State Genealogical Alliance Meeting at CGS

All CGS members and members of other local societies are welcome to attend an open meeting of the California State Genealogical Alliance (CSGA) at the California Genealogical Society Library, 2201 Broadway, Suite LL2, Oakland, on Saturday, February 27, 2010.

The gathering is an opportunity for Bay Area genealogists to meet CSGA President Susan M. Roe, attend an Alliance meeting, have a tour of the CGS Library and hear a presentation by CSGA Past-president Lisa B. Lee.

Schedule:

09:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.  Open meeting
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.  Tour of CGS library and presentation about the unique holdings
12:00 p.m. –  1:00 p.m.  Break for lunch*
  1:00 p.m. –  2:00 p.m.  When Oral Histories are Just Plain Wrong by Lisa B. Lee
  2:00 p.m. –  4:00 p.m. Research time

*Participants are encouraged to bring a lunch or visit a nearby restaurant.

PLEASE NOTE:

• Space is limited to 40 attendees. 
• Pre-registration is required.
  
• Please RSVP by email to Events@CaliforniaAncestors.org or download and return the registration flier.

Lisa Lee is a past president of CSGA, a past CGS board member, lecturer and hosts Got Genealogy?

Founded in October 1982, the Alliance serves as a statewide association of independent genealogical societies, individuals and non-profit organizations which acts to further genealogical endeavors throughout the state of California.

YouTube Video of San Francisco Pre-1906 Earthquake

Member John Bedecarre sent the link to this amazing historical film recorded just days before the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The footage was shot from a cable car running down Market Street towards the Ferry Building seen in the distance. John informs us that while electric street cars crossed Market, the transit system at the time had only cable cars on Market. He also notes that there were no traffic rules, no paved roads, no traffic lights or pedestrian crosswalks and that the people were pretty adept at dodging autos. Thanks, John, for sharing!

Source: Flixxy's San Francisco in 1906

Report #6 and a Recap: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy

Here's Jeffrey Vaillant's last SLIG installment. Great reporting, Jeffrey!

Friday, 15 January 2010
Salt Lake City, Utah

The morning class began with a three-person panel discussing the Uniqueness of International AG Examinations. The panelists were Heidi Sugden, John Kitzmiller and Larry Jensen all of whom are deeply involved in the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen) organization and all have positions at the Family History Library. They spoke to the application process for accreditation in a foreign subject, the language needs for the German and French areas and how to prepare. The "how to prepare for the exam" was study, study and study the sources available for the country AND be fluent in the language.

Karen Clifford followed with her presentation on Evaluating and Solving Research Problems and somewhat modified the syllabus by drilling down in some detail on report writing while doing research.

Next was Elaine Helgeson Hasleton (another three named female!) who spoke about The Oral Review: Purposes, Rubrics and Results. For the AG designation the candidate will answer questions about the four-generation report, discuss the latest genealogy project, discuss the written exam and respond to questions from the exam where the answer needs amplification. To demonstrate what might happen in the oral exam a role playing exercise was conducted.

Confession time again: I cut the last session on the AG Renewal Process (which like the CG is every five years). The Library was waiting with its books and microfilms for my attendance. I got some good electronic images on my flash drive of land records in Pottawattamie County, Iowa – aren’t you excited?

The institute ends with a banquet in the hotel and a program of recognitions by both the SLIG organization and the Utah Genealogical Association. The guest speakers - yes, two people - were a husband and wife who gave a great presentation on their 35 years experience doing research in Spain and France. They lead students from BYU on research trips overseas.

In spite of my cutting class I managed to get a completion certificate. What do I think about the week?

The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy is a solid program allowing the student to concentrate on a given subject for five days with guest lecturers throughout the course. I heard rave reviews for the classes Dr. Jones and Dr. Colletta taught. The meeting rooms and hotel (Radisson) were good including a 20% discount on all meals in the hotel Copper Canyon restaurant. I would recommend this Institute for a week partly because it is virtually next door to the Family History Library. I am staying an extra day to take advantage of the FHL.

What did I think about the AG/CG class? There were thirty people who signed up for the class of which eleven are from Utah and the rest of us from coast to coast. Class participation was good and there was the opportunity to ask questions and get answers. The difference between the AG and CG designation was clarified which was one of the reasons I took the course. Personally speaking, I will pursue the CG designation due to its research report writing emphasis over taking a written and oral exam.

Now it is off to Alabama in June for another solid week of learning at the Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR). Registration opens Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. PST January 19, 2010.

Thank you for reading my reports.

- Jeffrey Vaillant

Read the entire series:
Report #1: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy
Report #2: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy
Report #3: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy
Report #4: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy
Report #5: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy

Volunteerism: One Day in the Life

When the topic for the 88th Carnival of Genealogy was announced I faced a bit of a dilemma. At first I was pleased because volunteerism is a subject I could easily write about on a society blog - and that isn't always the case. But then it dawned on me that every article published here is at its essence about volunteerism. The California Genealogical Society is 100% a volunteer organization. We have no paid employees so everything we do is by definition an act of volunteerism. What new insights did I really have to offer on a subject I've been writing about for over two years? I decided to forgo this edition of the COG.

