Transitions

Readers of LongLostRelatives.net may have noticed my conspicuous absence from the blogging world the last few months, even though I've continued to remain active on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

But I'm getting back in the swing again after some life interruptions and just being very busy!

I've written before about being my father's caregiver for the last few years. Dad had a stroke in October and I took several weeks off work to aid in his recovery. Fortunately, he had no paralysis, but he has aphasia, the inability to always be able to say the words he wants to say. His speech is gradually coming back and we actually were able to have a fairly lengthy conversation last evening and most of the desired words were there.

His loss of communication skills hit the genealogist in me very hard. I've been with him for eight years and clearly, I took our daily interaction and his stories about his life for granted. I've made a few recordings of his reminiscences, but I guess I always thought I would have more time to do that. As he lay in the hospital, unable to find the most basic words to convey his needs, I began to grieve the loss of the stories I might never hear again.

My advice to all my fellow family historians: record and document those stories NOW - before it's too late. We are all living on borrowed time, so capture the memories while you can.

I'm happy to report that Dad has eased back into his daily routine and we are returning to the life that is "normal" for us.

During the time I was off work, I had plenty of time to contemplate my own life, what I want to do with the rest of it and easily made the decision to give up my day job after 40 years of public service with the state of Nebraska. Since I've made it official, I can now share that information. My last day of work will be January 31, 2013. To say that I'm giddy about being able to devote more time to family history, genealogy speaking and writing is an understatement. I'm really going to be able to live my dream and do what is best for Dad and me. I think he is even more excited than I am!

The "busy" part is due to having been elected to the board of directors of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society in August. This is a very exciting time for our society as we branch out with our weekly education activities and special interest groups, in addition to our monthly programs. We have some very exciting programs and events in the works for 2013. We will be finalizing those plans at a committee meeting this Sunday. It has also been fun to gear up our online presence with our Facebook page, Twitter feed and blog. Al Harlow, our webmaster, does a great job with the LLCGS web site - and all of our online activities feed into one another. We sponsored a fall conference featuring Hank Jones, Jr. in October. He's one of the best!

In October, I was guest speaker at the Wymore Public Library in Wymore, Nebraska. My talk was sponsored by the Friends of the Wymore Library. I had a great time - many thanks to Jan and Janet for making that possible.

Thanks to the readers of LongLostRelatives.net for your continued and ongoing support. I'm looking forward to a fun and exciting 2013! And more frequent blogging!

Upcoming Genealogy Events in Nebraska

Upcoming genealogy events in Nebraska. If you have an event to add, please email me at sooznebr@gmail.com

