My three favorite moments from RootsTech

Besides being able to have a party at our home Saturday night, here are my three favorite moments from the conference last week:My lecture "Advocating Genealogy and Growing the Market: Issues of the New Genealogist" went amazingly well. I told them that this was not particularly the lecture I knew how to give, but rather the lecture that I wanted to hear at RootsTech. I'm passionate about trying to engage new genealogists (that's why we do charts) and I really want to know why so many people are turned off to genealogy. So we discussed some of the brick walls that I see that the genealogy community puts up to new beginners. I had lots of questions for the audience and I wish we'd had two or three more hours to discuss these things. They had lots of great ideas and I can't wait to hear the recording that was made of the lecture. When it is available I'll post it here. As a community, genealogists need to figure out how to stop putting off new people so that we can grow and have the tools we need to become better at this.

Pretend there's a picture here

The next highlight was Saturday morning but you don't get to see the picture. (I'm still not showing you pictures of the kids--but I think we're going to have to give that up soon. They're old enough really--I'm just a overzealous mother.) I took the kids, and Drew Smith came over and asked if he could interview them for the Genealogy Guys Podcast. THANK YOU DREW. I think you put me 10 years ahead on the "Genealogy is Cool" timeline with investing the kids in our family history. It was so fun. He took us in the little glass booth at the center of the hall and told them that lots of people will hear them on the podcast. And the funniest thing happened--when he started asking questions, my self-proclaimed shy one (13-year-old boy) who didn't want to be interviewed wouldn't shut up :) His brother and sister couldn't get a word in edgewise. It was great fun. Hopefully Drew will be able to do his magical editing on it and I'll post it here when you can hear it.

And finally:
And then finally, we all got to sing happy birthday to my sister from another mother ;) Lisa Louise Cooke. I just love her so much, she inspires me like no other. And we got to spoil her for a minute. What a special treat. I get to have her back next month when she is planning to do some fantastic stuff for our spring UGA conference. Come see us there!

My very own Super Bowl Party

Even though you may have already seen the posts by Banai Feldstein, Jill Ball, Amy Coffin, I have to show you my favorite pictures from RootsTech. Over the weekend I had the honor of hosting my very own Super (bowl) party with the Giants of the genealogy industry.
Paula Hinkel, Kim Van Aspern-Parker, Caroline Pointer, Banai Feldstein, Randy Seaver, Linda Seaver, Leo Meyers
Drew Smith, Christy Fillerup, Kimberly Powell, David Pugmire, Elissa Scalise Powell, Audrey Collins, Reed Powell, Lisa Louise Cooke
Banai Feldstein, Daniel Horowitz, Mark Olsen, Paula Hinkle


There was this moment in the evening when I walked into the Family Room and saw this: It's like my facebook page come to life and sitting in my family room! So cool. All these people I love and get to work with--right here in my own home. It was just so fun.
Luana Darby, Barbara Rennick, Paul and Sue Maxwell, Dear Myrt, Carrie Keele and her husband, Thomas McEntee, Denise Levenick, Jill Ball and her husband, Lisa Alzo, and the amazing Footnote Maven. All right here in my family room. How spoiled I was for one evening. How much I want to capture them all and keep them here :)
Colette and Barry Ewell and Nancy Shivley
Drew Smith, David Pugmire, Christy Fillerup, Kimberly Powell, Elissa Powell, Audrey Collins
Gordon and Janet Clarke
Kelly and Jim Erickson, Craig Scott, and Reed Powell

Jim and Kelly Erickson, Gordon and Janet Clarke, Anne Tanner, Sue Maxwell, Elissa Powell, Dear Myrt, Lisa Louise Cooke, and Thomas MacEntee.

James and Anne Tanner. And yes Kim made it too :) Somehow he avoided most of the pictures.

I'm so sorry to all the people I missed getting pictures of. But thank you all so much for coming. It was so so much fun to have you all in our home.

I have to profusely give Emily Park an overabundance of thanks for helping me pull this off. While I was speaking that morning, she was working hard getting everything ready and then was a fantastic help keeping everyone happy and fed. Her official position here at Family ChartMasters has now become "Finance Officer and Chief Party Planner." Although I must say that dipping chocolate raspberries and such in valentines sprinkles is pretty fun work. Just take a look:

If you didn't make it, please don't feel bad, just plan on coming the next time we do it. It was so very much fun I'm actually thinking we might do it again. How can I not want to do it again looking at all these pictures. Just pray that Emily is up for it :).

