The Keynote Speakers this morning were outstanding- it was really a roller coaster of emotions. The first speaker was Todd Hansen, is an Emmy Award winning TV host and producer. He currently hosts and produces The Story Trek on BYUTV. His stories and presentation were outstanding. His message is that everyone has a story (or two) and they need to write down your stories. He cannot tell everyone's story even though he would like too, so he needs our help to get everyone's story written down and kept for generations to come.
The second speaker Stephanie Nielsen, is a mother and wife first and then a blogger of nieniedialogues.com. She also has a New York Times bestseller memoir, Heaven is Here. In the summer of 2008, Stephanie and her husband were involved in a serious airplane accident in Arizona While they miraculously survived, Stephanie experienced life threatening burns covering her arms, legs, face and hands. Her story is amazing, not sure that I could have stayed so positive. Yes, I was in tears but probably were for joy.
Sat with Marilyn during our luncheon sponsored by Ancestry,com. We are going different ways the last couple of days, so it was good to get caught up .The topic of discussion was from a panel of Ancestry experts to discuss AncestryDNA, what is happening, what is coming. They gave us an idea of how the process works after you complete your kit and mail it off. Very eye opening.
Can I Do My Genealogy On My Tablet......... tablets are small and compact, but can you actually do your genealogy on these things. The answer is Yes, yes you can!! Pamela went over a lot of genealogy apps that will work on the PC and Mac.
Using Pinterest for Family History-Kevin Knight - very good presentation. I really learned a lot and think that I will go back and try this again. I am excited about this. It does have a great potential for genealogists.
Finding Stories on Google Books......... Jimmy Zimmerman. Nice young man, well spoken and composed and understood the subject. He had a great family story that threaded through his presentation. A lot of books in the Google Books section are out of copyright and usually you can. download the whole book. But there are some that have limited views and some that have only snippets (teasers) and ones with no previews. There are so many features- try it out and see, Apparently, just like indexing, more and more books are digitized and come available for viewing.
I expected to go into the exhibit hall for the last hour and found that it was already closed, despite the fact that the app showed Saturday from 10 to 6. Oh well, I guess I was done. I finally got back to the hotel. Guess who has set up business in the hotel Family Roots Publishing Co. They are our book vendor for our seminar for several years. They are not here full time, but Utah is their home. I stopped to say HI and to look. Book: German Maps and Facts for Genealogy; Census Birth Year Chart; Genealogy at a glance: Family History Library Research (cheat sheet);and a very sweet book for my granddaughter to start her off - Evie finds her Family Tree. OK OK now I am exhausted. Up to the hotel room and something to eat for dinner. The library is open till 9pm tonight, and I was tempted but I am tired - my eyes, my body and my mind.
Oh did I mention that Saturday was also Youth Day - thousands of young people everywhere. It is good to see the conferences including a special day with special events just for them. They all were given neon green and neon orange backpacks. They were everywhere. At the end of the day it looked like they had a great time.
I did go into the Exhibit Hall once today just so I could say I was in there. It was first thing this morning,,,,,,,, I went right for the BackBlaze booth with laptop and external drive in hand, I was able to install BackBlaze which will back up my laptop and external drive. It is full coverage Free for a year. YES FREE for a YEAR. So now I will have time to evaluate it.
As you can see the exhibit hall was a place to be - very crowded with lots going on. Lots of demo sessions at many of the various booths. Lots of positive activity.
And of course BackBlaze was very busy. Lots of questions and lots of people bringing their laptops to install their FREE Year of backup. Thank You to BackBlaze
The installation of the program was quick, there was a waiting line most of the conference. But as I said it went quickly.
And our friends from Southern California Genealogical Society promoting their Society and the upcoming JUNE 2014 Jamboree. If you remember back, I won a free registration for this year and I am excited about it. I did stop long enough to register for the DNA Day Wouldn't it be just wonderful to win that too. I am not holding my breathe.
.... now mark your calendars for ROOTSTECH 2015 Conference. And a bonus for next year will be that RootsTech is partnering with Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) for 2015. You will get it all at one major conference.
We are off in the early morning for that long drive home.
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