Greetings From Holly Hansen

It was great to meet Holly Hansen at the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expo. What a great conference! Thanks to Holly and the others who helped this conference to be a success.

Meeting Bernie Gracy

I was thrilled to meet Mr. Bernie Gracy at the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos. I learned so much from the three sessions he conducted on Location Based Genealogy. Prior to the conference, I had begun applying some of the concepts I learned from him though his YouTube videos that I discovered this past summer. (Read more about this discovery.) I also had an opportunity to let him know on Friday of the conference that I had blogged about his work earlier that month.

On Saturday, I saw Mr. Gracy again and he informed me that he had read my posting and even sent it out to his Facebook friends.

Breaking Down Brick Walls with Location Based Genealogy

I was fortunate to attend three workshops on Location Based Genealogy conducted by Mr. Bernie Gracy during the recent 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos. Now Mr. Gracy has placed some of his talk on YouTube.

Enjoy!

Breaking Down Brick Walls with Location Based Genealogy (Part 1 of 3)


Breaking Down Brick Walls with Location Based Genealogy (Part 2 of 3)


Breaking Down Brick Walls with Location Based Genealogy (Part 3 of 3)

Let Your Voice Be Heard in the Digital Conversation, Part 3

My presentation at the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos was entitled “Let Your Voice Be Heard in the Digital Conversation” so I decided to videotape greetings from various bloggers and others whom I communicate with online through various social media sites. In most cases, I only communicate with these persons (who will be featured in this series) through writing and seeing each other’s smiling face on photos on social media sites. It was great to meet some of these online friends face-to-face and to greet them with a hug or handshake.

It was great meeting Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog during the conference. Several years ago, I took at least one of Lisa's classes which were offered online through GenClass.

Let Your Voice Be Heard in the Digital Conversation, Part 2

My presentation at the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos was entitled “Let Your Voice Be Heard in the Digital Conversation” so I decided to videotape greetings from various bloggers and others whom I communicate with online through various social media sites. In most cases, I only communicate with these persons (who will be featured in this series) through writing and seeing each other’s smiling face on photos on social media sites. It was great to meet some of these online friends face-to-face and to greet them with a hug or handshake.

It was great talking to Linda McCauley of Documenting the Details blog during the conference. For some reason, I kept calling her 'Lisa" and even typed that name when I began typing this blog posting. (Sorry Linda). I don't think I had encountered her online prior to this time, but it was great spending time with her at the Blogger of Honor's table in Atlanta and now communicating with Linda (not Lisa--LOL), online.

Let Your Voice Be Heard in the Digital Conversation, Part 1

My presentation at the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos was entitled “Let Your Voice Be Heard in the Digital Conversation” so I decided to videotape greetings from various bloggers and others whom I communicate with online through various social media sites. In most cases, I only communicate with these persons (who will be featured in this series) through writing and seeing each other’s smiling face on photos on social media sites. It was great to meet some of these online friends face-to-face and to greet them with a hug or handshake.

The first is Thomas MacEntee Geneabloggers. This blog is full of information for bloggers and genealogists and has a great repository of links to numerous types of genealogy blogs.

Social Media Panel Q & A

Participated in the Social Media Q & A of 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos. I had a great time participating on this panel and posted this blog posting during the session.

The Audience

The Panel

Myrtle, Tonia, & Amy

Valerie & Linda



Dru

Hanging Out at the Bloggers of Honor Table

Besides conducting a presentation at 11:30 and attending one at 3:00, I spent the majority of my time on Friday hanging out at the Bloggers of Honor table at the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos. I had lots of fun talking to other bloggers and visitors to our table, as well as blogging and tweeting.

Podcast Interview

On Friday, November 12, 2010, I was a guest on the African Roots Podcast (click here) hosted by genealogist, Angela Walton-Raji. It was a delighful conversation in which we discussed genealogy in general as well as my presentation, Let Your Voice Be Head in the Digital Conversation, which was presented at the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos.

Professor Dru and Mel Collier

Today, I met Mel Collier, author of Mississippi to Africa. Gotta get my copy of his book autographed before the end of the conference.

Professor Dru and Lisa Alzo

Exited to have met Lisa Alzo author of Three Slovak Women at the Bloggers of Honor table. She is also author of The Accidental Genealogist blog. I took one of her online classes through GenClass several years ago.

Professor Dru and Thomas MacEntee

I had the privilege to meet the Great Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers, Master of Genealogy and Social Media at the Bloggers of Honor table.

I'm Here!

