Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 4 May 2016.<\/p>\n
Greetings on Star Wars Day!\u00a0 How appropriate that the start of this year’s NGS Conference is on May 4th (Force) be with you.\u00a0 If you’re following me on Twitter you may have seen my tweet this AM.\u00a0 One of the sound technicians at the conference who\u00a0was working hard to make the sessions available live told me he is really interested in genealogy and was so excited to learn about family history while he did his primary job.\u00a0 When he showed me his travel mug – of Darth Vader with the words “I Am Your Father”- I had to take his picture and send it out into the universe.\u00a0 It was a perfect way to start the day!<\/p>\n
I mentioned in my last blog I didn’t think I was going to be able to write until the weekend after I return home from the conference but I need to share a few events that have me really excited.<\/p>\n
The first was the Board for Certified Genealogists “On the Clock” Dutch Treat Dinner that was held at Bravo Italiano Ristaurante on 17th Street in Ft. Lauderdale Tuesday evening.\u00a0 There were 42 attendees consisting of Certified Genealogists, wanna be’s and family\/friends.\u00a0 Russ and James, the restaurant co-owners, and their staff did a phenomenal job making sure that our party was accommodated.\u00a0 The food and atmosphere was superb!\u00a0 I cannot convey how nice it is to be with a group of people who get excited about that serendipitous\u00a0photo find of Great Aunt Betsy or can relate to the time you slogged through a violent rainstorm only to discover that the rural cemetery is now on private property you can’t access.\u00a0 It was heartwarming!<\/p>\n
I don’t know about you but I’ve not had much luck with connecting hubby’s or my dna that I had done through Ancestry.com.\u00a0 I haven’t had it redone with the new dna kit but with the old one, my closest connection was Marie Antoinette.\u00a0 I’m not making this up.\u00a0 For the record, she didn’t really say “Let them eat cake” but that’s for a different blog.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently others\u00a0have had great match up success.\u00a0 Today, I met 3rd cousins who found each other through Ancestry.com’s match.\u00a0 They had never met in person before today and asked if I would snap a few pictures of them together at the conference.\u00a0 They had a remarkable resemblance!\u00a0 I was honored that they asked me to take their picture of that special meeting.\u00a0 It was like living Long Lost Family in person!<\/p>\n
When the Exhibition Hall opened after the keynote address,\u00a0I never would have guessed what amazing event was in store for me.\u00a0 I was meandering along when I came upon the booth of ArkivDigital<\/a>, a Swedish Genealogical & Historical Research site online.\u00a0 I had used the site once before, when I was in Salt Lake City at the Family History Library last spring. It helped me obtain the Swedish names of my husband’s maternal great grandfather, his first wife and their children.\u00a0 I had tried to find information about the second wife, of whom my husband is descended from but I had no luck.\u00a0 One of the ladies at the table asked me if I had any Swedish research needs and I responded that I had a major brick wall and that I absolutely hate doing Swedish research because I just don’t understand it.\u00a0 She\u00a0laughed and said I should speak with her co-worker who was engaged in a conversation with someone else because Swedish research is not difficult.\u00a0 Yeah, right, I’m thinking.\u00a0 Soon I was introduced to Kathy Meade who recommended I write down any dates I had for the ancestor and she would look them up in her database.\u00a0 Since I was volunteering as a room monitor for the next session I had to run; I told Kathy I’d be back later in the day.\u00a0 The other lady said she was sure that Kathy would resolve my brick wall.<\/p>\n After the next session ended I went online and wrote down what I knew – birth date from the death certificate, marriage date from the marriage license, death date from the death certificate, 1900-1930 census info, a few years of City Directory listings and the cemetery record.\u00a0 The death certificate did not list a maiden name, of course.\u00a0 The marriage record had the name of Johnson but I always figured it was wrong because she married a Johnson.\u00a0 Perhaps instead,\u00a0they were cousins.<\/p>\n I had the place of birth as Sard, Sweden but I’d never been able to find that place name.\u00a0 A colleague told me she thought the place must have existed once in a rural area and was no more.\u00a0 Kathy said she never heard of Sard and thought it might be a mistranslation or misunderstanding by a family member.\u00a0 She recommended focusing just on known dates.\u00a0 Into her database she entered the birthdate and Voila! there shows up the birth record, baptism date, census and parish exit emigration record.\u00a0 I was stunned.\u00a0 The first name wasn’t Louisa, it was Louvisa.\u00a0 The last name wasn’t Johnson, it was Jonnason.\u00a0 The emigration date matched the US census records AND she was from the same area that her future husband was from.\u00a0 More research is needed but it is possible she went to the US because his first wife had died and there was small children left motherless.<\/p>\n Louvisa had worked as a maid in Sweden and her mother had died a few years before she emigrated.\u00a0 She left behind two sisters and her father.\u00a0 Once the shock of the find wore off I started crying.\u00a0 Then I called my husband who told me to stop crying.\u00a0 I then got up and did a happy dance.\u00a0\u00a0I understand that in most public locations people observing\u00a0my behavior would most likely make a judgement that I was mentally ill but at the convention I was soon joined\u00a0by\u00a0other attendees who had overheard what was happening.\u00a0 They\u00a0joined in the fun.\u00a0 I tried to buy Kathy lunch but she said no.\u00a0 Once I get home I’m purchasing the program AND\u00a0taking her 4 Swedish\u00a0research classes on Legacy.\u00a0 I am sincere\u00a0when I say this was worth the entire price of the conference.\u00a0 If you are stumped with your Swedish line I highly recommend checking out ArkivDigital and Kathy’s Legacy classes.\u00a0 Clearly, the Force was with me today at the conference!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 4 May 2016. Greetings on Star Wars Day!\u00a0 How appropriate that the start of this year’s NGS Conference is on May 4th (Force) be with you.\u00a0 If you’re following me on Twitter you may have seen my tweet this AM.\u00a0 One of the sound technicians at the conference who\u00a0was working … Continue reading “News from the National Genealogical Society Conference”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[295,294,226],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","tag-arkivdigital","tag-national-genealogical-society","tag-ngs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}