Jamboree 2011: Education, technology and fun
The Southern California Genealogical Society’s annual Jamboree is one of the best-run large regional events in the United States. MyHeritage chief genealogist Daniel Horowitz and myself again attended and presented at this year's conference, held June 10-12, 2011, in Burbank, California.
Conference co-chairs Paula Hinkle and Leo Myers, in addition to their large team of volunteers, always make this an excellent experience.
Some highlights:
Some 70 genealogy bloggers – a record number at any gen conference - blogged, tweeted and Facebooked throughout the event, as well as participating in social events, including an ice cream party and a piñata smashing, among others.
There are many good sports among this friendly group whose conference get-togethers are like a family reunion. A blogger media island enabled the bloggers to continuously tweet and Facebook over the three-day event.
More seriously, there were outstanding sessions to attend, ranging from breakfasts to evening dinners and everything in between. Among those attended by Daniel and myself were:
- A free Kids' Camp attended by many young people, including Boy and Girl Scouts.
- World table discussion, where Daniel and I headed the Jewish table at two sessions, answered questions and directed visitors to many resources for their individual quests.
- An informative breakfast presentation on using social media for societies by Thomas MacEntee, and
- A full-day family history writers conference.
Read on for more details.
Continue reading "Jamboree 2011: Education, technology and fun" »
Languages: More are better!
Genealogists often lament the fact that immigrant ancestors did not pass on their native languages to their descendants.
While the children of immigrants were mostly fluent in those languages - the first generation - those children only rarely passed down those languages to their own children or grandchildren - thus losing them forever.
Years ago, as I sat struggling through Cyrillic to understand records from Mogilev, Belarus, I often wished my great-grandparents had passed down Russian and Yiddish. Russian seems to have disappeared the day the family hit the streets of New York, while Yiddish was transmitted to their children. Their grandchildren knew only phrases or could understand some but not speak it, and they only rarely could read it.
How much easier it would have been if I had learned both languages fluently from my parents and grandparents! However, I did learn Farsi fluently when we lived in Iran. Our daughter studied it, used to read and write it, understands it nearly fluently, but refuses to speak it.
Now, through one scientist's research, we learn that there are two major reasons that people should pass their heritage language on to their children.
Continue reading "Languages: More are better!" »
Links We Like: Edition 3
This third edition of Links We Like has information on a movie database, a new historic music and speech archive, and a mobile app for grave photos and transcriptions.
Searching these resources for your unique names and places of interest may provide new clues or data and push your research forward.
Check out these new resources and let us know what you've found via comments below to this post.
Continue reading "Links We Like: Edition 3" »
Gen conferences: Information for all
Three genealogy conferences in two countries were on my schedule over the past 10 days.
Each conference provided food for thought, learning opportunities and practical information. Additionally, each event offered networking opportunities, and chances to meet others with the same interests.
On May 7, the Society of Genealogists (London, UK) held their Centenary Conference, a major event for this group founded in 1911. The world of family history and how we research hadn't changed much over the decades until rather recently.
Continue reading "Gen conferences: Information for all" »
New Mexico: Taste of Honey
Talk about busy!
As soon as RootsTech ended, Daniel Horowitz and I flew to Albuquerque (New Mexico) to participate in A Taste of Honey, a community-wide education event, sponsored by MyHeritage.com.
Here we are at the MyHeritage display:
A Taste of Honey - 13 February 2011 - Albuquerque, NM
Genealogy is a popular subject here, even though there were many sessions on on completely different topics.
My presentation focused on Genealogy 101 - how to get started and, more importantly, why - while Daniel's presentation encouraged family history researchers to utilize all of MyHeritage.com's features.
Continue reading "New Mexico: Taste of Honey" »
Genealogy of Color: Resources Online
In the US, we celebrate famous civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday as an official holiday on the third Monday in January.
This year it is today, January 17.
It is a fitting day to discuss the increasing number of family history resources available to African Americans searching for their roots, which can be difficult.
When the book "Roots" was published and later screened as the most-watched television series of all time in the '70s, it offered people of all ethnicities the idea that it was possible to learn about their families. In the past few years, increasing numbers of resources have been made available.
For African Americans, it meant that more resources would be developed allowing the people of today to find out about their ancestors, whose history and even names had been hidden or erased. With today's DNA resources, many can now trace their families to areas in Africa.
Here is a round-up of resources - websites, blogs, DNA research - that will help you learn more about your family. Remember that each resource listed also offers even more links to additional information.
Continue reading "Genealogy of Color: Resources Online" »
Holidays: Family traditions
Santa may look very different in other countries!
Did your ancestors receive treats of whale blubber as a Christmas delicacy?
If they did, they must have come from Greenland.
Learn more about holidaycustoms around the world - which may be quite different from your experiences. It may help you understand your ancestors' traditions.
Santa Claus - who has many names - doesn't always wear his traditional red suit, fly around in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, or pop down a chimney.
In Hawaii, he wears a red Hawaiian shirt, and arrives in an outrigger canoe, with elves in aloha shirts.
In some countries where the main religion is not Christianity, there are also interesting traditions.
When we lived in Teheran, I was surprised to see that one could buy Christmas trees, and many stores sold all types of brightly colored lights and decorations. There was a large Armenian community (both Protestants and Catholics) along with Iranian Nestorian Christians.
In India - in the former Portuguese colony of Goa - there are nine days of fireworks and parties to celebrate the Wise Men's arrival. Christians and Hindus celebrate together on January 6, the Feast of the Three Kings. Young boys from prominent families are chosen to play the kings, wear bright costumes and ride in on white horses.
Some other traditions:
Continue reading "Holidays: Family traditions" »
Family reunions: Remembering
Wouldn't you like to meet all those people you've discovered and who now appear on your family tree?
This is the time to start planning for next summer - the most popular season for such events - so here are some tips and resources to help you get together with your far-flung relatives in person.
For even more on family reunions, see another previous MyHeritage Genealogy Blog post which provided more tips, resources and a 12-step "getting organized" outline to plan a family reunion.
Don't forget that your family website at MyHeritage is a great way to stay in touch with prospective family reunion attendees. Share pre-event planning and programs, and then provide - post-reunion - photos and videos of the reunion for the whole family to see. It will encourage those who didn't or couldn't attend the event to show up next time.
Names: How do you say that?
They look at your name, stammer, and ask "how do you say that?" What do you do?
Do you patiently spell it several times? Will you, as I often do, spell it out as in "D as in David, A as in Apple, R as in Robert".........
Do you break the name down into syllables for the other person? Do you give up and say, "Call me by my first name!"
People look at DARDASHTI and their eyes glaze over. "Is that two Ds and two As?" asks the person on the phone or in a store. I usually break it into three syllables: Dar-dash-ti. For TALALAY, strangers usually put the accent on the wrong syllable, and say Tah-LAY-lee, instead of TAH-lah-lie. To confuse matters, one family branch uses TALALAY in English, but pronounces it Tah-la-lay.
Continue reading "Names: How do you say that?" »
Wedding bells: Picture that!
Weddings are important events in family history as each brings together individuals from two families to create another.
Photos of bride and groom are among the most cherished in families. Copies are sent far and wide, to relatives in other countries. When researchers begin to expand their family histories they often find the same photographs in the hands of branches in several countries or different cities.
It's another way of confirming the relationship between two groups of people. The sender of the photo may have inscribed it to the person who received it and indicated that the receiver was an aunt, uncle, cousin or sibling of the person who sent it. They may also have included the date and place of the wedding and the full names of bride and groom.
Here are more tips when working with wedding photos:
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