NERGC 2019 ~ Day 2

Today at the NERGC conference, I was extremely busy with learning and connecting with genealogists.

Donna Moughty

I started with Seeking Your Scots-Irish Ancestors with Donna Moughty, an experienced Irish genealogist. I believe I have some Scots-Irish ancestors (James McAlpin and Jane Hunter on my paternal side and Samuel Hunter on my maternal side) and wanted to learn more about this group of people who initially came from Scotland into Northern Ireland, then to America.

Donna is a fabulous speaker who really knows her stuff. She provided lots of resources.

I volunteered for an hour in the exhibit hall at the booth for NEAPG, the New England Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists. (I forgot to take a photo of this booth.) Are you looking for a professional genealogist to help you with your New England research? Are you looking for a speaker or a teacher in genealogy? Or are you a longtime professional genealogist or an aspiring professional genealogist looking for camaraderie and support? Check out their website.

Jenifer Bakkala, president of NEAPG

The luncheon, hosted by NEAPG, was their "Table Talk" luncheon and I hosted a table for those interested in discussing Jewish Genealogy. If you don't know, my husband has Jewish ancestry and my other blog, A Jewish Genealogy Journey, shares some of the stories and interesting finds that I have made while researching his ancestry.

After lunch, I volunteered again in the exhibit hall, this time for MSOG, the Massachusetts Society of Genealogists, for which I am the current recording secretary. It's great to meet other genealogists and encourage them to take advantage of what MSOG can offer.

MSOG booth in Exhibit Hall

If you have Massachusetts ancestors or if you live in Massachusetts, you're a member, right? I hope to see you at a MSOG chapter meeting soon!

Next, I heard Kathryn Lake Hogan, a well-known Canadian genealogist, speak about I've Got a Loyalist in the Family?! She provided a good history of what happened to those who were not Patriots at the end of the Revolutionary War as well as provided useful research resources - both online and on the ground. (I need to visit Nova Scotia one of these days...)

I then attended Proving It! Arguing Conclusions Without Direct Evidence with Nora Galvin. She walked through one example of resolving several items of conflicting direct evidence to come to a conclusion about a woman's maiden name and her marriage date. Her other case study was an example of using several items of indirect evidence to solve a research question about the parents of a Connecticut-born woman who died in 1941. That was a tricky one, but she did a great job of explaining the use of indirect evidence to come to a conclusion.

The Friday Banquet speaker was Blaine Bettinger, The Genetic Genealogist, whose topic was The Helen Marley Story, a case study using indirect evidence, along with mtDNA and atDNA to help identify the mother of his adopted great-grandmother. It took many years for all the evidence to come together, showing that sometimes genealogists need patience and time to solve some of our research questions.

Whew! An exhausting, but very interesting day!

(See NERGC Day 1 and NERGC Day 3.)