Executive Director James Beidler explained how the concept works. A genealogical speaker provides a lecture summary, which is uploaded to the Internet about a month before a scheduled chat. Those who are interested in possibly "attending" can review the summary, determine if they want to participate, and mark the time on their calendars.

At the scheduled time, the speaker, host, and participants all sign into the chat room. The speaker is introduced, starts off with a brief introduction, and invites questions. At that point, anyone in the chat room can ask questions. In a sense, it's the reverse of a conventional seminar where perhaps 80 percent of the time is devoted to lecture and 20 percent to questions. Virtual lectures put the emphasis on Q&A, providing an opportunity for genealogists to "pick the brains" of experts they might otherwise only encounter at conferences.

After the allotted time—usually one or two hours—the transcript of the session is captured and uploaded along with the initial summary.

Both GSP and the National Genealogical Society (NGS) tap into the technical expertise and support of About.com and its genealogy host, Kimberly Powell. To browse a wide assortment of previous chats, go to genealogy.about.com and search on "virtual lecture."

My Turn
A complete novice to the world of online chats, I was nevertheless delighted several months ago to receive an invitation from GSP to lecture on a favorite topic of mine, maximizing your results from the Ellis Island database. We agreed to a date and time, I e-mailed some text to Kimberly Powell to post before the event, and then we all went about our usual business.

While I consider myself a skilled Internet user, I knew I had better familiarize myself with the world of chat rooms, so I poked around and lurked on a couple. This allowed me to learn how to change the color of my comments so they would be easy to spot and how to open private talks with others, both of which take about ten seconds to master, but are very important—especially if you're the main speaker.

The Jitters
About 15 minutes before the designated time, I signed on to the chat room and saw a small group had already gathered. That's when my nerves started jangling.

What was I doing? Speak at a national conference? No problem. Type in front of this cluster of strangers? Yikes!

I am a terrible typist. Repeatedly warned by my mother not to learn ("If you learn to type, that's all they'll ever let you do."), I was caught unprepared by the information revolution and its insistence on manual dexterity. Out of necessity, I learned to type in a fashion - my own, rather quirky style. And I had managed to do my typing in private—with the notable exception of the time I was filmed for the (2000) PBS Ancestors series and succeeded in mis-keying even my own name.

My fear of public typing and newbie status in the realm of online chat combined to make me more nervous than I can recall being for years. I spotted GSP's director and opened a private window with him. He reassured me that everything would be fine. Kimberly came on and I opened a private window with her. Being a seasoned pro, this was routine for her. When Steve Morse, the Ellis Island guru I had invited made his appearance, I also opened a private discussion with him. While this required that I now juggle four windows, I felt safer knowing I could ask for help at any time from Jim, Kimberly, or Steve.

Let's Chat
At 8:00, Kimberly launched the session and passed it over to Jim. He introduced me and I started in with my opening comments. Because of my self-induced typing impediment, I had written a few paragraphs ahead of time and did a series of cut-and-pastes from this text. I also let everyone know that Steve Morse would be with us for about 40 minutes, at which time he had to leave to see his 98-year-old mother-in-law perform in a Chanukah play. So far, so good.

Then I opened floor for questions. Silence. More silence.

"Anyone having problems finding ancestors in the database?" I nudged, trying to get conversation going. Pause.

And then, seven questions at once!

This was an unmoderated chat, so participants were free to toss in their questions at will. And as I learned, sometimes free will creates chaos. A more experienced virtual lecturer probably wouldn't have reacted, but I was almost in panic mode. How was I going to get through two hours of this? What to do?

Quickly skimming the questions, I noticed that one or two were slightly off topic, so I decided to tackle all the others in order. I'd answer one, try to confirm that the inquirer was satisfied with the response, scroll back up for the next in line, and answer it. Sometimes the flow was interrupted, but this became the pattern for the rest of the evening. When I hit a question that was better suited for Steve or Jim, I would privately ask them to jump in which they both gladly did, much to the benefit of all the participants.

More questions were asked and I continued along, taking quick breaks for one-on-one talks about particular points with Jim, Kimberly, and Steve. There was no time to be shy about my typing. Nothing to do, but keep going. And the more I did it, the more I liked it!

Suddenly, I was startled when Kimberly jumped in to remind us that time was almost up. The first five minutes had seemed like two hours, but the balance had flown by. This was fun. I didn't want to get off.

Chat Fever
As the chat wound down, Jim asked me whether I was tired and I was surprised to find that I was both fatigued and exhilarated. I could completely relate when he told me that John Humphrey of NGS felt as if he had lost ten pounds after his first virtual lecture. I only hope that it's a fraction as invigorating for the participants.

Now that I had had a taste, I wanted more, but I realized it could be quite a while before I receive another invitation to lecture. How could I get my "fix" until then? About.com is certainly a good place to go, so I recommend checking upcoming for any GSP or NGS virtual lectures there or with the societies themselves. Reviewing previous lectures, it's clear that these are first rate. With a bit of luck, more organizations will explore this avenue of sharing information, so there will be more lectures available in the future.

In the meantime, though, I've decided to make use of the built-in chat feature in my handful of MyFamily.com sites. Until now, I've never experimented with this functionality, but now that I'm an old pro, it's time to get the chats started! I'll be scheduling some as soon as we all decide on the best time to meet—virtually, that is!

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