NGS Day Four (Saturday the 12th) -- the end . . . or is it?

Leaving the Saturday midafternoon lecture, we walked past the windows that overlook the exhibit hall. The vendors and organizations were taking down their booths.

The little world of the conference was being dismantled before our eyes. "Our revels now are ended." I don't suppose any non-genealogist would be able to take what we genealogists do as serious reveling, but we enjoy it.

My talk on indirect evidence was well-attended and well-received. Other events I saw:

David Lambert, the "online genealogist" of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, gave a quick outline of emigration from New England and wound up with an eloquent appeal for the listeners not to lose any more stories, and write them up before it's too late.

Michael Hait alerted his audience to the many state and local sources for genealogy records available OUTSIDE OF Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. They may not be immediately obvious to search engines, and the sites themselves may not be logically organized, but being able to access the records from home is worth some extra effort. In Chester County, Pennsylvania, the recorder of deeds has deeds online from 1960 forward. Elsewhere, in the county archives portion of the site, are indexes to deeds 1688-1830.

Having shown the good stuff out there, he also reminded us not to let internet availability determine our research plans! Most records aren't on line and won't be soon.

Word in the hallways is that during the conference APG, BCG, Indiana, Kentucky, Germany did well in attracting new members. (I did not do a comprehensive survey.)

I had hatched nefarious plans to take Thomas Jones, Elizabeth Shown Mills, and Barbara Vines Little home with me -- or rather, to purchase CDs of their talks to listen to in the car on the five-hour drive home. Unfortunately, the demand was such that the good folks at Jamb had run out of all the ones I wanted. I will get them later on by mail. So our revels really aren't quite ended, now or ever.


Harold Henderson, "NGS Day Four (Saturday the 12th)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 13 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]