Thinking Way Outside the Box - SLIG Day 2

    Day 2 at SLIG we had the pleasure and challenge of listening to two great sessions by Dr. Thomas Jones.  I always learn a lot listening to Tom and I am excited that he will be our keynote speaker at the Minnesota Genealogical Society Northstar 2018 conference this fall.

    In his second session Dr. Jones worked through a case study - using only online sources  asking the question -  can you solve the problem using only online sources? As you might guess, to quote Judy Russell - "it depends". 

    The particular case study that Dr. Jones used was a man who changed his name several times. I realized that this was something I had never really thought about (except for my great-grandfather who was and is a bit of a mystery.) We saw records that I might have dismissed because I would have assumed that they were a totally different person. It made me realize that a:) I need to think more outside the box and b:) I really need to keep an open mind. I will be searching record sets a bit differently going forward.

    This afternoon we took a great field trip to the Utah State Archives. What an interesting place!! We got the backroom tour. We saw where they store the records and got to see the retrieval system in action. 

Record Storage At Archives

    We walked through a variety of rooms where they were processing records that we were all interested in. They are doing an amazing job with what seems to be a small staff. Unfortunately, I don't have any Utah family to research but if I did, they have a treasure-trove of records. It gave us all I think, a new respect for the work that archivists do behind the scenes. 

    This tour was another reminder of thinking outside the box to look for records you hadn't thought about and to look for them in places you hadn't thought about. 

    This may turn out to be my biggest lesson of the week - THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!!!!