Festival to include antiquarian book fair with genealogy items

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival, to be held Sept. 3-4, will include the Georgia Antiquarian Bookdealers Association’s “Georgia Book & Paper Fair.” The association’s booths will be in the gymnasium of the First Baptist Church of Decatur, 308 Clairemont Ave., as it has before. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Several dealers will bring genealogy and family history-related books to interest genealogists.

Besides books, many dealers will have for sale periodicals, postcards and documents.

It’s well worth attending and finding things to add to your personal library. Parking is free and adjacent to the church. For more, see gaba.net and decaturbookfestival.com.

Smartphone tricks for genealogists

The September issue of Family Tree Magazine, on newsstands now, has an article “Smart Genealogy” that includes 25 tips to enable you to turn your smartphone into a tool for helping you search your genealogy. I personally have found my phone to be a minicomputer and often use it to demonstrate DNA test results to friends, as well as find other genealogy sites.

This article covers using the camera feature (without the flash) to record historic documents (if allowed) at various repositories, adding a scanning app, organizing passwords, using conference apps if you attend a major conference, marking headstones with GPS coordinates, and accessing your family tree. So check it out and make the best use of your phone for genealogy activities. See more at familytreemagazine.com.

More DNA updates

Most major genealogy magazines now include a DNA feature every issue, as with Family Tree Magazine, above, and the National Genealogical Society’s Magazine. Since I wrote last week about DNA updates, Family TreeDNA.com announced great bargain prices for its DNA tests, reducing the autosomal Family Finder test to $69 and the Y-DNA test (male chromosome) at 37 markers in combination to save $40.

Right now no deadline is posted, so don’t delay. DNA testing should be an integral part of any genealogy research, and anyone not participating is just working with one hand (or perhaps both) tied behind his or her back. In the past two months I have had unexpected DNA test matches appear giving me strong hints to my great-grandmother’s unknown father.

The September issue of Family Tree Magazine, on newsstands now, has an article ‘Smart Genealogy’ that includes 25 tips to enable you to turn your smartphone into a tool for helping you search your genealogy.