Those Little Bombs of Indigestion!!

What a long day it has been. Sessions began this morning at 8:00 am. and by 4:30 most attendees were ready for a nap. There is something about Friday afternoon at a conference; you just seem to wind down. Tomorrow morning we will be back at it again.

Great lectures today. Lots of new ideas, new methods, and new data bases. The one constant thread throughout the sessions I attended was "get away from the internet." Network with other genealogists in person. There is a lot of evidence out there; it just isn't all on the internet. You need to interact with other family researchers to learn new techniques and ideas. This week I heard so many people say that we are just one big family. People just seemed to connect with each other in the past few days. Maybe a lot of serendipity was going on!

I purchased GenDetective because I believe it is a program that will be very useful and will save me a lot of time. It had very good reviews online. I will let you know how it works out when I get home. Cost $25.

Flip Pal was completely sold out when I went back to their booth today. Maybe that is a good thing, because I am still not completely sure that it is what I need. I need a portable scanner I can use on the large books in the courthouses. All the displays at their booth seem to be centered on scanning photographs. 

Make sure you get the rest of your door prize tickets in place before the 12:30 drawing tomorrow. Write your name and phone number on the back of each ticket.

Make the best use of your last day of the conference. If you are staying over until Sunday, do a little sight-seeing. Make sure you get some chili and some Graeter's ice cream. And let's not forget those little bombs of indigestion, White Castle!!

 

 

Dance Party Friday!!

If you are up early this morning be sure to tune into Good Morning Cincinnati for Dance Party Friday with Bob Herzog! If you miss him today, no problem local 12 has old DPF routines. Be sure to watch Somewhere Out There for the traffic report! http://www.local12.com/content/dpf/default.aspx  

Finally at almost 6am, the internet is accessible again - my one major complaint about the hotel. Someone said this late night problem is caused by having too many genealogists concentrated in one location in the wee hours of the morning. Oooops, our secret is out! Genealogists are known to research late into the night!

Bundle up if you are going outside this morning. Frost warning! 34 degrees, but we should see 64 degree sometime today.

Friday sessions begin at 8:00am today and end at 5:30. The exhibit hall is open from 9:00am - 7:00pm. 

The Pavilion is the site for the roundtable of experts on Southern Ohio area research. The African American roundtable will be in the Colonnade, Both are at 5:45pm.

Two lineage society dinners today. The Settlers and Builders Luncheon will be in Bronze Ballroom B at 12:15. The Civil War Families Banquet is in the same place at 7:00pm.

Lectures I am attending today. 
     F11 - Locating and Using German Church Records.
     F18 - German Territories and Maps.
     F34 - Finding Rejected Claims and Pension Requests
     F43 - OGS Chapter Officers Meeting
     F44 - Tri State Area Resources Roundtable

Last night I was inducted into Century Families of Ohio. J. Mark Lowe was the speaker and was, as always, fantastic. His topic was Roads & Trails 'Cross The Ohio River. This is a great lecture about the who, what, where, when and how of our ancestors who ventured into the Ohio Frontier. (If you are going to the FGS Conference in Fort Wayne, you can catch Mark on Thursday, August 22, 2013.)

One last thing.  If you see some crazy looking people on the streets of downtown Cincy today, it's the annual Scavenger Hunt.

What  I am looking at in the Exhibit Hall: GenDetective, Flip-Pal, and books on German Research.

Have fun today. Tonight I will plan on posting earlier in the evening while I still have an internet connection! 

    

Let's all move to Cincinnati!!

The Ohio River brought a lot of strong men and women into the Ohio frontier. If your ancestors were part of that group, you have a lot to be proud of. Some of our ancestors came through the mountain passes into Kentucky and headed north across the Ohio River to settle the land of the Northwest Territory which was formed in 1787. Others came from the eastern states thru Pittsburgh and down the Ohio River on flatboats to establish settlements on either side of the river. This week at the First Families of Ohio banquet on Saturday night we will honor the memory of those pioneers who made Ohio possible.

