Agawam and Chicopee Classes

Thursday was the first day for the Agawam Library Adult Program in Genealogy and, I forgot, this was also the first day in Chicopee for another genealogy class. Agawam is my own program but the Chicopee class is one where I assist another genealogist named Alan Horbal from North Adams, Mass. His class is about the basics but he ties in extensive training in using web sites.

Here's the room before everyone showed up

[caption id="attachment_980" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Agawam Public Library Community Room[/caption]

There were about 25 people in the Agawam class which started out with some technical meltdowns. Usually, I 'd just connect a cable to a projector mounted in the ceiling. But this morning, their cable caused the power point to display in pink.... Pink! Since I usually have my own projector, I brought that in and plugged it in with the same cable. Still pink... When I switched to my own cable, everything worked out fine. Small panic but we worked it out.

As usual in a group this large, there's a good mix of people with some experience and people who are just getting stated. It seemed that everyone stayed pretty interested right up to the end. The usual 30 minute Q&A lasted about 45 minutes, so that was a good sign that things were working out pretty well.

Next week we get into census records, vital records, soundex, a short lesson in using www.familysearch.org and a brief Pedigree Chart workshop.

Just 5 more weeks in Agawam and then I'll bring a somewhat shortened version of the same program to Palmer, Brimfield, Wilbraham and again in Chicopee.