Date & Location	Description
December 2, 2012 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Walt Branch Library 6701 South 14th St Lincoln, NE	LLCGS – Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society - Planning Programs for 2013 Join the Program and Education Committees to make plans and scheduling events for 2013. Facilitated by Phyllis Ericson, program chair.
December 5, 2012 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Nebraska Methodist College 720 N. 87th, 3rd floor Omaha, NE	GOGS – Greater Omaha Genealogical Society Dennis Kingery will present “Searching for Grundsheim: Finding Family in Germany.” He will discuss his research trip to Germany, preparation, how he organized the trip.
December 6, 2012 1:00 p.m. St. Paul United Methodist Church 12th and M Streets Lincoln, NE	LLCGS – Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society - Discussion Group led by Bob Houser Theme: discovering holiday traditions of our ancestors.
December 7, 2012 7:00 p.m. LDS Family History Center 11027 Martha St Omaha, NE	GO-PAF meeting
December 9, 2012 Ethnic Holiday Traditions 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Walt Branch Library 6701 Normal Blvd Lincoln, NE	LLCGS – – Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society - Ethnic Fair with foods, traditions, music, languages and shared advice about researching our specific regions. Get out your favorite recipes, music, crafts, maps and other memorabilia representative of our varied cultures.
December 11, 2012 7:00 p.m. Fellowship Hall Eastridge Presbyterian Church 1135 Eastridge Dr Lincoln, NE	LLCGS – – Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society - Monthly meeting and Program Celebrating our Ethnic Heritage and Traditions
December 12, 2012 6:30 p.m. Valentino’s 102nd and Maple Omaha, NE	GOGS – Greater Omaha Genealogical Society Christmas Party
December 19, 2012 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Great Room Chatelaine 6201 Normal Blvd Lincoln, NE	LLCGS Discussion Group led by Lila Garner
2013
January 19, 2013 9:15 a.m. – Noon Mormon Trail Center 3215 State St Omaha, NE	GOGS – Greater Omaha Genealogical Society Tell Me About My Family – Getting Started with Family History.
February 16, 2013 9:15 a.m. – Noon Mormon Trail Center 3215 State St Omaha, NE	GOGS – Greater Omaha Genealogical Society Part I: Vital Records of Their Lives – Birth, Marriage and Death Records; Part II: Substitutes for Vital Records
March 16, 2013 9:15 a.m. – Noon Mormon Trail Center 3215 State St Omaha, NE	GOGS – Greater Omaha Genealogical Society Making Sense of the Census – Using U.S. and International Censuses
April 20, 2013 9:15 a.m. – Noon Mormon Trail Center 3215 State St Omaha, NE	GOGS – Greater Omaha Genealogical Society Part I: Searching the World’s Records – using Family History centers; Part II: The Name Game – Learn Tips to Help with Your Family History Search
May 18, 2013 9:15 a.m. – Noon Mormon Trail Center 3215 State St Omaha, NE	GOGS – Greater Omaha Genealogical Society Part I: Where’s the Dirt? Overview of Land Records Part II: What’s Black and White and Read All Over: Newspaper research
June 15, 2013 9:15 a.m. – Noon Mormon Trail Center 3215 State St Omaha, NE	GOGS – Greater Omaha Genealogical Society Part I: Genealogy Problem Solving Part II: Internet Genealogy
	List compiled and maintained by Susan Petersen, LongLostRelatives.net. To add or update your listing, please email me sooznebr@gmail.com

Midwest Family History Expo - Day 2

The second day of the Midwest Family History Expo in Kearney, Nebraska was less hectic and more relaxing for me. My first stop was the conference bookstore. I wasn't the least bit surprised to see Ruby Coleman and Robbi Ryan there. You always know where you can find fellow book people in between sessions!

Ruby Coleman
Nebraska Genealogist of the Year

I opted to attend Ruby's class on Nebraska: A Research Journey. Each time I hear Ruby speak, my admiration for her knowledge grows and grows.If you are doing any kind of research in Nebraska, you must have Ruby's book, Genealogical Research in Nebraska. I thought I knew quite a bit about Nebraska, but clearly, after listening to Ruby, I need to dig out a few more history books and do some more cramming! I did not know that Nebraska towns going west were named in alphabetical order as the railroad moved west. How did this significant piece of information escape me all these years?!?! And my ancestors were railroad contractors in this state!

My only choice for the next session was about Ancestry.com for advanced users. This room was already overflowing with standing room only as soon as the previous session was over. The syllabus materials were extensive, so I figured I could wing that on my own and opted for a leisurely solo lunch when I was able to get caught up a bit on reading the genealogy blogs.

Not wanting to get aced out for a seat in my next session by James Tanner, Getting Started with Heritage Quest Online, I arrived early. This room was nearly full and James was explaining and demonstrating FamilySearch. Interesting because the topic for the earlier presentation was blogging! People went and got their lunch and brought it back to the meeting room to soak up his knowledge. This is a man who gives and gives and gives. He gives the people what they want and he was willing to keep talking and demonstrating as long as people wanted to listen. He kept speaking through the entire lunch break!

I had used Heritage Quest sporadically in the past, but after learning more about it from James, I'm willing to go back and give it another shot. This resource is available via most libraries with your library card. For Nebraskans, you can access this resource with your driver's license number on the NebraskaAccess government web site.

James' next session was about cloud computing. I was glad that he mentioned that it would not be a "how to" of Dropbox, Evernote and Skype, but more of an overview of how to use the cloud for genealogy.

That was the sign for me to call it a day and begin the trip back to Lincoln. I already was on information overload about all of the new resources I want to check in to. I'd already touched based with the friends I've made from previous conferences and our social networking online. I was perfectly satisfied with my conference experience.

