Southern California Genealogical Society's 2010 Jamboree: Day Three (Saturday)

I missed the first session Saturday morning, as planned, since I figured I would need to take things slowly (I'm not a morning person). Before 10 AM, however, I was ready in Academy Room 4 with Thomas MacEntee, Steve Danko, Elyse Doerflinger, and Randy Seaver, all panelists for "Blogger Summit Part 1: From Novice to Reader to Blogger in Sixty Minutes." We covered What Is a Blog?, How Can I Use a Blog for Genealogy?, Finding Genealogy Blogs, Genealogy Blog Types, Genealogy Blogs as Sources, Easy Ways to Read Genealogy Blogs, and Creating a Genealogy Blog.

Thomas was a great moderator and there was some excellent give and take between the audience and panel. There definitely is an interest in genealogy blogging, and I hope we encouraged others to read and/or write genealogy blogs. In between Part 1 and Part 2, many bloggers took photos of one another and we got several group shots as well. The picture belows shows many, but not all, of the genealogy bloggers in attendance at Jamboree:

Part 2 was also moderated by Thomas, and the panel included Craig Manson, Schelly Talalay Dardashti, Lisa Louise Cooke, and Kathryn Doyle. The topic was "Now That You're a Genealogy Blogger" and covered How to Keep the Blogging Momentum Going, considering having more than one blog, Finding Your Blogging Niche, Your Brand and Your Blog, Copyright and Copy Wrong, SEO - What It Is and Why It Matters, Advertising - What Works and What Doesn't.

It was then time for lunch, and I went to the Daily Grill inside the Marriott with Kathryn Doyle, the footnoteMaven, Denise Levenick, and Denise's mother Suzanne Brown Freeman. There was a long wait to get in, so by the time we were served, ate, and finished up, the first afternoon session was already in progress. We decided to stay for coffee and continued chatting and getting to know one another a little better, talking about all things genealogy and more! We discovered that all of us, sans Suzanne who had left our group a little early, were the eldest of our siblings, and thereby dubbed ourselves the Eldest Lunch Bunch!

I very much wanted to attend "Pennsylvania's Land Records: An Indispensable Resource for Genealogists" by John T. Humphrey, CG, but the room was full and they would not allow anyone to stand in the room due to fire codes. So I retreated to the bloggers' lounge, taking photographs and visiting. Then I went to Thomas MacEntee's "Twitter - It's Not Just 'What I Had for Breakfast' Any More!" While in his class, I tweeted about it (the only one doing so), so it helped to give some live examples to the audience (unintended on my part). In this session, I learned something, too: I discovered TweetDeck, downloaded it to my netbook, and have enjoyed using it very much!

That was the last session of the day, so as I had promised Elyse (who's underage), I celebrated her recent graduation from community college with Shirley Temples outside the exhibitor's hall. Jean Wilcox Hibben and her husband Butch created wonderful entertainment with their guitar and saw, and Thomas and Jean harmonized on some lovely folk songs while many listened or sang along.

For dinner, Elyse, Liz Morgan Hall, and I ran across the street to George's Greek Cuisine for dinner. You gotta love the name Liz picked out for her blog: My Big Fat Cajun/Irish/Scottish/English/German/French/Southern Family Blog! Afterwards, we hung out in the bloggers' lounge once again and took even more photos, which I loaded onto my Facebook profile!

Day One
Day Two - Part I
Day Two - Part II
Day Four
Day Five