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Permian Basin Genealogical Society Fall
Workshop
September 20, 2008
Saturday
8:00AM - 4:00PM
First United Methodist Church, Fay Rodman Hall
217 West 5th Street (behind the Church)
$25.00 Pre-Register by 9/15/08 for lunch count. $30.00 at door.
8:00 to 9:00 AM for Registration and Hospitality
9:00 AM Introduction by Barbara Wilson, President.
Speaker: Curt B. Witcher
Charting our Progress
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SELECTED LECTURE TOPICS -- CURT B. WITCHER
Historical
Research Methodology: Engaging
the Process to Find all the Answers
Many
genealogists miss opportunities to find consequential documents for
advancing their research because they do not follow a standard research
methodology, namely the “historical research methodology.”
Special care is given in this lecture to emphasize the importance
of some rather fundamental basics which, when used together, make for a
powerful data-gathering methodology:
(1) working from present to past, from known to unknown; (2)
documenting everything that is recorded, always looking for particular facts or
pieces of data to reveal or uncover yet more information; (3) using the
yardstick of “researching as broad as one researches deep,” i.e.
using geographic contexts to open doors to migration and settlement
groups, ethnic churches, cemeteries, and limited edition publications;
and (4) placing one’s genealogical research in the proper historical
context to maximize one’s record-gathering potential.
An
Ancestor's Death -- A
Time for Reaping.
While
certainly not in evidence from the title, this is a fairly “light”
lecture that focuses on challenging the true genealogical researcher to
use the death event in an ancestor’s life as the gathering point for
many useful and genealogically significant documents.
Typically, no other time in our ancestors’ lives is the record
creation potential as high as it is at their deaths.
This talk, complemented with many record examples, spotlights
numerous “happenings” surrounding an individual’s death that can
generate records.
12:00
Lunch Break
Using
Military Records for Genealogical Research
This
particular lecture is an in-depth look at military records, from the
earliest times of our country’s history to the present day.
Discussed are the five major types of military records; where one
can find such documents; a look at typical data found in sample records;
and a detailing of what one might call other “minor” military
records. It is good either
as a beginning or intermediate lecture as the basics are covered along
with strategies for getting the most from the information given in
military records.
les of these types of records are used in this presentation.
This talk may be crafted as a beginning/introductory talk about
census records or as a more advanced lecture in how to use all available
federal, state and local schedules, not just the population schedules,
and how to use census records to locate other sources of data.
More
Than Surname Surfing: Best Practices for Using the Internet for
Genealogists
This
presentation takes an active look at what types of information are
currently available for genealogists on the Internet and how to go about
methodically accessing that data. It
is aimed at the beginning to intermediate surfer and is intended to get
one beyond just searching large surname databases.
The talk focuses on (1) what resources are available
electronically, (2) how to access these resources, (3) a bit on how
Internet search engines work and what genealogists can expect from them,
and (4) identifying some good sites to use as jumping-off points in
maximizing the Internet for genealogical use.
To
Pre Register (no later than 9/15/08)
Mail Check to:
Carolyn Johnson,
1706 East 21 Street
Odessa, TX 79761
Genealogy Books for Sale by Bob & Pat Gordon (Fort Worth)
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Curt
Bryan Witcher’s Biographical Data
Curt B. Witcher is the Manager for
The Genealogy Center of the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne,
IN where he has worked for more than twenty-nine years.
He also serves as general curator for that institution’s Rare
and Fine Book Collection. He
received his B.A. in history and English, and his M.L.S. in Library and
Information Science from Indiana University.
Curt is a member of the Genealogy
Committee of the American Library Association, a past chair of the
association’s History Section, the convener of the association’s
Genealogy and Local History Discussion Forum, and a participant in other
genealogical and historical committees of that organization.
He is a former president of both the Federation of Genealogical
Societies and the National Genealogical Society.
He is the founding president of the Indiana Genealogical Society
and has memberships in a number of historical and genealogical
organizations in the state and country.
Curt participated for more than a
decade in Indiana University's Continuing Education Program as an
adjunct professor, teaching courses on beginning genealogical research. He is the coeditor of the 1987 through 2008 editions of the Periodical
Source Index, the largest and most comprehensive subject index to
historical and genealogical periodical literature published by the Allen
County Public Library Foundation and ProQuest, Inc.
He also serves on the Advisory Board for The Generations Network
and is a contributing columnist for their magazine as well as serving on
the FamilySearch Advisory
Council of the Genealogical Society of Utah and on the advisory group
for Roots Television.
From 2002 through 2006, Curt served on the review committee for The
BYU Family Historian. He
was a research consultant for both the PBS Series, Ancestors
and he is currently the co-chair of the Genealogy Publications Committee
of the Indiana Historical Society.
In addition to the more than five
hundred record and methodology articles he has penned for local, state,
and national genealogical periodicals, in 2000 Curt authored, African American Genealogy: A Bibliography and Guide to Sources.
He served for eight years as the National Volunteer Data Input
Coordinator for the “Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System,”
building a free, online database
that has basic information on the service records of 6.3 million Civil
War soldiers <www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/>.
Curt has chaired eight national genealogical conferences—four
in Fort Wayne, two in St. Louis, and one each in Baltimore, MD and
Richmond, VA.
Curt
was distinguished in 1995 as a fellow of the Utah Genealogical
Association (FUGA) and received the Federation of Genealogical
Societies' highest honor, the Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Humanitarian Award,
in 1997, and the Federation’s David Vogels Award in 1999.
In 1997, he was one of the Kellogg Foundation's "Expert in
Residence" scholars. He
is the 2002 ALA-RUSA History Section Genealogical Publishing Company
Award winner and in 2003 was honored by the Indiana Historical Society
as that year’s Willard Heiss Memorial Lecturer.
Curt was recognized in 2006 by being named the first fellow of
the Indiana Genealogical Society. He was honored in May of 2007 with the National Genealogical
Society’s P. William Filby award for outstanding, life-time
contributions to genealogical librarianship.
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