Attended
my first genealogy conference a few weeks ago, and so it is time to reflect and
report on the experience.
The
conference was Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh, also known as
GRIP. It went from the welcome dinner on Sunday July 20th until
lunchtime on Friday July 25th at La Roche College. Over 200 students
attended one of eight classes, for 4 ½ days on in depth learning on a single
topic. In 2015, GRIP will offer two separate weeks of classes. (http://www.gripitt.org/?p=1393)
The
Conference and Venue
1) The conference was
REALLY well run. Elissa and Debbie did a fabulous job running a nearly
glitch-free event. (There a timing problem with
the start of breakfast on the first day and my
class needed to have our class picture retaken, but that's all I'm aware of.
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| GRIP 2014: Fred and Elissa |
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| GRIP 2014: Fred and Judy (and her blazer) |
2) I loved the
location. Dorms and classrooms and meals are all really close together and this
is a really pretty campus. The campus was offered nice areas to tuck yourself
away and other areas ideal for walking, when you needed a break.
3) This year I flew,
next year I will drive. Once you have been in a dorm room, you realize all the
little things that do NOT fit in your airline suitcase: coffee maker (cafeteria
is only open during meal hours), extra blanket (there is no OFF switch on the
AC, so on really warm nights it may be cycling on every 15 minutes and blowing
on you all night), mattress pad/sleeping bag (do I need to remind you that
college mattresses are NOT purchased from Sealy or Tempurpedic), a collapsible
chair (otherwise sitting in your room means sitting on the bed), a case of Diet
Coke (it's a Pepsi campus).
4) The walls are paper
thin. It was a running joke, when I would sneeze the person in the next room
said "Bless you". I was actually lucky in this regard, since my room
was at the end of the row and I had neighbors on only one side. Of course, if I
had been asleep, I would have bounced off of the ceiling when the person began
playing the piano at 6 AM in the lounge which was next to the wall next to my
bed. NOTE: there is a very close by hotel (Homestead @ $99 per night with GRIP
discount this year) and "outsiders" can buy food at the cafe, so you
can still have breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner with your classmates. Among the
people I met at meals included locals that had driven less than 5 miles to the
campus; and yet they seemed to attend most, if not all meals, to be part of the
wonderful conversations at the cafeteria tables.
5) Classes ran from 8
AM to 4 PM. There were also 1 or more 1 hour optional sessions on other topics in
the evening. This included a group viewing of the latest episode of “Who Do You
Think You Are?” that seemed to have more in common with the Bleacher Creatures
at Yankee Stadium than you would have imagined!
Personally, I REALLY
like the 24 hour immersion experience. So for next year, I will be glad it is
at La Roche, I will drive, not fly, and will think long and hard about staying
in the dorm vs. staying at the hotel.
A Typical Day
What do I mean by 24
hour immersion? The typical day at GRIP was long. Class was made up of 4 75
minute sessions per day, 2 before lunch and 2 after. There is a 30 minute break
in both the AM and PM. Each evening, there were one, two or three 1 hr general
sessions that were optional. For example, one session was on finding and using
divorce records. Another was on doing research using Israeli sites. And every night you had (ungraded) homework. Add in your
meals (with your classmates; talk about interesting insights and great conversation) and the ever-present genealogy book store right as
you entered and exited the cafe, this became a total immersion in all things
genealogy.
There were over 200
people there, so classes and meals were staggered. My class and 3 others
started at 8:15 and went to 4 pm; the other 4 classes started at 8:45 and ended
at 4:30. On Friday there were 2 75 minute sessions, lunch and then out of the
dorm between 12 and 1 pm. All in all it worked very well, a) because Elisa and
Debbie really have their act together, b) this was their 4th year doing a
conference like this, and c) the intimate size of the campus. Despite how it
sounds, you never felt rushed and could always run back to your room to get
something. One of my classmates mentioned she had been to a conference at a
larger campus, where dorms, classrooms and cafe were spread out enough that
people need to take shuttle buses from place to place.
In-Depth Topics
Some conferences offer
a choice of many different 1 or 2 hour sessions; wander around for 3 days
getting your fill of as many different sessions as you can handle. Welcome to your free-range buffet. GRIP is different; there are only 8 course
offerings. You choose one and then drill down into that topic for 4 ½ days. Different people are looking for different
opportunities. For me and this topic,
the in-depth approach was the preferred one.
1) In 4 ½ days time, you
can REALLY go far into a topic.
2) You have time for
homework (and homework to help you apply the skill you are trying to acquire.
3) You get to know you
fellow students really well. (I have
always said, that when I teach my technology or genealogy classes, after
working together for a week, I know which people I do and do not want to work
with again in the future. The same is
true for me a student in this class.)
4) You get to know your
instructor so much more.
Law School for
Genealogists
The
class was Law School for Genealogists and this was the pilot presentation. The
main instructors were Judy Russell and Richard "Rick" Sayre, both CG
and CGL. There was also a morning session on immigration and naturalization
taught by Marian Smith, Chief of the Historical Research Branch of INS.
The class was truly about laws and how they fit in with
genealogy. It was that intersection that made the class so interesting. Rick is an
amazing resource who can probably find ANYTHING at NARA. So after going over
the various different military pension laws, he would then show you how to find
petitions for pensions at NARA. (Disclaimer: I had never done any NARA research
before.) Marian did the same with I&N records. And if you don’t know who
Judy is, what planet have you been living on? She was the 50% instructor as well as the
coordinator of the class and always kept us focused on takeaways from the
class.
One
takeaway was where and when. If you see evidence that does not seem right,
always consider WHAT law was in effect at that TIME and that PLACE. This was
punctuated by many of Judy's examples. Here is an example of the kind of ideas we were tossing around: http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2014/07/24/guilty-or-not/ .
Another
takeaway was: If there is a record, what is the law (that caused it and shaped
its information). And if there is a law, where is the record (that comes from
that law).
There
was a lot of content as well as (fair) homework each evening and I am very,
very glad I took the class. And as an instructor, Judy is a treasure. She would
a success at whatever she chose to do; we are fortunate as genealogists that
she is working in our field!
One of the other classes at GRIP was with Dr.
Tom Jones. From the students in the class, the class was a full week reviewing
the two case studies in his Mastering Genealogical Proof book. The students
raved about his teaching style and the depth of the class. Although I covered
the material at BU GR, I might consider an in-depth week of a class like this
when I am more ready for it; I enjoyed it at BU, but I don't feel I got out of
it anywhere near what I could have.
Final Thought
The GRIP sessions are very popular, for good
reason. When I originally tried to sign
up, the class was sold out in 8 minutes!
So I was put on a waiting list. The class was eventually moved to a larger
classroom, which is how I got off of the waiting list. (My class had 35 students; every seat in the
room was filled). The DNA class was so
popular, that it was broken into 2 sections.
Yes, the two instructors had to alternate between section A and section
B to do their lectures!
So, if you have
any interest in GRIP 2015 and you are interested in a popular course, be ready
to sign up when they open the web-based registration.
Maybe I will see you there!
