Saturday, March 23, 2013

RootsTech - Day 2 – couldbeanywherehistory.com – Creating Virtual Towns

Here at Rootstech 2013, we're certainly seeing and experiencing all the variety of Utah's weather – when we aren't inside, that is, listening in sessions, asking questions, hamming it up (ok – that's mostly thegeneabloggers) or having a look at all that's new in genealogy in the Expo hall.

I have been tweeting, at least as long as my phone battery has held out, but I'll catch up with blog posts over the next few days. On Twitter, follow the #rootstech hashtag.

Daily Rootstech 2013 sends a survey asking for our 'favorite' [spelling] session of the day. Today, hands down, that was “Creating Virtual New England Community Archives”. Thank you, David Allan Lambert!

His website, which he's been working on over the last 7 years, is focused on Stoughton, Massachusetts, USA: http://www.stoughtonhistory.com 

I liked his introductory story of his early interest in his own house and the town, and his later 'adoption' of Stoughton history as a personal project. (I've never been to Stoughton, and as far as I know, have no relatives from there, although I am somewhat familiar with the 1920s execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for murder, and I see information on the site about Sacco's time in Stoughton and residents' reaction to the case.)

Attendance was low for this session; perhaps 'New England' in the title put people off? But the talk's description was pretty clear – and this session was full of ideas useful to anyone, or any group, looking at building a location based historical/genealogical website. 

Since I already have one of those, I had been looking forward to hearing David Lambert – and I wasn't disappointed. 

In fact, I've already thought of 2 or 3 ways to adapt some of his suggestions to my existing projects, for example, using Find A Grave to construct virtual cemeteries, of veterans, perhaps.

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