Hi, The Jamboree has come and gone and I found it very useful. Last year I bought a film/fiche viewer and I was hoping that film would be available for sale, but it still has to be ordered. I bought several books including one on obtaining info about the draft registration in WWI. Also SoCal Cemeteries and California Libraries and Sources for Genealogy. I got 2 CD-ROMs. One is the back issues of the magazine, and the other is 1883 pensioners. I wanted to look everything over before some of the books got snatched up, and I missed the first speaker. I caught the 10:45 lecture - Ohio: Beginning of the Best and Mother of the Rest. I don't have anybody in Ohio yet, but I had seen the other speaker last year. It was pretty interesting to hear the whacky way they partitioned the land. In the beginning everybody claimed the place, but eventually nobody wanted responsibility for it. There was quite a bit that will apply elsewhere. At 12:30 I had planned to go to Search Techniques in the Electronic Age, but it was SRO so I went to, - Getting Beyond the City Directory: Biographical, Professional, Occupational and College Directories as a Genealogist's Research Tool. It was interesting in that it seems that the purpose of directories seems to be to sell them to anybody who will buy them, and if your name is in it you are likely to buy it. There is wealth of info in some of them and there is a Directory of Directories in most libraries (to find the directories) according to the speaker. Trying to grab a bite to eat between 1:30 and 2:15 was near impossible with a long line. It seems the food was a bit better than last year, but the line wasn't. The 2:15 lecture was - North of the Border: Research in English-Speaking Canada. I am only looking for one person in Canada and it wasn't the part of Canada I was looking for, but it was interesting anyway. At 3:15 the line had almost disappeared and I got a hot dog and a lemonade for $4.50. The last session for the day was - Where Haven't You Looked? Using Little Known Sources. I found it the best session of the day with a lot of info I didn't know anything about. It gave me some ideas where I had been facing dead ends. I bought the two day ticket for $15. One day was $10. Parking was $7 each day, but if you are willing to walk a bit there are alternatives. They stamp your hand black the first day and red the second. I caught the first session on Sunday at 9:00. It was - Transcribing and Abstracting: The Technique and Legalese. It was an eye opener. I had no idea there were rules governing how you write down your research. The speaker gave many examples one of which is from a will... * "to John Smith (son)... * "to John Smith [son]... The former would indicate that he was the son in the original document and the latter would indicate speculation. Ah, to have a scanner for microfilm. She next showed some examples of writing way back when, and I can see that I am going to have to bone up on that as I was clueless. Suspect I wasn't alone. For the 10:30 to 11:30 slot I went to - Ten Strategies for Successful Family History Research on the Internet. I consider myself fairly good in that area, but I do most of my research on the Web using just a few search engines. Think I could do more with specialized search engines and maybe another mailing list or 2. The speaker was late starting but otherwise pretty well organized. At noon I went to - Using Tax Records to Establish Relationships. The speaker explained that tax records are often the best way to fill in between census. And though they are often collected at the county level, the records usually end up with the state, which is great if the county seat you are researching burned down. A show of hands indicated that maybe a third of those in attendance had such a county seat. At 1:30 I would have had to have gone to a repeat of a session I had already seen or something similar so I went to the Beginner class. I reasoned that I had never been to a basic class and there was a good chance I was missing something quite easy to do. I think the speaker just brought out the many places to search, how to rate the reliability, and stressed never to give up. I got several new ideas. I was well satisfied with this year's Jamboree, and I hope everyone on the list will be able to make it next year. I am sorry, that I got busy and didn't pursue meeting with others on the list. I hope some of you were there and that you had experiences as positive as I did. bill.widrig@juno.com ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.