Maine Genealogical Society – 2014 Annual Conference

I had the opportunity to attend my first Maine Genealogical
Society (MGS) event last Saturday.  I
joined the MGS about a month after moving to Maine but hadn’t had the
opportunity to attend any of the local events. 
So, I registered to attend the Annual Conference on September 13, 2014 in
Brewer, Maine, as my first event.

I needed to get up early as Brewer is just over two hours
away driving and I wanted to make registration before 8:30 so I wasn’t rushed
for the opening session. I made it there with no problems.  Because it was my first long trip in the new
Jeep, I had the opportunity to try out the Adaptive Cruise Control.  Love it!

After registering, I wandered around the vendor’s area.  Picked up one of the Society’s pins.  You can order them from their website also.  

I was kind of taken aback by the attitude of
a couple of the DAR representatives that were there.  I got the sense that if my wife were to apply
for DAR all the documents and work needed to be done by her and that I couldn’t
do it for her.  Someone, please tell me
I’m wrong in that feeling. I am yet to apply to any lineage society and figured that the DAR, on behalf of my wife, would be one of the first I attempted.  I guess it might be the SAR instead. 

The opening, Keynote address, was by Thomas Jones, PhD,
author of Mastering Genealogical Proof
published by the National Genealogical Society (NGS). I’m a member of the NGS
so I’ve been seeing their promotions for the book and it has been on my list of
“books I’d like to get,” so I purchased a copy at the MGS Annual Conference. 

The keynote address was “Can a Complex Research Problem be
Solved Solely Online?” The bottom line answer is, as you might expect, “Well,
maybe.”  That said, Dr. Jones’ delivery
was excellent.  He was very personable
and very good at his presentation, being engaging, humorous, and clearly
knowledgeable.  He was clear that not
everything can be found on line but in some cases enough might be findable to
answer the question you have.  He had a
number of really good online resources, some of which I didn’t have
before.  I loved the presentation.

After the keynote address, the conference split into two
tracks. I went next door to listen to Nancy Lecompte speak about Genetic
Genealogy.  The conference technical
folks had some problems isolating the speakers that each of the presenters
would be talking only to their room of attendees. They finally got it
straightened out after a few minutes and the presentations began.

Nancy did a very good job with her presentation. In the fast
changing field of genetic genealogy, she appeared to be up to date, which is a
task in itself, and provided a smooth presentation with information that
supported both individuals with both novice and intermediate level understanding of
DNA Testing.  She provided a link to her slides, which is
something I really appreciate because it means I can pay closer attention to
the speaker and not spend as much time taking notes.  Although I did take quite a few notes at her presentation.

After an okay lunch I had a chance to talk with some folks and make a couple friends.  Then the two training tracks started again.
In both of the sessions I attended presentations by Dr. Thomas Jones.  The first was “Debunking Misleading Records.”
He did an excellent job of showing how to detect, compare, and disprove
misleading or erroneous records.  In my
personal practice, I have taken to keeping all records, even if misleading. I
generally then identify one of the same items as “preferred.” If “prove”
something as misleading, I enter a note concerning why the information is in
error and I mark it private so I don’t accidentally share the error with
others.

The last presentation I attended was “Proved? – Five Ways to
Prove Who Your Ancestor Was (Some Reliable and Others Not Reliable).”  As you might expect three of the ways were
unacceptable, one might be close to okay, but really only one was fully
acceptable because it was the only one that met The Genealogical Proof
Standard.  The approach is to weigh
conflicting evidence and resolve the conflicts using the five cornerstones to
“The Genealogical Proof Standard,”

There was a fairly quick wrap up of the day’s activities, a
short business meeting, and drawings for door prizes.  Needless to say, I didn’t win anything, I
never do, but I stayed to the end.

It looks like the next big thing with the MGS is the Southern Maine Genealogy
Conference to be held May 30th, 2015 in Portland.  I’m looking forward to it. I’m also looking
forward to attending some of my local (Greater Portland) chapter’s meetings
over the next few months.