The day began at breakfast where I met presenters / bloggers Angela Walton-Raji, Drusilla Pair, and Thomas MacEntee.
After breakfast, we proceeded on to the Gwinnett Center and picked up our packets. There were five class sessions, today. Mom and I attended four of the five class sessions. During the morning sessions, we both attended Breaking Down Brick Walls with Location Based Genealogy presented by Bernie Gracy of AncestralHunt.com. The presentation was standing room only and additional chairs were brought in. The presentation included important points to consider when doing location research such as Physical Geography, Human Geography, and Transportation Technology. Separately, we attended Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations for Family Historians by Jean Cooper and Over One Century of Treasure in Historic Plantation Records by Dr. Lisa Bratton.
During the final morning session and over lunch, I spent time at the geneabloggers table, where I met more of my fellow bloggers, Amy Coffin, Tonia Kendrick, Valerie Craft, and Linda McCauley. Due to technical difficulties (I wasn't able to log on to the Internet), I was unable to blog during this time.
During the afternoon sessions, my mother attended Beginning African American Research by Melvin J. Collier, author of Mississippi to Africa, where she learned many techniques to begin doing genealogy. What was really exciting was because of my research mom already knew a lot of the information. Even so, I think this class was by far her favorite session. She's still excitedly talking about the class. While mom was attending Melvin's class, I attended Freedman's Bank Records and Southern Claims Commission Records for African American Research by David Dilts of the FamilySearch Family History Library Staff.
Finally, we both attended Angela Walton Raji's session, Discovering an African American Community's History Through Civil War Research where we learned about how civil war records can reveal the stories to go with the names we are researching.
I think maybe I saw you during breakfast. Did you eat at the Holiday Inn? I was only a couple of tables from you. :)
ReplyDeleteJennifer
www.climbingmyfamilytree.com
Thank you for sharing! I've not yet been able to attend an expo, but it sounds wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThe last seminar you mentioned about researching Civil War records sounds very interesting. I have done some research, myself, on the FPOC in the Civil War, stationed at Fort Macon, NC.
Also, I've researched some Rev. War records...you can find a summary in my series: Research Barrier Breakthroughs: The Case of Too Many Isaacs.
http://www.ibawcross-culturalgenealogy.blogspot.com