Blogging has brought me some pretty cool opportunities and another one is coming up next week. I am heading to Roots Tech :Family History & Technology Conference. I attended last year as a media person and spent a lot of time in the vendor area so I didn’t get to attend many classes. This year I will be going as an official blogger! 
Call me a geek, but I’m excited! I love the technology part of it, and I’ve recently caught the family history bug. I’m fairly clueless about most of it, but I’m eager to learn. I’ve looked through the schedule of classes and found at least 2 every hour that I want to attend. I need a clone.
Video Transfer Machine displayed at RootsTech '11
The conference is designed to bring technologists together with genealogists so they can learn from each other and find solutions to the challenges faced in family history research today. Most of the presenters and vendors focus on technology so this is right up my alley! I’ve blogged for 4 years now and I love to look back at old posts, especially the ones that have photos. I need to be better at blogging family stuff. Have you noticed the new Facebook timeline? It actually tells a story. You can add past events and customize your cover image. When you document things on Facebook, you are recording your history! It’s amazing the way technology has changed. I think the Lord puts things in our path at the precise time and place when we are ready to use them for the purpose he designed.
If RootsTech sounds like something you’d be interested in you should check it out! It’s Feb 2-4 at the Salt Palace Expo Center. You can register for the full conference, or the Expo Hall is open to the public. It is full of demos, products, games, a mini-lab and refreshments. Don’t be scared that it’ll be too advanced or complicated. There are people from everywhere in the world and every stage of learning about family history in attendance. Last year I saw people who had organized all their research on their laptop and I saw people who had binders full of papers where they organized everything. There’s not just ONE way to do family history.
Family History is not just about names and dates. I remember seeing indexing sheets at my Grandma Mac’s house when I was little. She spent hours and hours indexing as well as searching for family. I imagined when she died, that all of the people she helped do family history work for were waiting to greet her and thank her for helping their families. It would have been quite a crowd! Since most of my mom’s side of the family history is moving along, my mom and sister have been working on my dad’s side. Names and dates can be elusive, but once you find them and learn about the person behind them, the stories are fascinating. My kids love to hear stories that have been passed down and shared for decades. By sharing these stories, we take a name and date and make it a real person. No matter how much you might love research….people don’t fall in love with the dates, they fall in love with the stories.
Do you have a favorite story about your ancestors?
As an Official RootsTech Blogger I was given a full conference pass. All opinions and experiences are my own.
