Wednesday, May 9, 2012

NGS 2012 Day 1

   The National Genealogical Society's 2012 annual convention kicked off today at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
    As you can see from the photo at right, there are a lot of vendors and societies represented in the exhibit hall. It had been jammed a few minutes before this but everyone was heading out to get to the first lecture of the day.
   My first session speaker was Dr. Thomas Jones on "Strategies for Finding 'Unfindable' Ancestors." He discussed several reasons why ancestors may be "unfindable" and methodologies for locating the unfindable.
   In the afternoon I heard Suzanne Russo Adams outline some online search strategies and techniques.
    
   My day concluded with Barbara Vines Little discussing proof statements -- list-style proof summaries, narrative-style proof summaries and proof arguments.
   As I mentioned in my previous blog, I planned to carry my netbook and take notes within a text version of each speaker's syllabus. What I found was I took very few notes, certainly not enough to warrant dragging the netbook around. 
   So, tomorrow, I'll try paper and pencil. I'll carry a clipboard, printouts of each speaker's syllabus and a pen. I'll let you know how that works.
   
   On the schedule for tomorrow, tentatively:
  • Diane VanSkiver Gagel: "Gateway to the West: Researching in Ohio"
  • Elizabeth Shown Mills: "How to Find People Who Don't Seem to Be There"
  • Patricia Walls Stamm: "Obtaining 20th Century Military Records from the St. Louis Personnel Records Center
  • Jana Sloan Broglin: "Ohio's Common Pleas Court"
   If I have enough energy after that, the Cincinnati Public Library will be open in the evening for NGS conference attendees.

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