Keynote speakers Day 2 of Rootstech

Day two of Rootstech and there were two keynote speakers. The first was Jyl Pattee, who  was talking about the “WOW!” moments in our lives.  She was basically advocating a combination of Oral Histories, to capture other people’s “Wow” moments and writing down your own, so that all the memories will be captured for eternity. One really good idea she came up with is to capture the small moments when they occur in a blog.  This can become the basis for a book.  She entreated us not to wait til the end of the experience to record it as you won’t remember it all by then.

The second keynote speaker was Tim Sullivan, President and CEO of Ancestry.com.  He stressed that collaboration is the key to building your family history.  When you work with others you will achieve much more.  Naturally, he was advocating doing this by putting your family tree on Ancestry and then collaborating with people who find they match your tree.  He quoted one ancestry user who says that she “benefits from other people’s eyes looking at my tree and offering corrections”.  It forces her to get out her research, review it and make corrections.

So collaboration is absolutely key to success.  Ancestry try to create a space where beginners and experts can come together to work on their family history.  Then he made a shocking revelation: the trees on Ancestry are not always 100% accurate.  There are some mistakes. :) But ancestry thinks it is still worth those trees being there, as people can benefit from publishing their families and therefore getting the opportunity to correct their mistakes.

He also announced some new things that are coming to Ancestry.  The ones that we were told about were US based, but the audience was very excited to hear that US Probate records will be added (a collaboration with Familysearch).

Mormon Tabernacle choir

The Mormon Tabernacle choir put on a special mini-concert for the Rootstech attendees on the Thursday night.  It called the concert "Land that I love: The immigration of Irving Berlin". 

I got there early with Liz and Peter Pidgeon and we got to hear part of their rehearsal, which was an incredible experience.  It is a fantastic venue with great acoustics.  Interestingly, the tabernacle was the first building completed in Temple Square

Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsing

Rootstech Day 1 - Keynotes

Yesterday was the start of Rootstech 2013.  The day started very early as bloggers were given a special tour of the expo hall and then shown to specially reserved seats in the main hall where the keynote talks were taking place.  It had actually been snowing outside, after having been a glorious sunny day two days before and only overcast on the previous day.  Fortunately, since I was staying at the Radisson which is right next door to the Salt Palace Conference Centre I could just put up with the cold and snow for the two minutes it took to get between the two, and thus not have to lug around a coat for the whole day.

The conference has 6700 registered attendees, and on the Saturday another 1900 young people will be coming in for a special youth stream of the conference.  That is a LOT of people, as the crush to get out of the hall after the keynotes attested.

Shipley Munson, head of Marketing for Familysearch International welcomed the attendees and then introduced each of the speakers.  The first of these was Dennis Brimhall, President & CEO of Familysearch.  His message was that Family History is all about family, and about those stories associated with the family.  Without them family history is only names, dates and places.

Dennis entreated us to ask ourselves what our great-great-grandchildren  would wish that we had done.  This would probably be to record the stories that are happening now, or have happened in our lives.

Dennis told us a story from his family, about his father’s experiences in World War II, when he was in a plane that was shot down over Germany.  His father was one of only two people to survive from that plane, and amazingly, someone from another plane had taken photos as the doomed plane burst into flames and plummeted to the ground.  Dennis’s father had not told him anything about this, but his daughter asked her grandfather about his experiences, and wrote a book about it, which meant that these stories would be preserved for the family.

The second speaker was Syd Leiberman, who told us stories about his family.  He was a great speaker and the audience really went with him to the places and events that he was talking about.  The final speaker was Josh Taylor, lead genealogist, findmypast.com. 

And now for the talks....

Syd Lierberman giving his keynote address

Not finding something can be important too

Originally, when I booked for Rootstech, my plan for the Wednesday before the conference was to spend the day in the Family History Library doing my research.  Then it was announced that there would be talks by Else Churchill, Alec Tritton and Audrey Collins on various topics relating to UK genealogy.  So I decided to attend those, even though it would mean only a little time for research that day.  Sadly, Else Churchill and Alec Tritton’s flight from the UK was delayed and they missed their connecting flight to Salt Lake City and thus were not going to be there to give the talks.  Audrey Collins kindly stepped in to give an extra talk during the 2^nd slot, as well as the talk she was already giving during the 3^rd slot.  All this meant that there was some extra time for research during the 1st slot as well as after the talks.

