The *last* post on SCGS

Mine has to be the last post on SCGS. With catching up on the work we came back to, I'm a bit slow posting these pictures. Or at least it seems that way. When you are running with the geneablogging crowd--which is a very fast crowd--you have to post it now, or someone scoops you. (I still hold the scoop for Footnote Maven's picture though--and don't you forget it.) Now I know what it was like to be a news reporter. And, work with the funnest group of people in the world.

I also had to re-arrange my reader to make sure I was getting the latest feeds on all these fabulous people. Let me show you:

First, Denise Levenick from the Family Curator. What a sweetheart she is. I was so glad to get to know her. She did welcome goodie bags for all of us and the treats were a wonderful fill in for lunch when we couldn't get away from the booth. She let us participate too, with a coupon for all the geneabloggers. I'm so glad we did, because then they all came to see us at the booth when I couldn't get out to hang with them in the lobby. Many thanks Denise.

Then, a picture of the blogging summitting going on the hall. Left to right, Drew Smith (new blog), Kathryn Doyle, Elyse Doerflinger (Love Elyse's stuff on youtube. So glad to get to print a chart for her.) Dick Eastman (What can you add about Dick?), Randy Seaver (Thanks for the mentions again Randy), Bruce Buzbee (as you know), and me.
Got to meet and print a chart for Gini Webb. Hadn't known about her blog before. Excited to be reading it now. What a nice lady.
Printed a chart for Elizabeth ONeal too--a big one starting with her daughter. She had an impressive file. I've followed Elizabeth for quite a while, and love her status reports on facebook and in twitter. I love that she is a Mom doing genealogy. Like her, I'm passionate about passing this down to my kids and making sure they know where they come from. That is such a strengthing, grounding thing for children. Here we are with the chart coming off the press.
Honored to be interviewed by the Genealogy Guys. George Morgan and Drew Smith. There wasn't anyone else standing around in their interview/conference room, so I just snapped a quick one of them. The nicest guys. They are branching from podcasts into video now so we tried showing some charts. I remember hitting it off long ago with Drew in the Nashville airport. We librarians have to stick together. I'll let you know when the interview is posted.
One of the highlights too was another new, long lost friend Kathryn Doyle. I've followed her on facebook and love her posts. Now I'll be following her blog closer too. I've already seen that she is one smart cookie. She is in real life too.
We had a great time at the facebook social. Aparently Drew had a *really* great time. LtoR Bruce, Drew, Thomas MacEntee (Thanks for the great post Thomas. We loved printing that chart for you), and Michael Helmantoler
One of the interesting things about this conference was really solidifying in my mind the way different people do genealogy differently. Some genealogists are purely ancestor people, looking for who they came from. Some are purely descendant people, looking for people to have family reunions with. And some are really picture people, like FootnoteMaven and Maureen Taylor. And then there are the story people, like my Mom and Susan Kitchens. What a kick she is. And what a great story teller. Here she is hamming it up with Thomas.
And a big thanks of course to the engine behind it all: Kim, who held down the booth while I flitted about with the geneabloggers. I suppose if you were being a bit too sentimental, he is the "wind beneath my wings." But really, we talk about how at Generation Maps he is the database engine and I am the GUI--or the graphical user interface. He is the incredibly hard worker and I am so glad he lets me be the flitterdegibbit (The Sound of Music is my all-time favorite movie.)
Finally, Sunday night, after everyone had mostly left, I got a few minutes to sit in what had become the bloggers lounge at the Marriott and try to get some work done. I got to soak in the vibes they left I guess. Luckily Lisa Alzo was still there and we had a great talk. I'm so glad to have gotten to know Lisa in Colorado and at SCGS. She is a great asset to the Genealogy community. Ask her about best practices for conference attendees--she's seen every side of a genealogy conference and has some great ideas. And someday I'm going to get to one of her Eastern European Genealogy classes so that I can find more on our Hovorka line. You would think I should be a specialist in that--I'm not, but I know where to find one--in Lisa.
A few more bloggers that I got to meet but didn't get pictures of: Amy Coffin--another genealogist/librarian. Steve Danko (actually got to talk to him more last year, but go read his stuff. Good to see him again.) Schelly Talalay Dardashti *The* authority on Jewish Genealogy, Sheri Fenley the funniest, best writer of us all, Cheryl Palmer, Sheri's good friend for good reason, another great writer, Craig Manson an icon. Oh, so much fun to get to be with these people. You all have a place to stay, and a good restaurant guide when you come to the library in Salt Lake, Ok? Hope to see you again soon.

