A Yankee at Jamboree - Part 3

Marcia Maloney of the
California Mayflower Society

Day two at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree, and I decided to spend the morning on the theme of “blogging”, specifically genealogical blogging (of course!).   We attended a breakfast lecture by Thomas MacEntee on “Marketing to Genealogy Societies”.  Many genealogists were at our table, including Joan Miller and Jana Sloan Broglin of the Ohio Genealogical Society.  Thomas’s talk was heavy on social media, which can be a blessing to cash strapped societies since most of it is free.  He showed many examples of successful websites used by many societies, including many I had never seen since they were from mid-western or western states.  They are miles ahead of anything going on in New England, or with traditional societies like Mayflower which is sadly behind the times in utilizing social media.

Next, I attended two Blogger Summits, both hosted by Thomas again.  The first was aimed at beginners, with a panel made up of Randy Seaver, Lisa Louise Cooke, and Amy Coffin.  After some initial technical difficulties (no table, no microphones!) Thomas demonstrated how easy it was to start a blog using Blogger.com and then took comments from the panel and questions from the audience on issues such as copyright, prompts, widgets and the genealogical blogging community. This hour was well attended and the room was packed. 

The second hour and panel discussion was less well attended, but I think anyone who thought the discussion would be “over their head” was missing out on more great discussion.  The panel was made up of Dick Eastman, Elyse Doerflinger, Kathryn Doyle and Joan Miller, all bloggers representing commercial and non-commercially based blogs, as well as one society blog.  Thomas posed some very interesting questions for discussion, such as “What is the view of vendors towards bloggers?” and “Are bloggers viewed as legitimate vehicles for information?”  Copyright issues were a popular question, and the seasoned bloggers were able to give lots of advice to new or non-bloggers.  I’m sad that this discussion was not videotaped, because it would have made a great inclusion on the Geneabloggers.com website!

I have more name dropping!  I met up with Ruth Himan, but she had to leave Jamboree early and we didn’t have long to visit with each other.  Also, I finally met up with Elizabeth O’Neal and Susi Pentico.  My Mayflower cousins, Marcia Maloney, Dottie Wilson and Erica Hahn were dressed as Pilgrims at the California Mayflower booth, so I got a bunch of good photos.  I had time to eat a quick sandwich with Marcia (she is a Putnam cousin, and a member of NH Mayflower as well as in the Orange County Colony) and get ready for a full afternoon of lectures.

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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo