Day three started out early when I found out Luana Darby was not coming, so I checked the syllabus and found a couple of other choices for the Thursday break out sessions. First we had Angela Packer McGhie on Creating an Effective Research Plan. Don’t know how many times I have heard you must create a Research Plan, and yet like most people I jumped around from ancestor to ancestor for years, and never really found any information on my brick walls. I finally settled down and picked a couple of ancestors to research.
Photo deleted at request of NWGC
I picked Cyndi Ingle’s class on Advanced Googling for Your Grandma, but I knew both my grandparents, so I substituted great grandma. Cyndi gave a lot of examples and she is an excellent speaker.
The next two sessions were by Angela Packer McGhie, first Mining for Family History in Federal Land Records and I have used land records in my research, but quite a while ago so this class was a great refresher and she added several new items to search I had not used before. Lunch was a turkey sandwich, chips, an apple and a cookie. Judy Russell sat at our table, so that was fun. The second session after lunch (nap time) was on newspapers: Read All About Your Ancestors by Locating Historic Newspapers. I spend a lot of time researching in our local newspapers for others so I know the value of what can be found in a newspaper. One of her sources was by a local genealogical friend Mariam Robbins who has made a website of Historic newspapers that are online and where you can find them. Note she has dropped her married name after her divorce. The next breakout session was with Cyndi Ingle again on Plotting, Scheming and Mapping Online. Great class, as I have never done any online mapping, usually just look for old maps and print them to do my plotting. Last session of the day was Angela Parker McGhie again on Exploring the Family Search Wiki. I have contributed to the Wiki for my local area and years ago helped Family Search with their printed Washington State Resource Guide which is part of the information used in the Wiki. Angela pointed out a lot that I did not know, so great class.
Photo deleted at request of NWGC
Friday started out with announcements and more door prizes. Twice I came within one number of winning a door prize.
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Friday was DNA day and CeCe Moore was the first speaker and her session was The Power of DNA: Genetic Genealogy Basics. Excellent session, learned a lot. I did know DNA was great at finding connections to your paternal line and also the maternal line, but before DNA even became available I had my paternal line back to the 1600s, and my maternal line back to the 1800s, so until autosomal DNA became available, I did not see how it could help me a lot.
Photo deleted at request of NWGC
The next breakout session was a very hard decision, none of the possibilities interested me at all, so I used my fall back method on how to pick the session, which speaker do I want to hear? And I picked Cyndi Ingle again and her session on Foreign Language Tools for the English Speaking Genealogists. I had learned to read the Danish handwriting on my Danish ancestors records years ago and liked to lurk on the Danish language board on Prodigy years ago, but since then I have probably lost most of what I had learned when I was actively researching Danish Records. Also learned years ago that the Danish script I learned to read is almost identical to the German Script so many genealogists have trouble reading. The next morning session was CeCe Moore again on Who Am I? Ethnicity Estimates, where she explained why the estimates from the three DNA testing services do not always match each other or the paper research. Had a turkey sandwich again for lunch, apple, chips and a cookie. After lunch CeCe Moore’s session was on Autosomal DNA and Chromosome Mapping: Discovering your Ancestors in You. This was a bad time to concentrate on a very hard to grasp concepts.
My breakout session was with Michele Goodrum and (I did not get her photo) it was on the Introduction to Genetic Genealogy and DNA for the Non-Scientist, which helped to explain what CeCe had been talking about earlier.
CeCe Moore’s last session was DNA Stories from Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr., she showed examples from several of the people that had been on Finding your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. including Henry Louis Gates, Jr. They were then going to close the building for a half an hour to get ready for the Banquet at 6 p.m., but since it started raining early Friday and rained nearly the whole day they decided we did not need a shower before the banquet and left the reception area open till they finished the preparations for the banquet. Judy Russell was the speaker and her topic was Alphabet Soup: DNA, GPS and You. a very entertaining and informative talk.
Photo deleted at request of NWGC
Thunder and lightning that night so hard to get to sleep.