To go or not to go
I recently joined the SGGEE – The Society of German Genealogy in Eastern Europe. If you’ve been following along on my blog, you’ll know that on one half of my family tree, I’m descended from Germans who lived in Eastern Europe prior to emigrating to the United States. There were many Germans in those areas more than 100 years ago. Prussia had a lot of German settlers, same with Volhynia and Galicia and Russia. These places are now included in modern Poland, Ukraine and Russia, and they bring their own set of genealogical difficulties.
These German settlers were ethnic minorities. In some cases, surviving records can be hard to find. When they are there, they might be in any number of locations, formats or languages. And as you may have witnessed with me, the history of the area, while crucial to discovering your roots, can be hard to untangle.
The SGGEE is a great organization that helps organize various record transcriptions. They also have a large collection of maps and a great knowledge base to help understand the history of the areas involved and how to search.
They typically have a convention every year, usually in a Northern US Midwest location or in Canada’s plains. Most often in Canada. This year it is being held in Edmonton. The information presented and the ability to do searches on their special databases and benefit from the knowledge of the rest of the members is very tempting. I know that if I attend, I will learn a lot and I might finally be able to wrap my mind around the Flatts, Seibs, Matschenskis, and the rest of my German ancestors.
But it is expensive. Airfare to Edmonton is $600. When you add in the cost of the conference, food, and hotel, I’m spending over $1000. Is it worth $1000 to better understand my German ancestors? I’m not so sure. I’m starting to think that my money might be better spent doing some other vacation for now, and then maybe next year or the year after that, if the convention is held in Minnesota or something, the airfare will be cheaper and I can still get the same benefit from it as I would this year – just a year later and a little bit less expensive.
I’m really torn. I want to learn as much as possible as soon as possible so I can share it all with my grandparents and continue to use them to help fill in more gaps. But if I just wait a year or two, I could probably get the same benefit for less money.
What would you do? Have you ever gone to a genealogy conference? How has it benefited you?
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