Saturday at the Jamboree

After the Bloggers Summit, everybody headed for lunch. And here is one of the nits I have to pick about the conference. The lunch lines were unreasonably long and there were far too few tables at which to sit. That led a number of people to head "off-campus" for lunch. Those without transportation (moi) went to the hotel restaurant which apparently was also crowded or to their rooms for room service (of course, that was as overwhelmed as the restaurant). I had some meds I had to take with food. So I waited to eat. As a result, I missed the 1:30 session I wanted to attend.

I did go to Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak's presentation on "Tracing Your Roots With DNA" which was a useful adjunct to the other DNA presentations. It helped me understand more about the various DNA testing companies, what they do, and how to choose one. By the way, it was a standing-room-only crowd!

Then I went to a session called "Genealogy Across the Color Line." I wasn't sure what this was going to be. Unfortunately, there was a substitute presenter, who did an admirable job at filling in, but left me with the feeling that there was more left out. Basically, it came down to a sociological discussion of black people who consciously pass for white and why they do it. I've written a bit about this phenomenon before.

The most intriguing of what I couldn't get to on Saturday:

• Collen Fitzpatrick, "Forensic Genealogy Connections"
• John T. Humphrey, "Developing the Skills to Become a Genealogist"
• Bill Dollarhide, "The Best Genealogy Portals on the Internet"
• Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, "Beyond Y-DNA: Your Genetic Genealogy Options" (this followed the session that I did get to, but I'm really sorry I missed this one!).

I have a CD copy of the syllabus, as all advance registrants got. There's been a movement to encourage conferences to save trees and luggage space by making these available in electronic formats. But in many sessions, the presenters referred to page numbers or other matter in the paper versions that those of us with the CDs could not easily look at. Having said that, however, I appreciate having the CD instead of the paper. As I understand it, the CD may be for sale by the Southern California Genealogical Society. Check their website (which has had some maintenance problems in the last week or so).

More Jamboree news to come including:

• Dick Eastman Charts the Future as Saturday Dinner Speaker
• Was It Worth it?