Keeping it real

So we've been trying to work on family history for a couple of hours each Sunday morning with the kids. Some has gone ok, some hasn't

In the 18 hours that I was home between the Mesa conference and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy the other week, I was a basketcase trying to spend some time on this. I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out the password 13 year old boy had used when he signed up for new.familysearch. When we did finally get it, everything worked out and I got him matching up his grandmother's file with new familysearch fine. He's worked on it a little more since then. He's my name collector so I think he's going to enjoy that. Hopefully he won't remember his mom being bezerk about it.

I went through my suitcase with ideas for my lectures about getting children involved and let 11 year old girl choose something she wanted to work on. She has been reading her grandmother's family histories about their ancestors, and writing in her "My Family History and Me" coloring book. Its a cute little 23 page book with spaces for the child to fill in information about their family. You can get them by calling 801-295-8131.

Husband has been working on his Swedish lines. Trolling for ancestors through the Lutheran churches of Sweden.

15 year old boy has been editing videos. I'm so proud of him. On the 29th he started in on the recordings we made of Great Grandpa Carpenter's Amberola cylinders. He worked all day on a website for it. Couldn't get him to go to bed. He's so excited and so am I. So am I.

13 year old boy has the genealogy software we loaded on his computer in a folder on his desktop entitled "Junk my parents made me install." Works for me :)

I'm going to need some more ideas for 11 year old girl soon. What do you think? I want to give them some time to explore before we head back into more extraction. Ideas?

There's only so much you can do.

So last weekend we were going to take the kids to the library again like we had planned to do every month. But between going to the conference in Mesa, then heading straight into SLIG, going to RootsTech this weekend, and then heading out for Who Do You Think You Are Live, the UGA Spring Conference and then the Story At Home conference, I just couldn't do it. They were all set to go but I needed some down time. Helping me set up for RootsTech is going to have to be enough this week.
You win some, you lose some. 9 weeks of straight conferences with only one at home--you really can't fit more family history into life than that. Maybe I can get them to go to some more classes throughout all these conferences. I'll let you know how it goes.

Bringing the kids to RootsTech

I just had a flash of inspiration.

I had asked 15-year-old boy if there were any classes at RootsTech that looked interesting to him. He wasn't that enthralled, and in the busyness of this 9 week stretch of conferences, I didn't really push him. I had brought 11 year old girl up to help set up the booth and they were meeting people after the conference but that was about it. Someday I want to take them to classes--I have to walk the walk there. But it's not like they've never seen a genealogy conference.

But then I was thinking: a number of people have asked if they were going to get to meet my kids because they've been reading here about them. I realized on the drive home last night--I need to bring them not particularly for classes, but just to meet my genealogy family and get some feedback on our project from all of you. I love being with you all so much, and it's been so fun to talk to you all at this conference about my kids. I know you all are so excited about what we've been doing. Duh?!? I need to bring them today so that you can embrace them into our genealogy family.

So I need to ask a favor this morning. If any of you at RootsTech are reading, could you make a big deal out of my kids today? If you could tell them how awesome they are that they did this big project last Christmas, they would know that Mom isn't the only crazy one out there. Give them a big pat on the back for me ok?

You guys are so awesome. Like Josh Taylor said this morning on facebook: I'm sad RootsTech is almost over. It is so fun to be with you all.

Teenagers--Faked them out.

So the kids have caught wind that I'm thinking about writing a book. I haven't particularly told them the book is going to be about them. I don't want to spoil the unpredictable element of our teenage experiment. But they know I've been blogging about them. And I think they are starting to figure it out.

That's another reason to be thankful to Thomas MacEntee for making me rework my blog posts into a book about visiting Salt Lake City. I think it will fake them out and they'll forget that I'm writing about them in this blog. I've told them all about my new "book." And I'm hoping that will help them relax about the family history projects we've been doing.

Thank you to everyone who has been interested in my little Salt Lake Book. We've had over 300 downloads and I have a few copies of the printed book that you can get from us at the Family ChartMasters booth at conferences. It's still available at www.familychartmasters.com/slc.

Treasure Hunt from RootsMagic

I'm honored to be asked to participate in RootsMagic's treasure hunt. Here's the announcement from Bruce and Mike and their team:

It’s been a tremendous last few months here at RootsMagic. We’ve been busy with the new releases of Personal Historian 2 and RootsMagic 5. We're also excited to participate in one of the largest genealogy events in North America- RootsTech!