Pictures from SCGS

Guess What!?! FootnoteMaven just gave me permission to post the picture of us to my blog.

Woohoo. Such an honor to meet this lady. And she is the same sweetheart in real life as she is online, even more so. And what a beautiful lady too. I don't know why she uses her FootnoteMaven picture. But it was fun to actually get to see her and give her a hug. I wrote her on twitter a couple of days ago and told her she would have to come find me because I didn't even know if I was looking for a blonde or a brunette. And when she flashed me her nametag in the lobby yesterday, I felt like I'd struck gold. Soooo exciting to finally get to meet her.

Printed a great chart for Randy Seaver. What a file he has. To print the whole ancestor generations going out from him would have been 60+ feet. Wow. We all ought to be listening to him for advice.
Randy's and I think so much alike. His is one of my all time favorite blogs. It is amazing how you can feel so connected to people, think so much alike, talk to each other all the time, and yet have never met. Then when you finally do--it is so exciting.

And yesterday I got to be interviewed by Lisa Louise Cooke. We had such a great talk. Even after the recorder was off I felt like we could have talked forever. I'll let you know when the interview is posted.
I missed the blogger summit class this morning because I was teaching my Inherited Genealogy class against it. I've got to run now to the Facebook Meetup for the Geneablogger's group. I can't miss that too. I'll post more shortly. So many awesome bloggers to meet.

SCGS Blogger Summit.

I finally got to meet Thomas MacEntee! Been looking forward to that. http://www.geneabloggers.com/
Conferences are such a treasure hunt now for people I love and read all the time but haven't ever met.
Gotten to talk to Myrt, Randy Seaver, Denise Levenick, Sheri Fenley, Cheryl Palmer. Got to take more pictures. More to come.

Free Consults at Conferences.

I'm packing again. Looking forward to meeting lots of new facebook and blogging friends at SCGS. I'm wondering if everyone knows to pack their genealogy files?

We bring one of our 42 inch plotters to almost every genealogy conference we go attend. We do that so that our plotter can meet up with your genealogy file--and great things result.

Just bring us a copy of your genealogy file. ANY SOFTWARE (Ancestral Quest, Family Tree Maker, Legacy PAF, RootsMagic, you name it) on ANY FORMAT (USB drive, CD, Your own laptop, even a 3 1/4 inch floppy). Drop it off to us at the booth, come back after your next class, and we'll give you some options for printing things out. Then stop back later in the day and voila--a print of your file, as far as it reaches (or whatever part you want). We have done some huge charts at these conferences and not only is it exciting for the person whose print it is, it is exciting for everyone else to see too.

Check out our conference schedule. We are heading out to SCGS this weekend, and then will be going to Wyoming a couple of weeks after that. We'd love to check out your file and get it all out on a big chart for you.

Triathalons and Patience in Genealogy

You may be wondering why you haven't heard anything from me this summer about doing more triathalons. (I'm sure you were just wondering that.)

I fell in early March. It was one of those strange falls where you hit it just wrong. Well, I hit my left knee really hard. Flat on the cement. It didn't really hurt the day of, but then I could hardly walk for the next couple of days. I knew I had done something to it, but I didn't want to deal with it. My father's family has a thorough history of knee problems and lots of knee replacements all around. So I just went into denial, and didn't want to go there. I tried to exercise some, and thought I would just push through it. I still had a month or two before I had to be ready for the first triathalon I wanted to do.

Turns out--not such a great idea. A couple of weeks ago, I finally gave in and went to the doctor. I'm sure I aggravated it more by trying to keep going. I should have just taken it easy. The good news was that I have good cartilage--part of my father's family's problem. Bad news, my muscles were all out of whack from trying to limp around on it, and my knee cap is messed up. I went into physical therapy to move things around, but I have the patience of a gnat and still want to push it too far. So I'm working on it slowly and surely.

I'm sure there is a family history lesson in this. I think you sometimes just have to have patience. I taught my serendipity class in Colorado last weekend. I talked about how there are lots of stories about how strange things happen to come together to further a genealogist's work, and most genealogists have experienced that. Randy Seaver calls them Geneagasms. It was fun, and at the end of class I opened it up to the class members and heard some more great stories. In fact, there was kind of a relaxing sigh, that they could acknowledge these hunches, or coincidences without thinking it was only happening to them. But in relating some of those stories, I had to stop and caution the class, that you can't expect serendipitous things to happen. Genealogy--in my experience--really comes in fits and starts. You work and work and work and then you catch a break. In fact, the really good serendipity stories are so good precisely because someone has been working on the problem for many years, and then finally a miracle happened. You just have to have PATIENCE. Wish I was better at that.

