My Genealogical Society Annual Conference Experience

Last week, Thursday through Saturday,  I attended the Ohio Genealogical Society's Annual Conference.   After registering at the beginning of the year, when my fall and subsequent broken leg occurred the end of February,  I was not at all sure I would get to attend the conference.  So I was glad when the Dr upgraded my status to weight bearing and my friend Linda agreed to come down from Indiana and be my caregiver for the event.  Although I was able to get around most of the conference on crutches,  it was very helpful to be pushed in a wheel chair to breakfast on Friday morning and to have my breakfast buffet items be carried to the table for me,  along with many other other  things she did to make the event possible for me.  I was not yet driving so even getting to and from the event would have not been possible.  Bruce was also a great help and dropped me off at the conference center and would have picked me up but it just would have been a lot harder without Linda and I would have been limited to the meals offered at the Great Wolf Lodge.  We ended up going out to Ruby Tuesdays for supper Thursday pm and to Perkins Pancake House for breakfast Saturday morning.    Spending most of the time on crutches I was unable to manage the camera I packed but some photos can be viewed on the OGS FB page HERE.   And more about OGS can be found on their website HERE.   I am not, by history,  a joiner.  I work second shift which does not lend itself to attend organization type meetings and I am pretty introverted in general.  But I became interested in a lineage society that honored and maintained memorials for the women who were persecuted early in our country's history as witches called the ADEAW.  Unfortunately, although I tired to get my application completed for their organization,  I lacked documentation for one generation.  But the work I did allowed me to apply to Ohio's First Families lineage society.  So on Friday night at the conference I was inducted into that lineage society.  Here is a picture of Linda and myself at the banquet and induction ceremony Friday night along with a picture of the certificate and pins I was presented with.

I enjoyed the workshops I attended very much.  Even though I was not able to tolerate going to all the workshops available and spent some down time due to my leg,  the ones I went to were very worth while and I am sure the ones I missed were too.  Luckily  outlines of the one's I did not choose are available in the downloadable syllabus with bibliographies so I will be able to review the information at my leisure.  I did not arrive at the conference till Thursday afternoon because I had physical therapy Thursday morning for my leg.  But the first workshop I attended was Land Office Records In Ohio: A Researcher's Guide,  was presented by Thomas J Rieder and was sponsored by the  Ohio History Connection.  During the three o'clock workshop on Thursday I got checked into my handicapped suite at The Great Wolf Lodge and Conference center in Mason Ohio where the OGS conference was taking place.  But at 4:30 pm I was back at it and my workshop was Desperation, Displacement, and Deuteronomy: Colonial Germans,  presented by Sharon Macinnes.   Among other things she explained the push and pull factors of the Pennsylvania Dutch community's immigration to the New World in the 1700s.  On Friday morning at 8:30 am I was enjoying  the presentation: From Deutschland to Ohio:  German Newspapers At the Ohio History Connection by Jenni Salamon.   During the ten am workshops on Friday I chose to visit the exhibit hall and browse though the vender's booths,  following which I got into one of the restaurants at the lodge to beat the crowd and then sat in my room with my leg up and an ice bag for a bit.  At 1:30 pm my workshop was a real treat.  It was entitled Where Does It Say That?  Learn to Love Indirect Evidence and was presented by a very funny and entertaining Chris Staats.   Followed by a 3 pm workshop presented by Elissa Scales Powell called How Did My PA Ancestor Get There?  Migration Trails West.  Then at 4:30 I was back in the audience of Chris Staats for Analysis and Correlation: Two Keys to Sound Conclusions.   Which gave me time for a little ice on my ankle back in the room and to get ready for the banquet where I was inducted into the First Familes of Ohio that I mentioned earlier.   Saturday morning we went out to breakfast and started a little later with the 10 am workshops.  I enjoyed James M Beidler's presentation of Online German Church Registers,  Duplicates and Substitutes.  He also had a booth in the vender area and did a wonderful job both places.   We snuck out to Kohl's during lunch because we had had such a late breakfast but grabbed a DQ before returning to the 1:30 workshop which was by George Morgan and on the topic The U.S. Naturalization Process: 1790 - 1954.   Since we were pretty much exhausted we ended our day with the three pm workshop entitled Colonial Wars to the War of 1812 by Debra Mieszala.   I would have liked to attend the 4:30 pm workshop on Citation for Beginners because I need to improve in that area  but I was just mentally saturated so we headed home.  It was a very worth while event and I encourage others interested in genealogy to attend a conference near them or to even travel to one that is in an area one is researching.  Enjoy the video that follows about genealogy conferences.