No Scanfest in May

I'm sorry to report that there will be no Scanfest in May. We normally meet the last Sunday of each month, unless holidays preclude it. Because the last Sunday of this month falls during Memorial Day weekend and many people will be gone or busy, I had planned to move it forward to Sunday, May 20th. However, my paternal grandmother passed away on May 5th and I will be out of town the weekend of May 20th for her memorial in Western Michigan.

We will resume Scanfest in June and will hold it on Sunday, June 24th from 11 AM to 2 PM, PDT.

Thank you for your understanding.

The Clark County (WA) Genealogical Society's Spring Seminar

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of speaking at the Clark County Genealogical Society's Spring Seminar in Vancouver, Washington, just north of Portland, Oregon across the Columbia River. The theme was Frugal Genealogy and I gave four presentations: Frugal Genealogy, or How Not to Spend a Fortune on Your Family Tree; Finding Volunteer & Low-Cost Researchers Online; Finding Vital Records and Obituaries Online; and Finding Your Ancestors in Historical Newspapers. Here are some photos of their library and meeting room at 717 Grand Boulevard, as well as snapshots from the seminar:

Building Front

Meeting Room

Front desk in research library

Research library, view from front

Local history and records

Some of the stacks

More of the stacks

Microfilm collection and reader

Some of the attendees

Calling the group to order

I had an enjoyable time visiting with several members of the society and speaking to their group. I wish I had had the time to do some research at CCGS on my kids' paternal lines, as they settled in the area about a century ago. Perhaps next time...

Some of the links in my Frugal Genealogy syllabus were incorrect, even though I had checked them a week before. There were also some questions about other sites not on my syllabus for which I did some look ups during the lecture. A few members of the audience lent their expertise and recommended some sites as well. I promised the CCGS that I would post these corrected and new links to my blog. Here they are:

FamilySearch Center locations: http://www.familysearch.org/locations

Current newspaper websites: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com

World Ancestry Project (indexing for Ancestry.com): http://landing.ancestry.com/wap/learnmore.aspx

The difference between Ancestry.com's U.S. Deluxe Subscription and their Library Edition: http://tinyurl.com/6plclb6

Free Access to Pay Databases: http://www.familytreemagazine.com/upload/images/PDF/freedatabases.pdf (some info may be outdated on this chart)

Cyndi's List of Free Software: http://www.cyndislist.com/software.htm/free

For copyright questions, check out the Legal Genealogist's blog: http://legalgenealogist.com/blog/

For questions about DNA and genealogy, check out Emily Aulicino's blog: http://genealem-geneticgenealogy.blogspot.com/

PrintKey Freeware, to capture a screenshot of what's on your monitor: http://www.joshmastaaa.net/2010/11/printkey-v30-freeware.html (thanks to Laurie Burgess!)