reason for not having attended the "getting organized" classes!

Many folks commented positively on what they had learned in sessions dealing with the perennial challenge of getting (or staying) organized.  I purposely avoided these sessions, knowing that my own case is hopeless: my organizational crisis is long past the point of no return.  


OK....I reread my post and woke up this morning thinking about a possibility to incorporate some of the ideas that I had posted above.  The first slot after lunch is the sleepy slot....need coffee....It is also the slot that one is still buying books and might want to skip....why not have a discussion group planned for some of the smaller rooms with a particular topic:  for me this year it would have been Quaker migration into Warren County, Ohio....but it could just as easily have been German ancestors to the area in which the conference is being held that particular year.  Or Italian...or catholic...or whatever one can find a moderator for who has an interest  area.....or DNA experiences....or beginning blogging.  Just a thought.  If everyone is talking and chatting, it is much less likely to be a sleepy experience.