As it was, I managed to have a very productive day.  Sometimes not finding something is as important as finding something.  I knew that my ancestor Joseph (or Joshua) Huddleston married Agnes Gibson in Aldingham in Lancashire in 1747.  I wanted to check the registers of that parish earlier to see if Joseph or Agnes had been baptised in that parish and thus find the names of their parents.  Well, they weren’t baptised in Aldingham. There were very few Gibson events there at all, and the small number of Huddleston event started relatively late.  I now know that those families came from somewhere else in Lancashire.  I just need to figure out where!

Salt Lake City Research

I arrived in Salt Lake City late Sunday afternoon, but too exhausted to do anything.  Today I have spent some very productive research time in the Family History Library.  I did some work towards going one generation further back on my husband’s side.  I had looked at baptisms from FreeREG and found that William Joicey (note the spelling – there are so many variants on Joyce I can’t believe it: some of them are here), his 6xg-grandfather, was baptised in Netherwitton on 5 Dec 1728 and his father was William.  The problem was trying to identify William senior’s father, as there were three potential Williams in the parish.  The first was baptised in 1700, son of Henry.  The second in 1703, also a son of Henry.  The third was baptised in 1705, the son of Nicholas.  Many web sites on Ancestry and online said that the William we were interested in was born c1700.  A couple of sites actually said he was the son of Henry.  But now that I have looked at the parish registers and found the burials I know that William son of Henry (the first of that name born to Henry) was buried in 1701.  So that narrows it down to two candidate fathers - Henry and Nicholas.  Now I need to find another way to work out which one is “mine”.

Apart from my research I spent lots of time meeting new people and talking to them.  I even got included in the tail end of a “Dear Myrtle” hangout on air in the morning.

Dear Myrtle during her hangout on Google+

 Some of the Patrons of the Family History Library

Sentenced Beyond the Seas

Yesterday I went to a talk by Janette Pelosi from the State Records of NSW about the recent addition to their web site, a collection of early convict records called Sentenced Beyond the Seas.  It covers records of convicts who came to NSW up to 1801 and was a gift to the people of Australia to commemorate the 225th anniversary in 2013 of the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788.

This is more than just the convict indents.  This collection also includes Orders in Council, Special bundles of the Colonial Secretary, lists of books sent to the Principal Superintendent of Convicts and other treasures.

 
The records that are included have been digitised, not scanned, except for Order in Council No. 11, relating to convicts on the Surprize (1), Neptune and Scarborough (2), which were missing from the State Records and were therefore sourced from the AJCP microfilms.  Being in colour makes it much easier to see later pencil annotations on the indents.

Sadly for those will ancestors who came on the Lady Juliana, Sentenced Beyond the Seas only includes one document about that ship, which contains the names of only three of the 250 convicts who came on that ship.  This is because State Records do not have any copies of any other records relating to this voyage.

The collection also includes a previously unknown letter dated 1822 containing a list of Convicts sent out from Ireland in 1800 in the Ship Anne (Stewart Master) "whose periods of Transportation have never been sent out ‘till now, and who are to be allowed to go Home, in Case their Sentences have expired."

The collection can be searched by name (including alias), place of trial, county of trial, sentence, ship, ship page or remarks from here.

This collection adds to the information on convicts that they already had on their web site, which includes details of later convicts, convict pardons, tickets of leave, convict bank accounts and much more.

State Records are to be thanked and congratulated for making this invaluable resource available online.

Friday funny

Unless you have been living under a rock lately you would be aware that the skeleton discovered under a carpark in Leicester has been confirmed as that of Richard III.  I have been very interested in this as, like many people, I have been interested in him since I read Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time in highschool.  That wasn't what first interested me in history - that was the TV shows with Keith Michell as Henry VIII and Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth R.

My husband found a sign from a Leicester City Carpark inspired by the discovery that was so wonderful I felt I had to share it.