Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Beginning

Hello. This blog will be for my adventures with searching for my Elzy ancestors. I began searching about 1995, looking for my grandmother's brother. To make a long story short (and I will elaborate later in another blog), we found her brother, still alive, still looking for her. Grandma had passed, but William came to find out his sister never stopped loving him or looking for him. And, as a result, we found nieces and nephews my grandmother did not know she has. We have made close bonds with the Roderick's and have reunions every year. This year's reunion is this weekend. Oh what fun awaits!

Anyway, back to genealogy (thus the name Elzyology - genealogy on the Elzy family.) Last week I attended my first genealogy conference - National Genealogical Society, in Charleston, SC. I made a new friend, learned some things I did not know, and reinforced some I did.

Here are a couple things that I gleaned from the conference. First, check your bookcase before you go. There were so many vendors at the conference, and I wanted it all! I am glad I used some blinders because several items I wanted, I already had.

Second, bring lots of paper. I attended an average of 4 classes per day. Several were very informative. Even though you may know a lot about a topic, for example census records, you will learn a lot of new things. There had to be three to four sessions just on census records. One good class was using census records, city directories, and obituaries together. Another good class was "I see what it says, but what does it mean?" relating to land records and wills. This class was so good, that I am ordering the CD. I found that some things I thought I understood in wills are not that. So, I need to go back to all my transcriptions of wills and reread them.

Third, just because you are a professional, this does not make you a good speaker. I had at least two classes where the presenters read every bit of their notes. It is rude to get up and walk out, but I wanted to. One class in particular had the presenter reading her notes and not providing us details but rather examples.

I could go on and on, but I want to apply some of what I learned. Time to get my research out and see where I need more work.

Until next time

Tammy

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