ROOTS & BRANCHES

Earlier this month, I traveled to Tarrytown in the Hudson Valley for the New York State Family History Conference, primarily as a vendor of the several commercially published books I’ve authored.

And while sales were great and I had the chance to sneak a few listens to lectures from some of the genealogy world’s top presenters – people like Judy G. Russell and Joshua Taylor – the conference was even better as a social get together and networking exchange for the many things in which I’m involved.

First, there was the opportunity to “wear the shirt,” give out cards and tell more people about my new full-time job – editing research reports for Legacy Tree Genealogists, a rapidly growing professional family history research firm headquartered in Utah.

Something that’s always wonderful is listening to the individual stories of the attendees. One registrant, Jerry Garrison, with both New York state and Pennsylvania roots contrasted the probate papers available (Pennsylvania’s are often better, he says). He also cited an example of an ancestor whose died without a will and the only record in Westchester County shows the town clerk taking out the bond as administrator of the estate, which we agreed was probably a sign that the estate was “upside down” – more debts than assets.

Just a pleasant was a sit-down visit at my vendor table from Janet Rupert, now an officer of the Pennsylvania Chapter, Palatines to America, asking for advice on someway to reboot the chapter, once a mammoth part of the national Pal Am but now a shadow of its former self. I don’t know that I had any special pearls of wisdom but wished her good fortune!

A special highlight of the conference was the serendipity of realizing soon after I arrived that Diahan Southard, who trades as Your DNA Guide, was there, too.

Southard and I are part of a group that is a Bronze sponsor for next year’s International German Genealogy Partnership conference in Sacramento, California, and we took advantage of our face-to-face meetup to shoot some short videos as promotions for the German conference.

I had the privilege several years ago at a New York state conference of meeting Janeen Bjork, a family historian who’s so into newspapers that she has pieces of clothing with the look and feel of them.

Bjork kindly let me use the story of how newspapers across the country handled (and mishandled!) her ancestor’s late 19^th century murder as a case study in my book The Family Tree Historical Newspapers Guide, and this was our first meeting since the book came out, so a duo-selfie was in order!

Finally, it was gratifying to see that newspapers guide selling very well at the conference, a tribute in part to the attendees – many of whom had already used newspapers, but were thirsty to learn more and better ways to utilize newspaper information in their genealogies.

All in all, it was three days well spent!