Genealogy conference

This weekend it was the annual Genealogy Conference and Fair in Malmö. I visited yesterday and it was very interesting. Already on the bus to the conference center I met someone who was searching for her relatives in America. She gave me some details and later (when she had received even more details from the people at Ancestry.se) I agreed to help her with the research. We'll see if it's possible to find the living ones (the family lived in New London, Connecticut).

There is a new project regarding emigrants hosted by the Emigrant Register in Karlstad, and when they have finished it, it will be of great value. They are going to scan all the vital information (death notices) from the old Swedish-American newspapers, and match the name with the passenger lists and parish moving records. They just started and "my" areas hadn't been entered into the database yet. It will be a subscription online database. I got to search in the databases the Emigrant Institute in Växjö had brought with them, but there was no new information to get. Instead I bought a book about Swedes in Australia.

At another station I booked a computer with different databases, and I was "helped" by a volunteer. This volunteer was clearly used to neither computers nor the databases, so after a while I took the keyboard from him and did it myself. I got some details about a family in Småland I have been asked to find. Several businesses, organizations and local genealogy societies were represented at the fair, and it was fascinating to walk around and see what they were selling and/or what they informed about. I got some brochures and bought one more book.

At the fair I met several people I have mostly communicated with via email, and it was nice to get faces to the names. I ended up chatting for quite a while with a woman from the VASA Order I had met in Önnestad two weeks ago. The woman who arranged the school museum at the Norra Strö Historical Society was there also. All very nice people.

Today was laundry day and I am doing my best to get organized for the trip on Friday. Part of the luggage is packed.