Given the first two sessions I was starting my morning with, I decided to go for a walk and enjoy the beautiful weather before being cooped up indoors discussing death for a couple of hours.
Manchester is such a wonderful city! Once again I enjoyed roaming the streets. Everything is clean and there are large planters dotted throughout the sidewalks with signs on them proclaiming Manchester to be a city of walkable neighborhoods.
A woman in the second session was lamenting the fact that she did not purchase a ticket to today’s luncheon, and ended up purchasing mine. As much as I wanted to hear the presentation, the sunshine lured me outside. I gave the Irish pub another try and found them open. Delicious food and Irish music – it was almost as good as being in Ireland.
I’m planning a research trip to PEI next year, so I just had to attend Prince Edward Island Repositories and Records. Melanie McComb sure knows her subject! I’m going home with some great new information and resources to check out.
The final event of the day was the banquet and presentation by D. Joshua Taylor – Family: Links to the Past and Bridges to the Future. If you’ve never heard Josh speak, try to attend one of his lectures if you have the opportunity. He always has interesting family history stories, mostly culled from his own family tree.
I had an amazing weekend and left with new ideas and resolutions for my research. I resolve to:
- Make a clear research plan
- Start using timelines
- Be more mindful of the usefulness of indirect and inferential evidence
- Be more organized with my research notes
I’m certain I made some of these same resolutions at NERGC 2017. Hopefully I’ll be more successful this time. Regardless, I know I’ll be spending every waking moment during the next few weeks researching!