Friday - Friends of Friends NEHGS is Here!!

What a great setting for this day long conference......  I am sure you will agree.

 "His Lordships" at the Berkeley Marina . And as you can see with the next two pictures we really has a wonderful view from any pary of the His Lordships. Just Amazing!! As you can see the weather was just right and you could see both bridges and more.

New England Historic  and Genealogical Society (from Boston, Mass) came West and partnered with California Generalogical Sociiety (CGS) based in Oakland and held this one day event at the Berkeley Marina Berkeley CA .........

 Introducing Rhonda R McClure, NEGHS Senior Researcher.........  with the subjects she presented I think I took 3 out of the 4 sessions with her.  1) Unique Resources in the NY State Research ... probably one good idea is to be familiar with the history of the state. New York is one of the states that did take state census inbetween the federal census. The 1892 census caught my eye, but then it was destroyed too, but the good thing is there are duplicates at the county levels. HIP HIP HOORAY!
2) The Golden dorr has Locks Tracing Immigrant Ancestors.......Rhonda took us through the Immigration Process with the law of the land at that time, changes in the immigration law, immigrant inspection, detention and deportation, records of the detained immigrant. A good start would be looking through the Record Group 85 in the National Archives, but also RG21, 36, 56, & 90. ........
3) I Can't Find It: Understanding Online Search Imitations............search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc) take the search terms you type in and compare them to the lasrge database of websites that has been compiled by that search engine site. .......  don't depend on one search engine, try a different search engine, they are not all created equal......... try getting more bang for your search by using a metasearch, try a metasearch program such as Copernic. Thank you to Rhonda for a great day of learning and growing.

 ........ and David Allen Lambert, NEHGS Online Genealogist............  *New Resources on AmericanAncestors.or for New England Research........ David gave an impressive list of new acquistions month by month. Wow!!  very impressive. He actually gave a little caption for each new works. .......... and with the remaining time he gave us a great tour of their website. Lots of great stuff.

New England Historic and Genealogical Society shipped a great many of their books, some that they have produced (and that is ALOT) It was great to touch and read the volumes that I have only seen in their catalogs. There were new and used books. ........ 

 I was not sure how many people would be attending this event and I was pleasantly surprised to find a room full of people. I had a hard time finding a seat.

 Didn't see anyone from Root Cellar. I did run into the President of CGS Jeffrey Vaillant (you may remeber him from our own Spring Seminar) and of course Kathryn Doyle, Blog Webmaster ...............  and then I heard a voice saying HI SANDI......

............  someone from home..... it was Barry Travis from Root Cellar ... we had a good day.  And then I also ran into Kathleen Shannon also a Root Cellar member ( no picture though-- see pictures from So California Jamboree)

The day ended with a wonderful dinner at Spencer's Fish Grotto just blocks away from the Marina. (I remember coming here too many years ago to even think about and it was just as good then too) I had an excelletn white fish with rice. Oh my goodness it was sooooo good.  And after dinner there was a short presentation "Red Alert, Save Your Family History NOW! by Brenton Simons, NEHGS President and CEO. 

And now how appropriate in the wake of Hurrican Sandy. I hope that their huge building and millions of records survived and their people are OK. My positive thoughts and prayers are with everyone on the east coast..........