The National Genealogical Society celebrated their 100th year at the convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2003. Ritchey and I attended – our very first national convention. It was so exciting during the preparation. I pored over the program, trying to choose just the right lectures to attend. There were four day, 32 choices per day, roughly, and eight time slots per day. It’s been awhile so I can’t remember exactly, but from approximately 8:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m. we attended hour-long classes. The first day Ritchey and I went to the same ones – I wasn’t sure just how interested he would be, and he had not researched on his own – only with me. He decided that first evening that the rest of the time we should go to different lectures so we would learn twice as much! He was as hooked as I!
There were so many great presenters and so many very good lecturers. Some of the most interesting were ‘Off the Beaten Path: Unusual Sources for Research’, ‘Buried Treasure: Lost in Print’, ‘Finding Wives’ and Daughters’ Names: Pre-1850 Sources for Women’. And there was one lecturer that gave an age chart to use with the early federal censuses that I still use!
In addition to the lecture series, there were so many interesting people to meet. There was a vendor area, of course. I met Cyndi Howell of Cyndi’s List – a wonderful on-line genealogy help that gives pretty much any genealogy website there is to look at! I bought several genealogy programs while there. One was AniMap – a county boundary historical atlas. It shows the states and what counties there were for different years – and tells when a county was formed out of another county or counties. There were multiple book vendors – and I bought several – especially of the Maryland and Virginia early counties.
It was so interesting listening to others that attended the conference tell their story of why they were interested in genealogy and how far along with their research they were at that point. The evenings were full of fun conversations and good times!
One night we boarded steamboat and traveled on the three rivers that converge on Pittsburgh – the Ohio River, the Monongahela River and the Allegheny River. We had a great view of the skyline of the city and a lovely meal.
The 2012 National Genealogical Conference will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 9th-12th – just a hop, skip and a jump from Harrodsburg! I’m sure we will attend and encourage anyone who loves genealogy to attend as well!
Categories: Genealogy Ramblings
