I got up at 6:00 this morning to shower and get ready to attend the National Genealogical Society's conference here in Ft. Lauderdale. Mike and I left Fletcher's house about 7:00 and drove down to the Conference Center. Mike dropped me off at the front entrance and he will pick me up there this afternoon.
Our morning started off at 8:00 with everyone attending the opening session titled "Ordinary" People, Extraordinary Lives given by Connie Lester, Ph.D. She talked about the men and women who first settled in Florida and what hardships they endured as pioneers. This ended at 10:30 and then we were all off to locate the room where our next seminar was to be held.
I picked "Bounty Land: State and Federal" as my 11:00 seminar. Debra Mieszala, CG was the speaker and she talked about how to find Federal and state bounty land records. She explained why and when the bounty lands were awarded and which states had state bounty land records. I have done some research on bounty land records and have found some
records for my ancestors. I still found the seminar very useful and the list of online sources added some websites that I didn't know about.
The seminar ended at 12:00 and my next seminar wasn't until 2:30. I went downstairs to find something to eat for lunch. After checking out the different food vendors, I settled on a Turkey Wrap ($8) and a bottle of water ($3) and went into the Exhibit Hall and sat at a table with some other attendees. We mostly talked about where we were from and if this was our first convention and what seminars we were looking forward to attending. Our friends Mary and Carol from Vero are at the conference and I did get to visit with them briefly during the lunch break.
After I ate my turkey wrap, I reviewed my afternoon seminars and then walked around and looked at the various vendor booths. Since I still had time left before my next seminar, I stopped at Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems' booth and listened to her 30 minute seminar at 1:45 on Advanced Evernote. Evernote is a program I use frequently in my genealogy research and I know I don't utilize it as much as I should. So I always pick up pointers from Lisa no matter what subject she's talking about. Her talk ended at 2:15 which gave me 15 minutes to get to my next seminar.
My 2:30 seminar was called "A New Document? Now What?" given by J. Mark Lowe, CG, FUGA. This seminar was basically about having a research plan and when a new document is discovered, you should analyze it in relation to your previous information about the ancestor. He discussed the value of a research plan, evaluating all information, sourcing where you got your information and determining whether or not the new document requires more research.
My final seminar today was at 4:00 and was "State-Land State Deed Records 101: Understanding, Mapping, and Finding Relationships" presented by Rebecca Whitman Koford, CG. Rebecca discussed which states had state land deeds, the legal terms used in land deed records, the land measurements in deeds, and the importance of transcribing or abstracting the information in the deed and citing your source for the deeds. She included in her handout a list of State-Land State Online Listings and where to find deed records. I've done quite a bit of deed research for my ancestors, but this seminar gave me some new information on states that I hadn't researched yet.
Mike was waiting for me in the front of the convention center when I came out a little after 5:00 and we went back to Fletcher's house. Fletcher was home from work and he ordered a couple of pizzas for dinner - sounded good to us. It's been a long day - a lot of information and a LOT of walking. I've gone over the syllabus for tomorrow's seminars and have my printouts ready.
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