New England Regional Genealogical Conference - Day One

Hi Everyone,

Just a short post to recap the first day of the New England Regional Genealogical Conference. This is my second time at the conference and I really recommend it to anyone interested in genealogy.

The opening session featured D. Josh Taylor of the New England Historic Genealogical Association, and recent "Who Do You Think You Are?" fame. He had some fun stories about Sarah Jessica Parker and Ashley Judd. He spoke about the changing face of genealogical research and genealogists. He mentioned the importance of blogs (yay!), twittering (haven't done that yet), and social networking as ways of communicating. Lots of great stuff!

I then attended a session on graphoanalysis (handwriting analysis) taught by Irene Lambert. This was a tantalizing "tip of the iceberg" look at using handwriting analysis to identify personality traits and how to tell if two different pieces of handwriting were written by the same person. I love the idea of figuring out your ancestor's personality by how they write, but I'm sure there's a lot more education needed than a one hour class to do this justice! (But I am looking at old letters in a new light!)

The second lecture I attended was entitled "French Canadian Pathways" by Patty Vigeant Locke. I signed up for the class because I was hoping to learn about records that might contain some of our Ontario Province and Quebecois Pomeroys. I learned a lot about New England railroad lines and how this effected populations. I now have he URLs of some interesting websites I need to check out.

The last lecture of the day was entitled "The Impact of Bounty Land on Migration Within and Out of New England", taught by Craig Roberts Scott. Craig is a fantastic lecturer, and I wrote three pages of notes in the hour. Lots of interesting Bounty Land facts for not only New England, but the Southern states also. Craig also provided a great history lesson on early colonial and later American wars, and what bounty lands were made available for service in these wars.

I checked out the Society Fair afterwards, and met some great society volunteers, including a woman whose neighbor is a Pomeroy! It's a good thing I brought a lot of business cards! Tomoorow I will be attending five sessions and the Exhibit (Vendor) Hall. That burning smell is my credit card!