At first most of these first families stayed in Kentucky, occasionally bravely slipping in and out of Ohio. After the Treaty of Greenville with the indians in August 1795, it was safer to settle in Ohio and many pioneers made the move to land located along the banks of the Ohio River. Eventually they made their way inland and established the first homesteads on the hills of southern Ohio.

Many pioneers passed through this area, some stopping briefly, on their way west; others stayed and established the families that have been in the area for generations.  The first settlers were mainly of English ancestry and came from the original colonies. Land was the big draw in this area and many settlers were Revolutionary War soldiers who were given land in the Virginia Military District to the east of Cincinnati.  

Cincinnati was first Ft. Washington, then Losantiville and finally the name was changed to the word that people have so much trouble spelling. Remember there is only one T in Cincinnati! The tiny settlement grew rapidly due to its location on the river which flowed into the Mississippi. By the 1840's it was the largest inland city and became known as the Queen City - the gateway to the westward settlement.

Around 1830 German immigrants began to arrive. They established what is known as the Over-The-Rhine District. They were followed by Irish, Jews,  African Americans, Appalachians, and Hispanic all looking for a chance to make a new life for their families. This rich heritage is a haven for genealogists. For information on these ethnic groups and their effect on the community, there is a great website that has been designed for students, but can be very useful for genealogists. cincinnati-cityofimmigrants.com.

Although records can go back to the late 1790's, many have been lost in fires and floods. This should make research in Hamilton County and the surrounding area difficult. Fortunately, thanks to the local genealogical and historical societies in the area, there is an enormous amount of data that has been reconstructed and fills many of the gaps in research.

One last thing about research in the Hamilton County area.  Here, Kentucky is almost an extension of Ohio and vice versa. People lived on both sides of the river so if an ancestor disappears, look across the river. When people moved from Kentucky to Ohio, they left family behind. This is the case with my Perkins ancestors. I always have to go back and forth across the Ohio. This is a place where knowing the local history is essential in family research. 

Here are some places online that I recommend for research in the Cincinnati area: 

cincinnatilibrary.org 

kentonlibrary.org

hcgsohio.org

rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohclecgs/

See you in Cincy!

 

7 HIlls of Cincinnati

I remember my dad telling me that Cincinnati was built on seven hills. Wanna' have some fun this week? Ask locals to name the seven hills. No one really seems to know or care. The University of Cincinnati came up with its official list, but that could have been the result of a campus drinking game. 

Mt. Adams is a given. It is in the 1848 Panorama at the library. Mt. Airy and Mt. Washington sound familiar as does Mt. Lookout. Then you have Walnut Hills, Indian Hills, and College Hill. So those are my seven. However, the university added Mt. Echo, Mt. Healthy, and Mt. Storm. And, let's not forget - Fairmount, Price Hill, Clifton Heights and Fairview Heights. Unless I forgot a hill that is 14!

At any rate, everything in Cincinnati seems to be built on an incline. This is pretty much true of everything on either side of the Ohio River. As my relatives used to say you "walk out the back door and fall down the hill."

Southbound!

I can't believe that the OGS Conference in Cincinnati is only a few days away. And what a conference it is going to be! The syllabus is already available to conference attendees online. If you have registered you should have received an email with the username and password needed to access the syllabus. Remember this information is case sensitive. Also available on the OGS website is a Conference guide which is loaded with helpful information. Be sure to check it out. I must say the conference chairs have done a wonderful job planning this event.

If you are looking for information and conference tips for the Cincinnati area go back to my posts from last year's NGS Conference that begin on March 5, 2012. Remember some of that information is for the Duke Energy Center. The OGS Conference is contained in the MIllennium Hotel -- a much smaller area.   I walked the soles off my shoes last year at the Duke Energy Center. I just bought a new pair to replace those shoes and I intend to wear them longer than one week!! Do check the posts from last year for info on "things you need to know."