The 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos has officially begun and I am sitting at the Bloggers of Honor Table now with Amy Coffin of We Tree Genealogy Blog. A few minutes ago the blogger table was full, but now everyone except for Amy and I, have left to go to sessions.

TweetDeck

I loaded TweetDeck on my computer today to use with Twitter and began using it this evening. I love the muticolumn screen and being able to see columns such as for my all friends, mentions, and direct. You can also customize columns such as adding one for #fhexpo. I'm looking forward to using TweetDeck during the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos which begins tomorrow morning.

What is TweetDeck?

Preparing for a Genealogy Conference

For those of us who will be attending the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos next week, I’m sure we’re all busy this week finalizing our travel plans, deciding what to pack, and browsing the syllabi for the conference to determine what classes we will be attending. And for us presenters, even possibly doing last minute tweaks of our presentations.

One thing I do when preparing for a major genealogy conference trip to type planning lists in Microsoft Excel because it enables me to categorize and sort the list so I can make such decisions as what things to pack, what workshops I’d like to attend, or what things I’d like to do such as research or visiting family, friends, or tourist sites in conference area. This same list can also be typed using the Tables feature of a word processing software package in which you can also sort and type in columnar format.

Here are tips from two other bloggers who give invaluable tips about preparing to attend a genealogy conference. Enjoy!

• The Rock Star’s Guide to Genealogy Conferences
• Prepare Before Attending a Genealogy Conference

Dear Myrtle

I’m excited about attending the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos next week and being able to meet other bloggers like Dear Myrtle (Old Myrt) aka Pat Richley. I’ve been following Dear Myrtle’s Blog since I began blogging over two years ago.

Today during lunch, I watched two interviews by Dick Eastman of Myrt at genealogy conferences. I learned from the Roots Television videos below that Myrt also has two other websites:

• Dear Myrtle
• Teach Genealogy
  
  

Dear Myrtle Interview by Dick Eastman at Family History Expos


Dear Myrtle Interview by Dick Eastman at Jamboree 2009


To Myrtle and the other Bloggers of Honor, SAVE PROFESSOR DRU A SEAT in booths numbers 605, 606, and 607 at the Atlanta Family History Expos. Smile.

Vendors at Atlanta Family History Expos

Not only will be be lots of genealogists at the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos, there will also be numerous vendors. For more information, read Myrtle's "Old Myrt" blog posting entitled, Atlanta GA: FHExpos Meet the Vendors.

Syllabi for the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos

The syllabi for the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos are online now. (Click Here)

Bernie Gracy and Location Based Genealogy

A few months ago, I became interested in geography and geographic information science (GIS) so I enrolled in a GIS class at a local community college. Later I wanted to learn more about how geography and GIS could be used with genealogy so I typed in the keywords "geography and genealogy" in YouTube. Through this search, I discovered the work of Mr. Bernie Gracy who specializes in located-based genealogy.

Location is a huge part of a genealogists' quest; afterall we spend numerous hours trying to locate an ancestor's whereabouts and movements. Sometimes if we examine an ancestor's surroundings and location, we may discover numerous bits of new information. For example, I took Mr. Gracy's advice about focusing on location from his interview with Lisa Louise Cooke (see below) and scanned through an 1870 census in the Matoca townshop of Chesterfield County, VA focusing on the occupations of residents of that county. This census was used only because that was my research focus at the time I discovered the videos by Bernie Gracy. I was researching Charles Lundy, the alleged second husband of my slave ancestor Ellen Moore of Greensville County, VA when I discovered the videos below. During my scanning, I noticed a large number of people in Charles Lundy's community with the occupation labeled "works in cotton factory." Charles' occupations, however, was listed as Farm Laborer on this census. Further research validated my assumption that there a cotton factory in the community where Charles Lundy was living in 1870. I also learned through my research that there were several cotton factories in Chesterfield County, VA during this time.

I was thrilled to learn recently that Mr. Gracy will be presenting three workshops at the 2010 Atlanta Family History Expos. I look forward to attending these workshops as well as meeting him. The three workshops are:

• An Introduction to AncestralHunt.com


• Breaking Down Brick Walls with Location Based Genealogy


• Technology and Techniques for Conducting Location
  Based Field Research
  

Below are several videos of Mr. Bernie Gracy in which he explains location based genealogy.

The First Law of Geography




Interview of Bernie Gracy by Lisa Louise Cooke, Part 1



Interview of Bernie Gracy by Lisa Louise Cooke, Part 2