Nine Things I Learned at the Bruce-Grey Branch Fall Event

Each year for many years as I can remember, the Bruce-Grey Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society has held a day of presentations on a Saturday in the fall. Yesterday, the branch held this event at Grey Roots Museum and Archives  near Owen Sound.

Yesterday, we had two speakers: Mike Quakenbush and Steve Fulton. Both gave two fantastic, informative presentations. In each, I learned something new or got an idea of something I could do. I am sharing two things I learned from each presentation.

Social Media - making connections for genealogy - Mike [I didn't write down exact title. Mike pitched in for the first time slot as our original speaker on a different topic wasn't able to be there.]

1. Pages can be promoted on Facebook. You pay a fee but can target a particular demographic if you wish.  Groups can not be promoted but you can invite others to join.
2. Twitter can be a way of sharing information and sometimes making requests. Mike gave several examples of "gatherings" related to genealogy: #Acom, #GenChat and #Ancestryhour. [I am not on Twitter. I don't have a smart phone but Mike showed how having a folder on the taskbar of Chrome you can easily access different social platforms].

Getting Started with Digital Publishing From Book to Blog - Mike
3. You can password protect an individual blog post in WordPress but Google can still find them. You can add a request button to your menu where you can have a form where the person explains why they would like to see the page.
4. Having share buttons at the end of each post makes it easy to share your posts. [I have to figure out which plugin I would use. To share with pages on Facebook, it has to been one where I am an admin.]

Cemeteries that Sing - Steve
As a graveyard rabbit and also because I am giving a talk on Grey County cemeteries in November, I was interested in hearing this presentation.
5. When dowsing in a cemetery, Steve always does the width first then the length. This will help in finding where the monument is likely situated. In a Christian cemetery this should be on the west end of the plot. Steve demonstrated the technique using wire clothes hangers cut to make the tool.
6. With difficult to read monuments, take digital photos. Then with the windows paint program or equivalent use the red pencil tool and trace the lettering to help with making out the words.

Technology Overload: Let's Get Back to the Basics and Advance our Genealogy - Steve
7. Plan what will happen after your death with your research. This includes a "will" for your online existence. Make sure someone knows how to access it.
8. You can overlay the 1880 Ontario County maps over Google maps.

9. I would attend future workshops by both of these speakers as I enjoyed their presentation style as well as the information they provided.

© 2015 Janet Iles

Technology

Well, I think I am like many people when I think that technology can be a mixed blessing. I could not live without a microwave to re-heat previously cooked food or to "bake" a potato. I do not understand how a television, radio, telephone and the Internet work, but I am thankful to have them to use on a daily basis.

Computers and software can be annoying at times. They can be time wasters. They don't always behave the way you want them to behave or the way they should behave, but we have got so used to having them that we feel lost when we don't have electricity or we have lost our telephone connection during a storm.

When I was working on putting the material for my book, Churches of Grey Presbytery of the United Church of Canada: Historical Highlights, in to the software used by the printer for publishing, I had some trying moments. I was cutting and pasting from one program to another. All went reasonably well until I needed to insert information about a Church between two others and there was not enough space. Some ended into what I began to call la-la land. When I discovered "design check" and put it to work it indicated information in "overflow". Some times my mouse would accidently drag pages out of order. [Okay, it was me that was controlling the mouse.] If I realized it immediately, Ctr-Z righted the wrong. Thankfully, I did work things out in the end and everything appeared in the correct order for the finished project. All previous experience with the program had been with documents less than 8 pages. In the end it was 130 pages long with illustrations and maps inserted. I used the Internet, e-mail, photoediting software, two different word processors, an indexing program and the publishing program to complete the book. I can not imagine doing the book without the technology I have readily available in my office.

When I research, in addition to print resources, I use a variety of technologies from microfilm and microfiche to various resources provided by the World Wide Web, but I will leave that topic for another day.