Hardly a week goes by when there isn't something good happening in my genealogy world.
On Tuesday, I participated in a chat session on the National Institute Genealogical Studies website. This particular one was for those interested in the Social Networking for the Wise Genealogist which is a free course I'm taking in May. Gena Philibert Ortega moderated the chat session that was attended by 44 people mostly in North America. I say that because I don't know where everyone was from, but those that spoke up were from the US, Gena was in California, Sue de Groot was in Ontario and then there was me in Halifax.
In order to attend the session, I had to download the software for Live Meeting from the NIGS website which went very smoothly. The session was in the middle of the day - luckily it coincided with my lunch break at work. I had my headset with a microphone which was good because I was at work, but if you don't have either of those, you can listen using your computer speakers and you can type questions/answers on the chat board.
It was an interesting experience as attendees provided information about particular websites that would be considered Social Media. Also, one attendee works for FamilySearch and I can see that being important later on.
If you want to check out the NIGS chat sessions which are open to everyone, you can see the schedule by going to the NIGS website , click on Information and then click on Live Meetings.
Then on Thursday, my friend Helen and I travelled to Truro to the Colchester Historical Society Museum and Archives to attend a lecture given by Paul W. Bennett entitled "The Little White Schoolhouse". He talked about the beginnings of one-room schoolhouses in Nova Scotia, how a great deal of the people in the Province were opposed to their children being educated and how certain men persevered to have education standardized in the Province. He has written a book entitled "Vanishing Schools, Threatened Communities: The Contested Schoolhouse in Maritime Canada" (ISBN9781552664018) which will be out in a month or so.
Both Helen and I have teacher ancestors and we both decided we need to find out more about their experiences as teachers and more about the schoolhouses they taught in.
We had a nice drive there and had fish and chips at Murphy's before the lecture. I was tired at work the next day since I didn't get home until about 11:00 - past my bedtime!
Then on Saturday, we had the Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia monthly meeting/lecture. Deborah Trask spoke about gravestones in Nova Scotia and showed us a PowerPoint of photos of examples of the types of stone and the carving she was talking about. Very good talk. There were about 27 people there which is a good number for our society. We had a door prize draw and the president, Allan Marble, presented his suggestions for another of the Brick Wall queries we had received for our September lecture. He has been selecting from those that they weren't able to work on for the September lecture. This particular one was for the surname McDonald which is a very popular name in Nova Scotia. We all enjoy hearing his suggestions as it helps us learn ways to do our own research.
Our next meeting is our Annual General Meeting and it will be held on May 14. Our speakers will be from Antigonish and Kings Counties.
Today, I listed to a bit of the Friday night GeneaBloggers BlogTalkRadio program. It's on from 11:00 to 1:00 Halifax time and I was simply too tire to stay up for it. However, you can find the program in the Archives and listen to it at your leisure.
Tonight, I hope to organize my notes from last week so I can focus on a couple of items to find for my Deal Family research. I have until April 16 to pull something together. So,
Until next time,
Happy Researching!
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