Wednesday, February 5, 2014

RootsTech 2014 - Day 1 - I Went to the Library!

This was the first day of RootsTech 2014 - the Innovator Summit (which used to be the Developer's conference).  I didn't attend because I had planned to go to the FamilySearch Library for the day.  James Tanner has written extensively about the Innovator Summit presentations he attended on his Genealogy's Star blog.

I spent 9 hours at the FamilySearch Library today - mostly working with microfilmed records.  Here are some of the things I found:

1)  Louisa County, Iowa deeds for my Henry Carringer (1800-1879) and David J. Carringer (`1827-1902).  After searching the Grantee and Grantor indexes, I found six deeds for them that document their buying and selling in the 1862-1882 time frame.  I just took photos of these with my iPhone.

2)  Norfolk County, Ontario probate records for my Kemp and Sovereen families in the 1840 to 1902.  There were no entries for my Putman or Hutchinson families in the index, and no records after 1902.  I took photos and used the microfilm scanner to save images to my USB drive.

3)  Taylor County, Iowa deeds for my Devier J. Smith and Ranslow Smith families.  I found 28 deeds for those two guys in the 1868-1874 time frame.  Now I know why Devier said he was a "speculator."  I just took photos of these with my iPhone.  Here is one of the photos I took:



4)  Hilperton, Wiltshire parish registers.  Managed to find 5 records in the Bishops Transcripts, but not my great-grandfather's baptism record.  Really struggled to read the films because they needed high magnification and the reader would only go so big (even with help from the staff - yes, I asked for help, will wonders never cease?).  I just used the microfilm scanner to save the images to my USB drive.  Here is one of the images I saved:



5)  South Petherton, Somerset parish registers.  Managed to find 5 records here also, and reading the registers was still a challenge.  Then there was the microfilm scanner problem - the one I had wouldn't work properly, so I changed seats after awhile.  Then the images weren't on my USB drive, but reader Jan Brandt was sitting next to me and found them hiding somewhere on the computer.  They got transferred to the /USB drive.  Whew!

6)  I had only 30 minutes to look into the East Jersey Land Record abstracts on the shelf (974.9 R2h (10 volumes).  Only looked for the Kent surname in Volumes 1-3 before time ran out on me.

I talked for awhile to Judy Russell and Russ Worthington, and several readers, but saw very few geneabloggers there today.

I got back to the Hilton Hotel at about 5 p.m., after getting my registration packet on the way, and read my email and 200 blog posts, with about 100 remaining.  Linda and I left at 6:15 for the Salt Palace and the Media dinner sponsored by FamilySearch.  I'll report on that tomorrow, or maybe others will.

Tomorrow is the first day of the RootsTech 2014 exhibit hall, and I'll be in the Media Center for most of the time, or walking around the significantly larger exhibit hall.

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Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver




1 comment:

Laila N. Christiansen said...

I was shocked to see how few people were in the Library when I came in there around 5.30 pm, All the big tables were vacant, and lots of the computers and microfilm-readers.

Assuming the rest of the weekend will be a different story...