And the good news is that Family History Expos will be coming back to Kearney in 2013. So mark the weekend after Labor Day on your calendar and plan to attend.

The link for this post is http://longlostrelatives-smp.blogspot.com/2012/09/midwest-family-history-expo-day-2.html

Midwest Family History Expo - Day 1

Family History Expos brought its Midwest conference to Kearney, Nebraska for the first time this weekend. Did you know that Kearney is smack dab in the middle of the United States? It's half way between the East and West coasts of our country. Perhaps that's why I find it amusing when people refer to Ohio as being in the Midwest!

About 300 people are attending the Expo. They came not only from Nebraska, but Kansas, Iowa, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah and many other states. Now that I've attended several local, state and regional conferences, it's fun to recognize people and meet up with my genealogy friends.

Nebraska's own Ruby Coleman kicked off the event with a heartwarming keynote. If you didn't know Ruby before, you got to know her well during her talk. I can now say I know someone who has waded through a pig sty and an old outhouse in search of family history. Ruby admitted she's willing to get down and dirty in search of her ancestors!

On Friday, I attended a session on Irish research. I realized I had attended this session in Kansas City two years ago. Clearly, I needed the refresher course as there were many web sites presented that I need to revisit.

Ruby gave a wonderful talk on death records with a lot of tips I hadn't considered. Have you ever thought about tracking down pallbearers to interview them about your ancestor?

I knew that I wanted to get to at least a couple of James Tanner's sessions. He is the author of the Genealogy's Star blog. The blog is aptly named as James is truly a genealogy star! His talk on archives and repositories was very helpful as he shared web sites and demonstrated how to find the buried treasures that won't come up in a Google search.

It was great fun to meet up with my genealogy friends from Lincoln and Omaha, and get to meet several new people who I hope to get to know better. We sat there with our smartphones friending one another on Facebook!

I also had fun tweeting highlights of the sessions I attended and following the speaker notes in the syllabus I had previously downloaded to my Kindle Fire. That made it easy to view and bookmark the web sites the speakers were talking about.

I saw a lot more laptops and computers in the audience being used for note taking than I had seen in the past. It's clear that technology plays a vital role in today's genealogy conferences.

This is the first time I've used my iPhone to compose a blog post, so once I'm back on a computer, I'll add some hyperlinks to this content. For now, I'm getting ready for another full day of learning.

The link to this post is http://longlostrelatives-smp.blogspot.com/2012/09/midwest-family-history-expo-day-1.html

Coming Around Full Circle

My first blog post on LongLostRelatives.net was on Sunday, December 13, 2009. I had written blogs before and knew of their ability to show up in online search results. That is the reason I started the blog - because I wanted to see if some long lost relatives might find the blog and be able to provide some missing information for my family tree.

That first blog post was titled Obituary for Evelyn Gibbons of Atlantic, Iowa. She was the former Evelyn Bellinger, daughter of Henry Bellinger and Alvena Johansen. She was my mother's first cousin. I had found a listing in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) for Evelyn Gibbons, but I wanted to confirm that this was the same person as my family member. An obituary was needed.

In March of 2011, her great granddaughter discovered the blog post and left a message confirming some information. The obituary, however, was still elusive.

Until yesterday.

I was at the Omaha Public Library yesterday for a talk by my friend, Gail Blankenau, and had planned a few lookups to do in the Genealogy Room on the third floor of the W. Dale Clark Library. I grabbed the "Gi -" card catalog of Omaha area obituaries and there it was - Evelyn's obituary - at long last.

Evelyn Bellinger Gibbons' Obituary
Omaha World Herald
March 27, 1995
Omaha Public Library

I snapped a photograph of the obituary, then used an iPhone app called Genius Scan, to create the following image:

Evelyn's obituary as seen by Genius Scan

The card catalog also had obituaries for Evelyn's two sons, John and Bernie Lee. I had previously discovered the obituary for her husband, Clifton.

At last, there is some closure to my very first blog post.

The link to this post is http://longlostrelatives-smp.blogspot.com/2012/08/coming-around-full-circle.html