Obviously something happened to change my mind (literally at the eleventh hour). Photographs have become an integral part of the story I tell for the society so I tend to keep my camera in my bag and I always take a few shots on every visit to the CGS Library. Tonight as I was uploading I noticed that I had a few photographs taken on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 and I remembered how crowded it was that day in the library.

 Pub/Mark Committee Meeting

The Publications and Marketing Committee meets on the first Tuesday of every month and there are usually six or seven of us who attend. The number varies depending on what else is going on in our lives. This month our chair, Cathy Paris, was there, along with Jane Hufft, Nancy Peterson, Marianne Frey, Arlene Miles and a new comer to our group - Henry Snyder. Unfortunately, Marilyn Willats had to leave before Jane Lindsey took this photograph. I remember thinking at the time how wonderful it was that Marilyn had been able to come in for the meeting. Marilyn cares for her grandchildren on Tuesdays so she can rarely make it anymore but on that day she didn't have her family responsibility. On her one free Tuesday she came to the library for a committee meeting.

Judge Project Meeting

Meeting in the next room were the members of the Research and Lookups Committee. These days they are consumed with the Judge Project. Laura Spurrier, Lavinia Schwarz, Pat Smith, Judy Bodycote, Lorna Wallace and Nancy Peterson were discussing formatting and footnotes and all manner of other things for the book they are researching and writing. I really need to write a blog article about the hundreds of hours they are logging and the amazing story they will tell but I dare not bother them for details with deadlines looming.

Others were there who were not photographed. Verne Deubler was at his computer processing emails and working on his newest indexing project. Dick Rees was handling the mail. Sandy Fryer and Paul Mayer were meeting which means that QuickBooks was open and they were probably closing the books on 2009 and readying things for the upcoming Annual Business Meeting.

Gaye Lenahan, Lorna Jones and Steve Harris were working in the library that Tuesday as well, bringing the total number of volunteers in the library to 21. Twenty-one members showed up on the first Tuesday of the year when the library was still technically closed for the holidays.

There was no speaker to hear, no personal research being done. Twenty-one members were there and the place was buzzing with activity and every moment was a selfless act of volunteerism to benefit a non-profit genealogical society. Now that was something to write about.

Written for the 88th Carnival of Genealogy - Volunteerism. The COG poster provided courtesy of the footnoteMaven.

Photographs by Kathryn M. Doyle, Oakland, California, January 5, 2010.

Report #5: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy

Jeffrey Vaillant writes that he is pacing himself and the proof is another report, written after a full day of classes and research, at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy.

Thursday, 14 January 2010
Salt Lake City, Utah

Thursday and Friday are devoted to presentations by the folks from the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen) about their accreditation process. This morning began with Kory Meyerink talking about Research Focus and Analysis of Documents. As a minor reminder, the ICAPGen is interested in seeing people qualify based on a geographic specialty via written and oral exams. Kory explained abstracting versus extracting documents and handed out a document for all the students to prepare giving us five short minutes to do so. Nothing like a little early morning pressure. We were looking at a colonial last will and testament. Then he followed with a Document Recognition Exercise where he flashed documents on a screen allowing us 30 seconds to identify the type of record, title/kind/name of record and author/creator/publisher of the image. I got 7 of the 15 shown – ugh.

Next Karen Clifford’s (only two names!) topic was Report Writing Under Pressure; however, technical difficulties with the computer delayed her start. It was the first such case this week. ICAPGen has three reports they expect their candidates to complete. First is a four generation report that covers a family within one geographic region. The second is part of the exam process where students are sent to the Family History Library with a research problem to solve in three hours with a written report and third is the final written report is for supplemental work. There was a great deal of emphasis on telling the client what was done and how it was done.

Karen followed herself with another presentation on Research Planning and how it counts in the accreditation process. She spent time on how to do a plan rather than how the plan fits into the process. She got into detail on the plan.

The afternoon session was by Anne Roach on Digital Resources for Credentialing Researchers which she posted at the Family Search Research Wiki. Well, that sure gave me an excuse to cut class (confession time?) and go to the Family History Library to spend six hours viewing microfilm. My research goal is to find the earliest Pierson line to get to Iowa so I spent time looking at more land plat records for Des Moines, BLM plat maps for Township 77N and 23W as well as the 1846 Iowa census.

The evening was topped off with another Thomas W. Jones lecture on Organizing Evidence to Overcome Record Shortages. He used an Irish family example that resulted in three trips to Ireland for his client to conduct an exhaustive search for records when there are no censuses, deed, probate or vital documents available. The time period of his study was the 1700’s. Then he correlated the findings, established identities from the records available, grouped the identities into generations and proposed relationships using the genealogical proof standard to justify the conclusions. Another spell binding presentation.

Wikipedia Lesson: “Post-nominal letters, also called post-nominal initials or post-nominal titles, are letters placed after the name of a person to indicate that the individual holds a position, educational degree, accreditation, office, or honour. An individual may use several different sets of post-nominal letters.” The designation AG can be used when one becomes "accredited" or CG when one is "credentialed." A few individuals carry both designations. The longest string belongs to Thomas W. Jones, Ph.D., CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA, FNGS!! He shows in his presentations that he has earned each designation. I am betting that he will pass his renewal for the CG designation!

- Jeffrey Vaillant

Read the entire series:
Report #1: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy
Report #2: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy
Report #3: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy
Report #4: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy
Report #5: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy
Report #6 and A Recap: 2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy