Prepping for IGHR

In a little over a week I'll be leaving for Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Every year during the second week of June the Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research (IGHR) is held there. I'm very excited. This year the course I am taking is Course 8: Understanding Land Records.

I've been prepping for months. Whenever I take a class I try to read as much on the topic as I can. This way I absorb the basic and intermediate material before I arrive in class. I do this so I can grasp more of the advanced concepts, or at least I hope to.

Another area of preparation I've been working on is looking at the holdings of Samford University Library. They have some interesting collections that could be useful for my research. I have ancestors that lived along the Tennessee-Alabama border. One ancestor had an obituary published in a Huntsville newspaper. I've already gotten a copy of an obituary for this person from a Tennessee paper, but I want to see if there is any additional information from the Alabama paper.

Then I have the mysterious Kirby line. This is a line that seems to have travelled from Tennessee to Alabama, to Illinois, back to Alabama, and finally to Arkansas. Once in Arkansas, it seems the parents die leaving the oldest brother to look after and raise his siblings. This line is also rumored to have an Indian princess (classic). So far I haven't seen any evidence to support American Indian ancestry.

Today I started to gather my supplies for the week. I'll keep doing this next week as well. After my first year at IGHR I made a list that I store on my computer of items I will need. Each year the list gets a little longer, as I think of a couple other things that could be useful. Since I'm close enough to drive down I don't have to worry about airline charges for luggage, which is a nice perk. During my time at IGHR I'll be blogging about my experiences. I'm looking forward to catching up with friends, making new ones, and learning.