BURBANK, Calif.–It’s Friday, June 26, 2009, and I’ve arrived at the Burbank Airport Marriott, site of the 4oth Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree.
I came down to the lobby and who should be here but:
As we were getting to know each other, Randy Seaver arrived and joined us. It was a great way to get acquainted in person with folks I know from the cyberworld. Later on, I ran into Schelly Talalay Dardashti. By the end pf the evening, I’d run into many of the best genealogical bloggers online today!
I had an interview with The Genealogy Guys, George G. Morgan and Drew Smith, for one of their first videocasts.
There wasn’t much between my arrival and the arrival of someone I was really looking forward to meeting; my cousin, Steve Bowie. We have corresponded by email for several years, but had never met in person. Steve is the intellectual motivator behind the site James Bowie, Free Man of Color. The site gives the known history and know genealogy of this free man in Louisiana in the first third of the nineteenth century. The connection to Jim Bowie of Alamo fame, if any, is not known.
Steve and I are both descendants of Rufus Bowie, fourth son and fifth child of James Bowie and his wife, Chaney. Together with a number of other Bowie cousins, among the vast reaches of total descendants, we’ve been continuing to study the genealogy of this African-American family (which has a number of white people affiliated as well).
I had not planned my time very well , and so we had only a little time to visit. But I completely enjoyed it!
Later that evening, I attended the address by Tukufu Zuberi, Ph.D, who. among his many talents, hosts The History Detectives on PBS. He had several clips of episodes, including a teaser for the next season. He described how they succeeded and sometimes failed at discovering their objectives.
He had a take on history that most genealogists would agree with, though apparently many historians do not. Zuberi believes that history is best understood by it effects on ordinary people. This is consistent with what I have said in this space many times: “All history is personal.”
Dr. Zuberi was a very thoughtful yet entertaining speaker. Unfortunately, due in part to technical problems in the Jamboree’s audiovisual equipment, his presentation was delayed and went on past my usual bedtime. I stayed until the end, but was too tired to blog about it that evening.
