Sunday, June 7, 2015

Day 3 Activities at Jamboree

Day 3 at the SCGS Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank was similar to the other days - eat, talk, laugh, roam the Exhibit Hall and attend presentations.  Not even in that order.  Since this was the last day, we came home on the train tonight.

*  Got the Jamboree blog compendium updated and the Ancestry post updated, and the suitcase packed, before we went down at 7:30 a.m. for breakfast in the Blogger Lounge.

*  The first presentation of the day for me was by Ron Arons titled "What's In A Name?  Trouble!"  Yep, it was.  Ron's great-grandfather, Isaac Speir/Spier/Spear/S-unpronouncable-zek, was a bit of a rogue.  He went to Sing Sing and started Ron's career in criminal genealogy.  This was fascinating to see how Ron uncovered the life of this man, and disproved others of the same name.  If you have a chance, see this talk.

*  Wandered in the Exhibit Hall for awhile, then saw the middle 40 minutes of Crista Cowan's Getting Even More Out Of Your Ancestry.com Subscription."  This was pretty interesting and funny - Crista gave a running account of her thought process when faced with a million search results.  She also described how Hints are generated from the top 10% of all Ancestry databases (about two thirds of all records), and Suggested Records are generated by records attached to Ancestry Member Trees for the target person.

*  Had lunch with Bethel and Tim, then went up to the room and got the suitcase and laptop and checked them with the concierge.  Found Linda in the pool and encouraged her to get a turkey sandwich for dinner on the train.


*  Witnessed the "Dress Like an Ancestor" contest at 12 noon - Linda Okazaki and Jane Rollins were the winners.  Checked the prize winners board - no success.  Wandered the Exhibit Hall and had a nice conversation with Alice Kane of NEHGS.  Watched a bit of Lisa Louise Cooke's mapping presentation too.

*  Decided to attend a talk at 1 p.m. so went to hear Janet Hovorka on "Family Links: Easy Interactive Online Activities."  This was a review of many social media websites and how we can expose our family members to genealogy content.

*  At 2 p.m., I found Linda in the pool talking to Gloria, and then I went to get my Subway sandwich for the train trip home, and a Dr. Pepper at McDonalds for Linda.  I jaywalked across Hollywood Way as a shortcut.  I even treated myself to a dipped cone at McDonalds - don't tell anyone!  I got back in time to see Matthew Hovorka's talk on "Get to Know Your Geezers."  Matt is age 16 but had a number of young folks in the audience to watch his presentation and videos.

*  At 3 p.m., I retrieved Linda from the pool to change, and we sat at the Blogger's Table and chatted.  Alice Kane, Elyse Doerflinger, Drew Smith, Kim Cotton, Dave McDonald and Cyndi Ingle were there.  I got to meet Colleen Greene also.  Then Elyse, Linda and I packed our stuff over to the concierge and we took the shuttle to the train station.

*  The train came on time at 4:22 p.m., but had to go slow to downtown L.A. because of track issues.  Then the ride to San Diego out of L.A. was on time, even though it was a rough ride at times.  I dozed a bit, and read my book.  We ate our sandwiches and arrived in San Diego at 8:07 p.m. right on time.  John picked us up and whisked us home.  We unpacked and I got the computer going and wrote this post.

So how did I do with my goal of 50% attendance at presentations?  There were 14 time slots for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and I think I attended eight presentations.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/06/day-3-activities-at-jamboree.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

4 comments:

Colleen G. Brown Pasquale said...

Wow. Sounds like you could use a day of rest after all of that activity.

Unknown said...

Great fun to see you, Randy!

Unknown said...

Great fun to see you, Randy!

Janet Hovorka said...

Thanks for coming to our presentations Randy. It was great to have you there.