Jamboree: Day One

Today was my Day One at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree!  I'm commuting from home daily...it's only about an hour away except for rush hour coming home today which made it 90 minutes which is still better than the 2 hours traffic could make it.  I'm an SCGS member and one of many conference volunteers.

The Friday morning sessions are free to the public and were well attended.  I was a room monitor and saw both sessions with John Phillip Colletta on NARA.  I have used his They Came In Ships for years, but I restrained myself and did not ask him to autograph it.  I settled for getting to bring him 2 cups of water.  He's very articulate, charming, humorous, and presented oodles of solid content.  His syllabus was especially good.  I learned: There's a 3-volume set of books, Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States from 1995.  Colletta said it deals with each record group and the 3rd volume is an index.  Still being a book-in-my-hands person, I'd like to see this set!

After lunch, I saw and room-monitored:
Organization and Presentation is Everything by Philipp Mayer  --  A career engineer's system for record organization.  Key quote: "You put everything into your database, but what are you getting out of it???" Note to self: I'm not doing enough with spreadsheets to organize my research.

ArchiveFinder and ArchiveGrid by D. Joshua Taylor  --  Well presented.  The relatively new relationship between  WorldCat and ArchiveGrid sounds potentially super for genealogists.  Some of my ancestors were in one of his example slides!  Note to self: Go to ArchiveGrid and search my Connecticut names, especially in the Connecticut Historical Society holdings. I should probably also seriously check out the society's own webpage.

DNA Panel  --  I'm so glad it wasn't beginning beginner's content.  I'm all motivated to get back to analyzing the DNA tests I had done a few years ago.  Note to self: Whoa! This one is potentially a genealogy emergency... I need to get beneficiaries designated on all 4 tests I paid for my cousins to take! Well, actually, I need to get them to specify beneficiaries...even though I paid and I deal with the online stuff, it's still their DNA and rights.

All in all, a great start to the conference!  And, if you've been reading many other blogs in the last few weeks, you know that you can see many of these sessions online yourself!  Enjoy!