Have Any Brick Walls?

If you're like me, you've got plenty of genealogical brick walls. I've got them scattered from coast to coast and across the pond. Figuring out how to break through those brick walls is a challenge. That's one reason I advocate for taking advantage of learning opportunities.

The next big learning opportunity is for those of us with brick walls in the mid-Atlantic states. My own mid-Atlantic research list includes Maryland and Virginia, Delaware and the Carolinas. How about you? Can you "relate?"

I'm ready for more education. I'd like to learn more about the ancestors of these two Allen sisters from my favorite North Carolina brick wall.

Mother is a Verb kit by Krystal Hartley for Digital Scrapper, May, 2013

The next National Genealogical Society conference will be in Richmond, Virginia, from May 7-10, 2014. Meeting in Richmond means that the seminars will heavily focus on states and ethnic communities in that area of the United States. So this conference is close and pertinent for me. That doesn't always happen.

How about you? Can you spend a day or more in Richmond to learn from top-notch speakers? How does NGS compare to the cost of CKC or another scrapbooking or crafting opportunity? One day of 5 seminars costs $105-$115. All four days cost $195-$265. That compares to a cost of $25-$30 for each class at CKC.

Of course, you don't get to take home any class projects, but the knowledge and ideas will last a lifetime. There is even one session where we can merge interests: Creating Family History Books Using Digital Scrapbooking.

My top picks this spring include:

• Organizing Your Research without Losing Your Mind
• When the Trail Turns Cold: New Strategies for Old Problems
• In a Rut? 7 Ways to Jump-Start Your Research 
• Where Would You Go If You Had Five Days in Washington, DC? 
• How to Overcome Brick Wall Problems in Pennsylvania German Research 
• Are Those My Early Virginia Ancestors? Spanning Gaps and Developing Theories to Build a Possible Family Structure 
• Three Colonies, One Peninsula: Border Disputes on Colonial Delmarva 
• How German History Makes a Difference in Your Family History Research 
• From the Old Dominion to the Buckeye State 
• The Migration Triangle: Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee 
• Kentucky Land Patents: Mind Bogglers or Treasures? 
• Inheritance Laws and Estate Settlements in the Carolinas 
• Problem Solving in the Problem-Riddled Carolina Backcountry 
• Genetic Genealogy Case Studies: Maximize Use of DNA Test Results 
• From French Towns & Farms to Virginia Plantations: The Huguenots Diversified the Old Dominion's Heritage 
• Colonial Migrations In and Out of the Shenandoah Valley

NGS conference registration opened today. Cheryl and I have our hotel room reserved and our registrations completed. Will you join us in Richmond this May?

What's a Traveler to Do?

I'm home from my genealogy trip to Illinois and Indiana and finally getting back to normal. I had to replace a broken phone and a weary car in the past week, too. Four days of research followed by three days of conference left me overwhelmed with papers and information. Where to start? Day one, I suppose.

A last-minute itinerary change added three research days to the start of the trip, but the first one was Sunday. That got me thinking about how to benefit from field research on a Sunday during a genealogy trip. The courthouse is closed. Many libraries, archives and genealogy societies are also closed on Sunday.

So here are some other ideas:

• Find an ancestral home or farm
• Find an ancestral neighborhood
• Visit a church your ancestors attended
• Eat where the locals eat and start a conversation
• Buy and read the local newspaper
• Visit ancestral cemeteries
• Look in the phone book for relatives and call them
• Check nearby cities for open libraries

Some indirect choices:

• Make Sunday a travel day
• Take care of yourself -- massage, laundry, extra sleep, exercise
• Review and organize files, whether paper or on the computer
• Research on the internet, focusing on the local area
• Be a genealogy angel and take cemetery photos for websites such as FindAGrave

My Sunday turned into a lucky day. I discovered that the St. Louis County Library genealogy department houses the book collection of the National Genealogical Society. Since my new itinerary had me flying into that city on Saturday evening, I delayed my travel to Illinois and spent four hours Sunday afternoon in the library, doing Kentucky research. After closing time, a two-hour drive took me to the next stop in Jacksonville, Illinois.

Oh, yes, I also slept in, went shopping, had Starbucks, organized thoughts, and even did a little laundry. It was a pleasant Sunday, indeed.