Parking! If you are staying at the conference hotel, they have valet parking for a reduced rate of $18! There are less expensive lots in the immediate area and most of them are connected to the hotel by the Skywalk. There is a list of the parking lots and garages with rates and hours of operation in the syllabus. Last year there were Early Bird specials at some lots if you were in before 9am., but you had to leave between 2 and 6pm. I have decided that when I am attending a conference alone, I need to budget the extra $$$ to be able to park in the hotel garage. It's just a safety factor.

Along I-75. If you are traveling to the conference on Interstate 75, I would like to recommend a book my husband and I used for our many trips to Florida. It is Along I-75 by Dave Hunter. This book contains all the basic travel info you need - motels, restaurants, rest areas, gas stations plus everything else you didn't know you needed to know. You can pick up a copy at your local bookstore or online at Barnes and Noble. It is $26.95, but if you do a lot of traveling on I-75, it is well worth the price.

Registration Booth. Located on the second floor across from the elevators. If  you are arriving at the conference hotel on Wednesday, you can pick up your conference packet at the registration booth from 5-7pm.

My Kind of Re-enactment!

FGS Conference

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Allen County Public Library will be hosting a special event, Journey Through The Generations with Our Veterans, on Friday, August 23, 2013, during the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference. The event begins at 6pm and includes extended research hours in the genealogy department until midnight. At 7pm there will be a presentation about Fort Wayne and its role in the War of 1812. At 7:30pm the Commemorative War of 1812 Quilt will be awarded. A desert buffet will be held from 7:45-8:30pm.

The highlight of the evening will be a grand Civil War-era ball in the two-story Great Hall from 8:30-9:30pm. Guest are encouraged to “dress for the occasion.” Hopefully great grandma was your size. If not, there is still enough time to make a ball gown. Patterns can be found online and at fabric stores. As for material, remember Miss Scarlet made one of her dresses out of a pair of curtains. 

I am looking forward to seeing all these elegantly dressed ladies wandering around downtown Fort Wayne.  Or better  yet -- how many hoop skirts can you fit in an elevator. Sounds like a rather fun evening no matter how you look at it.

Registration is required. Tickets are $10.

A Little More NGS!

I noticed that there are two tracks worthy of your attention at the NGS Conference in Las Vegas.  One is a skill building track by the Board for Certification of Genealogists and the other is devoted to technology. They both run at the same time so you are going to have to pick and choose what is important to you. If it were up to me I would take the skill building over the tech. You must know by now that I value basic genealogy skills over modern technology. Once you have your skills mastered, you can go to the individual websites and learn about all the apps that are available to enhance those skills.

The BCG track features lectures on Congressional records, research reports, accidental and intentional errors in vital records, 17^th century English/American documents, organization, digitized records, emigrant guides, and proof arguments. There is also a 2 hour seminar on Thursday morning where certified genealogists will share their experiences and offer tips for successful certification.The tech track covers Evernote, Scrivener, Web 2.0, clouds,  OCR’d and computer indexed, genealogy software, Mac, Google Earth, online catalogs,  genealogy apps, Microsoft Excel and Power Point, online publishing, photo restoration, and Pinterest.

As you can see there is an enormous amount of information in just these two tracks which run Wednesday thru Saturday. What you need to do is consult your syllabus if you have 2 sessions that are being held at the same time, skip the session that has the best notes in the syllabus. And remember you can always order a CD of either session.

Las Vegas sounds like a great place for a conference, but a little too tempting dollar wise for me.  I am opting for the OGS Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio and hopefully the FGS Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana. During the past 2 weeks I have had cataract surgery. It was an amazingly simple procedure with the added benefit of not having to wear glasses any more. However, it left me with a few added expenses that I wasn’t counting on this year. As usual I will have to do some creative financing and hopefully I will be at the FGS Conference in August. But I will definitely be in downtown Cincinnati in a few short weeks.