All My Ancestors

This past weekend I attended the Land Records and Genealogy Symposium held in Lincoln, Nebraska. This year the event was held at the Southeast Community College Continuing Education Center rather than at the Homestead National Monument in Beatrice where it’s been held in past years.  I was disappointed that the planned evening out to the Monument didn’t gather enough partakers, but maybe another year.

Speakers included Rick and Pamela Boyer Sayre, Greg Boyd of Arphax Publishing, Kenneth Heger from the National Archives, and Justin Schroepfer from Footnote.

Highlights for me included Rick and Pam’s presentation on Google Earth for Genealogists.   I was amazed at what can be done with historical maps, many of which are free at David Rumsey’s site.  The demonstrated historical topo maps that are also available, and Rick showed us a heritage family trip he took to Germany–which was available on a thumb drive for other family members to share.   It included photos of sites visited as well as “flying” us from place to place.  I’ve previously bookmarked some family sites on Google Earth, but using the geo-referenced maps to overlay current pictures was amazing.  I look forward to practicing what the Sayres demonstrated.

Pam and Rick Sayre with their Google Earth for Genealogists presentation

We flew to Germany with Rick.

Greg Boyd, of nearby Norman, Oklahoma, and publisher of those terrific Family Maps of original land owners indexed in the US Bureau of Land Management database, and now some from the Texas General Land Office was another personal highlight.  The first day Greg talked about the process of putting those books together and provided an overview of how to use them.  The second day, however, Greg gave what I considered to be a rather gutsy presentation entitled “More Skeletons Than You Can Count: How to Find Them, and When and How to Let Them Out.”  He used three lines of inquiry: evidence (what evidence is there of a skeleton and how strong is that evidence), lessons (does the skeleton explain other behavior and facts; what lessons exist for future generations), and share-a-bility (IF the skeleton should be shared, with whom and how?).    Additional facets to consider were presented–how to share, whether to leave a written record, when to share, etc., etc.  And then he proceeded  to share 10 of his own family’s skeletons.

Greg Boyd presenting his family skeletons

Believe me when I say that these skeletons went beyond the occasional out-of-wedlock child.  As the member of a family that kept secrets, I really appreciated his approach and encouragement for us to be truth-seekers.  He was not advocating telling the family skeletons just for the sake of sharing them, but to learn lessons from them and to not perpetuate half-truths.  Four generations of alcoholism, for example, adds some urgency to the counseling he does with his own children.

This presentation had a lot of humor but I thought Greg was a brave person to lay out all those stories–when I told him so, he said he does get mixed reviews.  We agreed it was important, however, to acknowledge these sorts of incidents in our families.  Thanks for your good example of bravery, Greg.

I learned more about using Footnote from Justin, who professed to being more than a little nervous about the possibility of tornadoes. He noted that the first thing he saw when he got off the plane was the sign for the tornado shelter.

Justin Schroepfer overcomes his fear of tornadoes to talk to us about Footnote.

Conference personnel swore the next conference (2011) will be back at the Homestead Monument.  I look forward to it!