GenealogyClassBlog

I presented a new lecture on the Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes yesterday at the 2012 Federation of Genealogical Societies National Conference in Birmingham, Alabama. The syllabus provided to attendees had links that were not clickable, so I am providing the syllabus for the lecture here.

SyllabusFreedmen_T-223

Later today I will be presenting two additional lectures. Here are the live-link handouts for those two lectures:

Syllabus_AmIndFamSearch_F-301

Syllabus_InfoOverload-F-350

My lectures at this conference are being recorded and will be available for sale. I’ll need to get the details and get back with you.

I have been creating a huge body of work on the topic of organizing genealogy records, a topic that has just about always interested me. I have given presentations on the topic of organization in the past, usually titling it, “Information Overload.” Information is what we are trying to organize, after all. Genealogists have collected and generated information in the form of paper, for the most part, for decades. And now that we have digital capabilities (or at least most of us do) we are probably all working with a hybrid of systems – part filing cabinet, boxes, or three-ring binders, and part computer files – JPEGs, PDFs, .Docs, some created in databases, and some audio or video files. The electronic files could be on our personal computers, our mobile devices, or online.

2012 FGS Conference Logo

I am working toward presentation of a lecture at the upcoming, 2012 Federation of Genealogical Societies’ Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, “Indians, Squatter, Settlers, and Soldiers in the ‘Old Southwest,’” to be held August 29-September 1. My lecture, “Information Overload: Organizing Your Genealogy Records,” is scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday, August 30, and is intended for the beginner level genealogist. Download the Conference Brochure here: fgs_2012registrationbooklettopress.

In anticipation of my need to organize (”reign in”) the myriad of ideas and techniques that I have assembled on the topic, I scheduled a preliminary presentation for the Tulsa City-County Library’s Family History Month, organized by Kathy Huber, MLS, the genealogy librarian, for Saturday, July 7 – last Saturday. The turnout was overwhelming. There were 150 attendees for this afternoon session of a Saturday for which two other programs were also presented – all were appropriate for all levels, but helpful for even those who had been researching their families for decades. I saw faces of some that I know are not new to genealogy, but from a show of hands there were probably at least 30 there who were newcomers. Frossard Auditorium at Hardesty Library was packed – making for the kind of venue where, instead of having an empty chair between you and the stranger next to you, there is hardly an empty seat. This was, I think, indicative of a desire of many to get started, especially with the current attraction and potential effectiveness of online searching – something that was certainly not a part of my own beginning interested in my family’s history. Of course the cool library (take that either way) was the place to be on such a hot, Oklahoma day, and it accounted for some attendance, but so did the scores of area residents, as well as those who made the drive from outside Tulsa, because they had experienced TCCL’s successful programming during its Family History Month in previous years. Download a PDF guide to July’s Family History Month programming here.

Because of the crowds, not everyone present received the handout, and so Liz Walker of the Genealogy Center has made a PDF version available on the Genealogy Center’s section of the TCCL website. To download the file, click on the link to Information Overload. You’ll have the option to print it out, or read and save it on your computer or mobile device – just as you often will have with your genealogy records going forward.

During the presentation, which is in definite need of improvement before the FGS Conference, I mentioned a plan to post some links here on my blog. I had been developing a list using my account on Evernote.com, posting the links and a brief description into a “note” in Evernote as I encountered them as I followed various leads online. Here is the list:

I hope to write again soon with tips on organization of your genealogy records. To sign up to receive an email of future blog posts, enter your email address in the second box on the left (Feed My Inbox will be sending the emails).

On Wednesday I mentioned a class which will be offered by the Tulsa City County Library on 15 October. The teacher will be Kathy Huber, the Genealogy Librarian and the class will meet at the Harmon Foundation Meeting Room at the Genealogy Center, 2901 S. Harvard, from 10:30 am to 1:00 pm. You can download a PDF version of TCCL’s October Event Guide here and read more about the class on page 4. You will need to have Adobe Reader installed on your computer (and you can access Adobe Reader for free here). You can return later to check on future classes by visiting the Events page of the TCCL website, http://www.tulsalibrary.org/eventguide/.

I also mentioned that the Tulsa Genealogical Society will be meeting on 17 October for their regular meeting held the third Monday of each month (September – May). You’ll want to attend the free beginners class at 6:00 before the meeting and the program by Janice Meredith – “Get Prepared for the 1940 U.S. Census.” Visitors are welcome to attend their meetings, but you may want to consider becoming a member. Learn more about the society, their library, and additional events at their website, www.tulsagenealogy.org.

I think that we are going to have a great class this year. I enjoyed getting to know you during class, and then reading your student profiles after class. It was interesting to see what your interests are. I will be using the information to help develop the direction of the rest of the course.

I have located the details about the webinar scheduled for this Monday at 6:00 CDT. The Friends of the National Archives-Southeast Region is making this available for free. They describe webinars as “a Web-based seminar, lecture, or presentation delivered via the Internet. Audience my register and attend (using their computer) from the comfort of their home.”

The speaker will be Meg Hacker, Archival Operations Director at the Southwest Region in Fort Worth. There is a link to register on this website:  http://friendsnas.org/webinarSch.htm. Her topic will be “Researching Records Relating to the Five Tribes of Oklahoma… made a little bit easier.” A large portion of the federal records for the Cherokee, Muscogee/Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes may be found in the National Archives – Southwest in Fort Worth, Texas, and trying to use them can be confusing. Some have been microfilmed and are available at various libraries and archives; some have been digitized and are available online; others have not been filmed, digitized, or indexed and can only be used in person.

Meg is a fun and engaging speaker and is an expert on this topic. I encourage you to register and check out the technical details at the site, where I found the following system requirements:

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Attendees will be able to ask questions, but will need to have a microphone (and they recommend a headset) to do so. It has been my experience with other webinars that you will not need to have a voice in their forum – you can simply listen. There are more webinars scheduled for the months ahead. If you aren’t interested in this topic, you might make a note of their later webinars.

I have updated the Genealogy Bibliography – the one that I told you to bring back each week – and you can download the updated file here – Bibliography11, and then print yourself a new one (but the one you picked up on Wednesday will be fine). I added Marsha Hoffman Rising’s book, The Family Tree Problem Solver, which is one of the books I mentioned in class available at the Tulsa City County Library.

I also added links to the Association of Professional Genealogists (www.apgen.org) and the Board for Certification of Genealogists (www.bcgcertification.org). And I replaced the URL for this blog with the new one – www.genealogyclassblog.com.

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See you next Wednesday!

I am putting the final touches on today’s talk. I hear that we have 18 registered and that we will be in room J228.

After today’s class, and some time before next week’s class, be sure to comment on this post. Give your classmates an idea about what interests you by posting your first research objective.