I can’t believe it is the end of day 3 for the Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research (IGHR) at Samford University!  I am enjoying myself very much and am a little sad to know that we are past the halfway mark of our week here.

Today was a very busy day for course 2 – Intermediate Genealogy & Historical Studies.  Christine Rose was back again and started our day off with the Correlation and Analysis of Evidence.  She reviewed for us the Genealogical Proof Standard and used examples on its application and was a delight to listen to.

Next was Onomatology (study of the origin of names), presented by Lloyd de Witt Bockstruck.  I found this a fascinating topic. Lloyd filled us with plenty of examples of name origins, translations, nicknames, phonetic spellings, etc. This is a very important topic to understand or you will certainly miss records or possibly come to wrong conclusions without understanding this.

Then it was lunch time.  I bought my lunch today as the crowds at mealtime have diminished.  After I ate, I went to the bookstore and purchased a couple of Christine Rose’s books.

After lunch, John Phillip Colletta presented on Passenger Arrival Records. We walked through several examples and sources where you can find records.  Not everyone is going to be found a passenger list as they either did not exist (pre-1820) or the record did not survive. We were shown other sources that may be able to give us this information.

Then we had our break.  I went to the library to pick up the copies I had ordered last night. This is a great and organized service they offer during the conference.  My copies were ready and I just had to pay for them.

When we returned from out break, John Phillip Colletta continued on with Naturalization Records.  This was a very interesting topic learning about citizenship laws and how they have changed over time.  We were once again given many resources and examples during this lecture.

After the last lecture, I went to the library and worked on the computer for a little while.  I decided to eat dinner in the cafeteria as there were no lines.  It was a nice change to eat dinner in the cafeteria, not for the food, but for the dinner conversation.  I sat down with a group from my class and it was a very enjoyable dinner.

I went back to the library after dinner.  This is the last night the library stays open late so I wanted to take advantage of that.  The library closed at 8:00 p.m. and then I went back to my hotel room to relax.

Tomorrow is the last full day of classes and we have our banquet tomorrow night.  Friday we will have half a day of classes and then it will be time to say good-bye.