Randy Seaver of
Genea-Musing started this meme and I loved the idea. Genealogists are great at
documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll
write about what I’ve been doing the past week.
Genealogy
The main event for me this week was attending RootsTech
2018. It was in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Salt Palace and put on by
FamilySearch. I roomed with my friend, Jacqueline. I had previously not
attended because of its size. Over 14,000 people pre-registered for this
conference. And crowds there were. But I decided to come this one time in order
to meet in person several people who were coming from out of the country or
from the east coast. Besides classes, I managed to get many photos with
genealogy friends from far and wide.
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| Melinda Culpon, Hilary Gadsby, and me |
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| True Lewis and me |
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| Dave Robison |
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| Russ Worthington (Cousin Russ) |
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| Randy Seaver and me |
Also a few more wonderful people I had not met before:
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| Jill Ball of Australia, from whom I won the RootsTech registration |
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| Linda Stufflebean, who also writes blogs and does Randy Seaver's SNGF |
My favorite things about RootsTech:
1. Keynote speaker,
Scott Hamilton. His story very inspirational and I doubt there was a dry eye in
the auditorium.
2. Favorite presenter.
Actually I have two: Peggy Clemens Lauritzen and Jennifer Holik. I had never
heard their presentations before.
Peggy’s presentation on migrations was both informative and
she presented it in a lively style. I just wanted to hug her (which I did the
next day when I met her in person).
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| Peggy and me |
Jennifer gave four presentations on World War II research
and I was able to hear three of them. Her presentation was excellent and wanted
everyone to research and write the stories of our veteran ancestors. She
specializes in researching fallen soldiers so their stories can be told and not
forgotten.
3. Exhibition Hall.
The companies selling DNA were the winners. They all had sales and long lines
to buy the kits. I purchased two kits from Living DNA. I also bought three
books: Genealogist’s Handbook for New
England Research and Guide to
Genealogical Writing from the New England Historical and Genealogical
Society booth. I also bought Jim Beidler’s new book The Family Tree Historical Newspaper Guide. I had submitted an
example to him and I’m mentioned in the book on page 144. I went to many of the booths to learn about their products and
sampled some good chocolate.
Even though I don’t like crowds, I did have a good time at
RootsTech. I made the most of the situation, choosing classes that weren’t
super popular, so there weren’t as many crowds trying to get seats (choosing
classes in the big ballrooms was helpful). I also learned how to maneuver through
the exhibition hall to get to some of the classrooms where there were less
people. A couple of the days, I spent lunch in my hotel room, so I could
recharge for the rest of the day.
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| Exhibition Hall |
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| Crowds between classes |
No work was done on my portfolio, but I did meet with my
certification discussion group this week. We discussed the article about Wills
in the Helen Leary book North Carolina
Genealogy.
Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.
Thanks for posting the RootsTech photos. 14,000 people . . .
ReplyDeleteYeah, and was about 5000 more on Saturday--Family Day.
DeleteThank you for mentioning my WWII programs. So happy you enjoyed them.
ReplyDeleteI learned quite a lot, and from your books, too. Thank you for your dedication to this field.
Delete