Day Four: NGS 2012 Family History Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio

President Jeff sent his last conference report. Thanks so much!

National Genealogical Society Annual Conference Day Four
12 May 2012 Cincinnati, OH

A Saturday which means a change in the shuttle service between Covington, KY and Cincinnati, OH or a minor chance to miss the first 8:00 a.m. class! Yep! It means the opportunity to walk from Kentucky to Ohio, which is what I did to catch the 9:30 a.m. class by Harold Henderson Indirect Evidence: What To Do When Perry Mason Isn’t on Your Side. Harold suggested that we might be better off using Sherlock Holmes as our model since this fictional character could take small bits of information to solve cases. 

Then from this crowded room it was on to another packed room for Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA, FNGS presentation Information Overload? Effective Project Planning, Research, Data Management and Analysis which included links to her papers at the BCG website. Work samples posted for all to read are at: http://www.bcgcertification.org/skillbuilders/worksamples.html 

The FamilySearch luncheon proved to be the weakest of any attended. It seemed like a long commercial rather than the topic Discover Your Ohio Ancestors Online, so I got up and left about halfway through, as did some others. 

I went for a last visit to the trade show floor and will bring back some goodies for use in the CGS Library. One of the groups with a booth was the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War whose local Camp footed the bill. I observed they were busy all four days of the conference, informing attendees about the SUVCW. As the conference winds down it is possible to talk with vendors without the crowd (unless a raffle is being held!)

The afternoon session was with Thomas W. Jones, who spoke on Solutions for Missing or Scarce Records and he cited several cases which can be found at the NGS website. One must be a member of NGS to read articles published in the last 100 years.

Then it was time to hit a Cincinnati highlight called Skyline Chili which opened in 1949 by a Greek immigrant; however, it was only the Greek salad that one might find to be “Greek” as the menu has chili in a variety of forms.

It was a GOOD conference, which I recommend to those who have not attended. It is interesting that the conference in 2013 will be in Las Vegas, Nevada. A video about NGS conferences can be found at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/video_conference. 2014 will be in Richmond, Virginia (7-10 May) and 2015 in St. Charles (outside St. Louis), Missouri (13-16 May). Now it is time to write up the other two days of research done before the conference began, pack for the return trip and reengage with CGS. Thank you for reading.

—Jeffrey Vaillant

Read the entire series:
Report #1: 2012 NGS
Report #2: 2012 NGS
Report #3: 2012 NGS
Report #4: 2012 NGS
Report #5: 2012 NGS

Copyright © 2012 by Kathryn M. Doyle, California Genealogical Society and Library