Follow Up on Saturday's FHC Fair in Escondido, CA

Saturday has come and about gone. Had a super day in Escondido at the Family History Fair. The weather was kind and no rain going north but a few gully washers on the way home.

Shared the booth early with Gary, our President and met some nice people. I then toured the area meeting more interesting people and scanned the talks about to be presented.

Wow, Sons of Norway was there interesting to see, many of the normal service organizations were there in attendance. Many of the Societies that reside in San Diego County were there. It was good to see the Hispanic Group in attendance. Of course, we missed the German Research Group that passed away last December.

We hope all had a great time and learned a lot. Ruth was there with a clip about the bloggers and things our society is doing. John had the area set up and Randy had the computer plugged in showing our society data to all who wanted to look. Some of our new members came along and we also got to see Connie whom moved to Escondido last year. Connie it was a real treat and we miss you.

Starting the events was David Rencher, I liked his clean speaking and easy to understand presentation. I will say that the sound system was so we could hear the
presenters and actually enjoy the event with out straining to hear the speakers.
Thanks FHC presenters for that.


Jeane Isreal and I attended the talk given by Daniel Bartosz on "Tracing Your
American Indian Roots" both presentation 1 and 2. It was a great duel presentation by a very knowledge person on Indian heritage and history. His maps were excellent and requested by all. He did tell us where he found them. I liked that his sources were
sited in the Syllabus. He also shared some links and much Indian History data on migration and displacement and inner marriages, wars. food raised, census data and much more.

It was amazing to hear, but not shocking to learn that there were 55 Million to 100 Million Indians in the America's pre European Invasion time. Some thing I had heard
in family he confirmed that the Scotch Irish were the early trappers and traders and intermarried with the Indians. Mr Bartosz, Thanks for all the work you do to bring us this great information.


After his talk we had lunch, a very nice sandwich and fruit and dessert, w water to drink. There was enough time to relax and eat and share with friends what we had heard and where we were headed next. Everyone seemed to really like the talks that they had attended. I then headed off to hear Barbara Renick.

Barbara Renick presented a talk on (5 C's to Success in Genealogy Today). As always I love to hear Barbara's information. I always learn tips and hints and ideas. She in the end shared a matra she learned from another on how to remember to site the source before you get excited and forget to note it.

She showed how to use the five C's with a synopsis of a problem that she had solved.
Presentation was clean and clear and refreshingly presented as always. I found it very interesting because some of those names run in my files and in near same and same places. Alas with only five hours sleep and right after lunch my eyes did not want to stay awake so I did not always appear as alert as I should have. I apologize for that.

One always learns many ideas and suggestions when we listen to Barbara speak.
I loved her statement "NOT sharing is NOT an option or your life's work dies with you!"
I grasped her 9 mile radius for research because someone else I enjoy listening to speak used to say go 50 miles from center around. This is closer in and easily understood. The graphic lay of land and streams and rills and mountains make the terrain and different distance for many areas. Flat land like Ohio etc Nebraska you can go farther than steep terrain.

Barbara it was excellent as always. Thanks so very much, for your time and hard work by sharing with us.

Then it was time to walk, get oxygen in the lungs and blood to circulating to stay awake and enjoy the knowledge of Jean Hibben's. I wanted to stay for the newspaper talk but also thought Jean may be able to share some new thoughts for research and so
I then attended her talk on "Deduction v Induction in Genealogical Research: Applying Logic Theory to Family History".

Jean is always presenting data in a fun and educational serious way.
Her presentation was around "Family Historians need to be: Critical Thinkers, Analysts and Investigators."

The discussion of jumping to conclusions and being tempted to use current data with out proof is dominate. She states just because it is written does not make it fact.
She also showed how sometimes with it not written it can still become fact.

She made one aware of the arguing for and against an item of knowledge which will either prove it belongs or prove it may not yet belong and or may never belong.
Time sometimes is the key to how much you learn to what the answer may be and time can in some cases change the answer that you have already acquired.

This talk reminded me of a item someone once said and I can not remember who but:
to learn if it is yours or not is still learning, whether it is negative or positive you still have moved one step closer to the answer.

Great presentation as always, pulling in the audience and making the concept real.

I stayed here also with Virginia and Gary and listened then to her on the topic of
"This is not your Grandma's Genealogy: Making the Move from Paper to Electronic
Record Keeping."

Her comments on the old computers we worked in and the computers of today we work on was fun. Her relationship with her husband has to be awesome. YUP, He plays the saw and he wasn't even there today.

She talked of the advantages of using a program in our research verses paper and pen.
The ease of adding or subtracting is quicker and cleaner than days of our parents.
One can send and receive data and share pictures and information at a quicker pace than a letter in the days of old. Information can be input by the click of a button or stroke of the key to your program.

One item she used I had used but not like she did was an eye opener to me.
She took the report and colored in the names with out data so you could see the
areas that data was still missing easily. That chart just popped right out at me.

She talked about the costs of computers and computer type hardware. She mentioned size and space and ease of seeing and to small to see. :>) She mentioned many of the new forms of gathering information with from hand held devices to large desk top units that are much harder to move around. She mentioned the cost of computers going down over the years with the size of memory and program expanding to a much larger size.

One has to remember it is the add ons that run the price of a computer up. Her suggestions on window shopping and price comparison was good. Now to find if they have a computer fair like Los Angeles in this area...mmmmmmm.

She mentioned that computers do have drawbacks such as a "CRASH". I can attest one only needs one of those to become a back up believer. She uses two back up systems. and some times more.

She talked about scanners, the types and what is best for genealogy, yes a flat bed, but then she mentions that a digital camera can replace all that. Maybe so but I have both so does she. She just wanted to show that either will work to help you get up and running in genealogy.

She talked about megapixels in Cameras for the quality of picture how much is best for different activities. She talked of printers and cell phones and Ipods and jumpdrives, memory sticks, Compact discs, and PDA devices.

A great fun talk with reality interjected. Jean I so enjoy your talks. Thanks for the work you do to bring us this information.

Thanks to the LDS Stake for putting on this great show. I filled out my report and somehow came all the way home with it. Thanks to everyone for a very informative day.