Wednesday, February 28, 2007

CVGS Research Group today

We had our monthly Research Group meeting today at the library - 14 people were there. Our usual format is to discuss the news of the month, ask for and discuss research problems that the attendees have, answer research questions, and tell success stories. We did that for the first hour today, with the usual results - lots of discussion and some very useful research tips.

Perhaps the most useful tip was showing how the Family History Library Catalog could be used to find resources that can be rented at the FHC. Another useful tip was that most libraries have an Interlibrary Loan program, but few people are aware of it or use it.

We discussed the content of the Drouin red and blue books (French-Canadian records) and how useful they are. We discussed surname spellings and how thinking creatively can lead to further ancestral lines. A member noted that a mention of one of his surnames at lunch on Monday led another member to offer information on that surname. I described my research on the living relative problem I posted about last week.

The last 45 minutes of the meeting were used to demonstrate a genealogy tutorial web site that is useful for any researcher - beginner or experienced. I'll post about that separately.

Unfortunately, the wireless signal in the library conference room is tenuous - we never had four green bars on the wireless icon, usually it had two red bars. The downloads took so long that we need to rethink doing wireless internet in the conference room. Frustrating, to be sure.

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