Ancestry Magazine

Audio recordings of family history conference lectures are a boon to the community, but they are underutilized by most of us.

Genealogy conferences are some of the best ways to develop skills as a family historian. International experts provide educational lectures on a variety of genealogical topics at these conventions. Vendors of a plethora of products populate a bazaar of genealogical delights. The interaction with fellow enthusiasts is both invigorating and educational.

There are three major national conferences in the United States each year, as well as a host of excellent specialty, regional, state, and local conferences all over the country. I make an effort to attend at least one national conference every year–that’s about all my work schedule and budget will allow. The problem with not being able to attend all the major conferences is that I know I’m missing out on excellent educational opportunities. If your travel budget is limited like mine, you might despair of ever benefiting from the conferences you are unable to attend. There is, however, a simple and relatively cheap solution to the dilemma of missing conferences.

One of the best-kept secrets in family history education is the old and familiar technology of audio tape. The three major genealogical conferences (sponsored by the National Genealogical Society, the Federation of Genealogical Societies, and GenTech) have their presentations and luncheon lectures professionally recorded by Repeat Performances.

A representative of the company attends these conferences and, with the permission of the speakers, records presentations and makes them available for resale. Some of the specialty and regional genealogy conferences are also taped in this manner. Repeat Performance representatives are well-known to regular conference attendees in the family history community. They invariably help to ensure that the audio wizardry required to record multiple sessions in diverse locations within a venue is in place. Besides recording the sessions, they often assist with the public address system in conference rooms and are always a ready source of information regarding the conference schedule of speakers.

The tapes that Repeat Performances produces represent a win-win situation for everyone involved. Conference attendees who miss a session or have to choose between lectures with conflicting presentation times can purchase the tapes of the sessions they missed–usually within an hour after the session concludes. The Repeat Performance team brings high-speed audio tape reproduction equipment to the conference that allows them to produce audio copies of lectures at an amazing rate.

Aside from the benefits to attendees, speakers who consent to having their presentations recorded receive a small royalty from the sale of each tape. And while Repeat Performances makes a small profit off the sale of each tape, the host of the conference gets an audio recording of the proceedings also.

But as useful as these audio tapes are for those involved in presenting or participating in a conference, they are even more valuable to those of us who can not attend.

Previews and Ordering
Prior to a conference that I will not be attending, I like to review the course offerings provided ahead of time at the sponsoring organization’s Web site. I identify those lectures which interest me and are most germane to my personal research. Then a few weeks after the conference has concluded, I visit the Repeat Performances Web site and look to see if the presentations I am interested in are available for purchase. Remember that some speakers do not grant permission for the recording of their presentations, and all conference speaking schedules are subject to last minute changes and substitutions. However, you will usually find most of the topics that interest you were recorded.

Some short five-minute audio clips of selected presentations are available via the Internet with the free RealPlayer. This can give you a good idea of the presentation before you purchase the tape. I order the tapes by phone, fax, or mail and they arrive by postal mail a week or two later.

Closed Track with a Professional Driver
The benefits of the taped lectures are several-fold. I like to listen to them while I’m commuting in my car. If I miss something that the speaker said, it is simple to rewind and play it again in order to fully understand what he or she said.

Another great thing about the tapes is that they include the questions from the audience at the conference. Usually I find these questions to be very helpful and are often the questions I was wondering myself. And if I forget a point the speaker made about something some weeks later, I can always listen to the audio tapes again when the need arises.

Based on your own schedule and advancing at your own speed, you can benefit from some of the best educational material available in family history. As a hobby, we are lucky to have this option available to us. Single lecture tapes cost $8.50 and there are discounts for multiple tape orders above a certain number of tapes. These prices are slightly less expensive than other professionally taped lectures of conferences in other fields.

Looking for a Handout?
There is another valuable piece of conference material you can obtain without attending the conference. The syllabus materials provided to all conference attendees are often available for sale after the conference has concluded. Check the sponsoring organization’s Web site to see if it offers these large tomes of information. The syllabus consists of the paper handouts that the speakers provided to conference organizers prior to the conference. With anywhere from two to a dozen pages for each presentation, these manuals tend to be a fairly good-sized book.

Prices range from ten to thirty dollars for the entire syllabus of a single conference. Occasionally, the conference sponsors will give discounts for purchases of multi-year sets of their syllabi. I find that the bibliographies alone are worth the purchase price. The combin ation of the audio tapes of the presentation plus the use of the post-conference syllabus is the next best thing to being at the conference. Of course, I don’t follow along in the syllabus while I’m driving. I use the syllabus in conjunction with a small tape player I have in my office for the full effect.

With the limited opportunities for travel many of us face, we often can’t attend genealogy conferences unless they happen to be nearby. To overcome this disadvantage, you can use post-conference audio tapes and syllabi to still get great benefits from the conferences which you are unable to attend. Listening to the audio tapes while driving, exercising, or relaxing can provide a wealth of genealogical knowledge transfer direct from the expert to your ears. The very valuable post-conference syllabi can round out your understanding of the speaker’s presentation by providing you with the printed information the speaker wished to impart. What a great way to increase your family history expertise without leaving home.

Mark Howells is a Certified Information Systems Auditor and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional. He hosts the Norfolk-L genealogy mailing list and is chairman of the Internet branch of the Norfolk Family History Society .