Hello from Jeanette Sheliga! I am so excited to be hosting this new VGA Special Interest Group (SIG)! VGA Hangouts is a new members-only group where we can get together for a variety of events, such as:
- Photo Scanning Party
- Creating a Locality Guide
- Working on Record Hints
- Explore a Website
- Game Night
- Show ‘n Tell
- Brick Wall Busting
- Computer Organization
- and Many More!
I don’t know about you, but I get so easily distracted by things (shiny objects, squirrel!, etc.) that I often do not accomplish tasks that need to be done and/or that are of interest to me. So, to me, sitting down with a group of like-minded individuals and making new friends while helping each other accomplish tasks seems like a great way to spend my time and I am looking forward to it!
Our first VGA Hangout is going to be on Sunday, January 2nd at 6:00pm Eastern and we are going to focus on Working on Record Hints. This topic was brought up at the 2021 VGA Conference in November and many laughs were had about how many Hints we have waiting on our online trees.
Many online tree services have their own version of hinting. Personally, I will be working on my Ancestry.com tree as I currently have 11,731 hints to try to catch up on. If you are new to record hinting and/or you would like a refresher, I suggest watching this 2019 RootsTech presentation by Sunny Morton titled Should You Take the Hint? Automated Record Hinting on the Giant Genealogy Websites.
You can also search YouTube for the site you plan to use and the term “hints” (such as “Ancestry Hints”) for other videos.
Looking forward to our first VGA Hangout!
~ Jeanette