Well, I can still relate triathalons to any experience. I've got to get back at them so that I can start braging about it again. "That reminds me of a triathalon I did once...."

Loveland Colorado Family History Expo

You know, I'm kind of at a loss as to what to tell you about this time. It was kind of the same old same old, but in a really good way. Love, love, love getting to meet people. Classes went well. Managed to juggle the booth and 2 lectures without Kim this time. Plotter hated me at first but then I figured it out. Great facility, and Holly's team was wonderful as usual. You really have to try one of her conferences. I hope we do Loveland on a regular basis.

So let me show you some pictures.

You know, over the course of this last year conferences have changed so much for me. It is now a treasure hunt for friends that I know on the social networking sites like facebook and twitter, or people who have commented on my blog. This is me and Laura Best. I was so glad she introduced herself because you look at someone, but you never would connect it most of the time. Or at least I don't. I'm a little dense sometimes that way. But I know Laura really well from facebook. And I was so glad that now I get to know her for real.

And this is Becky Jamison. Another great facebook and blogging friend. She came to my "Serendipity in Genealogy" class. That was a fun class this time because I was a little late starting and when I finished trying to catch up, I was actually done 10 minutes early. So I opened the class up to the participants to tell us about times they had experienced the "numinous" It was so fun to hear the comments. And it was really interesting--I think I felt a collective sigh of relief from everyone. Megan Smolenyak says that if you put 50 genealogists in a room, 45 have had some kind of funny coincidental happening in their research. But we hesitate to talk about it much because it seems so "out there." It is fun when everyone relaxes and admits that it happens, and you get to hear the stories. There are some great serendipity stories out there. I'm going to always end that class early so I can listen and not just talk.

And one of the highlights of the conference for me was getting to meet Diane McGinnis. I've known Ken and the other Legacy guys for a long time but have never had a chance to meet any of their wives. I had a great time talking to Diane. I hope sometime I get to meet Pegi, Dave Berdan's wife. I've talked to her many times on the phone but haven't ever gotten to meet her for real.






Sandy Booth also came and brought the cute kids. They explored the museums and the pools. I've been on that side of it--with the kids at a conference--and I can tell you with certainty that she worked harder than we did. Aren't they cute though? It's always fun to talk to Sandy.







I got to go to dinner with Lisa Alzo who was there to speak and Allison Stacy of Family Tree Magazine. We didn't get a picture but it was great to get to know them better too. Two really bright ladies. And we found an awesome barbeque place. "Serious Texas Barbeque" I hope we go back to Loveland just so we can eat there again. Looks like I was pontificating about something brilliant in this picture doesn't it? Thanks to Mike Booth for the picture.




And here are the cute Family History Expos ladies. Ready to eat some of that GOOOOOD barbeque. You would think they should look exhausted but they don't do they? Thanks again Mike.


So now it is back to work. We'll all do it again next week at SCGS ok? Come join us. I'll be excited to meet you too.

Vinyl

You get the news first in our newsletter.
New Family Reunion Chart Options

As we head into the summer, you may be looking forward to a family reunion. Generation Maps has all sorts of options for creating a family history chart that will be the center of your get together.

We have a new paper option that we are really excited about for family reunions this year -- VINYL. We have often been asked about a more durable paper for an outside gathering and we finally have an option for you. We have even seen people use this option for tablecloths and placemats (a great gift for the grandkids). With pictures or decorative elements, you can do some really fun things with this new option.

It is often hard to know how big a descendancy chart is going to be. When you send your file in for a FREE CONSULT, we can give you lots of options for creating a chart. You are welcome to use some of the popular genealogy programs to create your chart and then just send it to us for printing. But with all the practice we have had in printing family reunion charts, we can usually save you space over what many of the popular programs can do. Give our free consult a try, and we can send you the various size and pricing options for your data.

You may also want to visit The Chart Chick blog for the best ideas we have seen on how to display the charts. We have seen some great ideas over the years, and you can benefit from them here, and here. However you choose to do it though, you can create lots of great family history discussion, make everyone feel included, and even gather more information with a great chart. Use our free consult and we can make it much EASIER for you.