We want to celebrate these momentous events with you, our loyal users! And what better way to celebrate than with a treasure hunt where you could win one of many prizes including an iPad 2!

Online Treasure Hunt

We've partnered with 15 of the best and brightest genealogy bloggers who will be reporting at the RootsTech conference. Each blogger will place one of 15 clue words on their website

From Thursday, February 2 through Wednesday, February 8, 2012, visit http://www.rootsmagic.com/treasure for a complete list of the blogs where the 15 clue words can be found. Visit each blog, collect all 15 clue words, and you could win software, prizes, or an iPad 2!

Enter at RootsTech or at Home

Once you've collected the clues there are two ways to enter. The first is at the RootsTech conference itself. Pick up an entry card at the RootsMagic booth (#224) in the Exhibit Hall. Write the clue words on the back of the card and return it to the RootsMagic booth in the Exhibit Hall by Saturday, February 4 at 1:20 pm. At that time, we will hold the prize drawings. You must be present to win.

We didn't want those who aren't able to attend RootsTech in person to feel left out so we're holding a second drawing and giving away more prizes including a second iPad 2. To enter this drawing, visit http://www.rootsmagic.com/treasure anytime between Thursday, February 2 and midnight MST on Wednesday, February 8, 2012. Fill out the online form to be entered into the second drawing. You may enter both drawings but one entry per person, per drawing. Winners will be picked at random and notified via e-mail by Friday, February 10, 2012.

Remember, the treasure hunt doesn't begin until this Thursday. Good luck!

Continuing the Teenage Project

So after we presented our project to my parents, and took everyone to the family history library, we had a family council and I asked them if they would be willing to do more family history. I gave them a couple of options, we discussed different times when we could work on it at home once a week, and talked about making a trip up to the library and going out to lunch once a month.

Guess What!!!
The kids agreed to continue our family history projects for an hour or two every Sunday morning (there seems to be the least complications then.) And once a month we're planning on going up to the library on Saturday morning (again, the least interruptions.)

So I asked them:
Why did you say yes?
"Because it will make you happy and distract you from our other evil plans."

Did it make you feel good?
"Yeah."

From teenagers? I'll take it.

I'll say it again. Family History is like nutritious food. It may not be the most glamorous but it feels really good.

The Christmas Presentation--Our Teenage Experiment

Here are my Mom and Dad opening the Extraction Christmas Present that we all did for them. It's kind of anti-climatic because it was hard to describe to them what we had done with all the chaos of opening Christmas presents around. They had a hard time wrapping their minds around how big the project was, but after things slowed down, and they were able to read about our experiences, they were really excited about the present and excited to come to the library with us.



You can see the first part of our excursion to the library and my explanation of the project here:



We'll post the rest of the videos from this trip to the library next week.

In my defense-Great Grandma's Honey Candy

So I worked my children hard, hard, hard to get our extraction project finished for Christmas. I really wasn't as bad of a tiger mom as it sounded on the blog. Yes, we worked on recording family group sheets right up to 11:30 am Christmas Eve. And no, we hadn't baked any Christmas cookies or cooked a beautiful Christmas Dinner. But in my defense, that was because we were blessed this last Christmas to be able to go to my Mom and Dad's for the holiday. We were free to be able to work on the family history because I knew all the preparations were already set thanks to my Mom and Dad and my sisters who had worked to create a wonderful Christmas celebration waiting for us.

When we went up to Mom and Dad's on Christmas eve, we got there just in time to make Honey Candy. The recipe is one of our traditional family recipes that we make every year for Christmas. My great great grandmother Ethel Amelia Williams was born on the 15th of February 1880 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She married Fred Schwendiman on the 7th of January 1897 and died on the 23 of March in 1973. She raised 5 children including my great-grandmother Viola Schwendiman. She made this recipe along with several others that have become family favorites. I met Grandma Schwendiman in 1970 when we went to Idaho to visit her. I have a picture with my mom and I, Mom's mother Eila Dana, and Grandma Schwendiman. If my great-grandmother Viola had been there we would have had a full 5 generation picture. But Grandma Schwendiman's honey candy is a family favorite that sends Mom's cousins back to their childhood, and encircles my new brother-in-laws into the family.

This year we took videos while Mom made the candy. You can hear the gorgeous sounds of my nieces and nephews, sisters and brother-in-laws all gathered for Christmas in the background. It feels so good to have captured my Mother in all of her "Christmas preparations" glory. I hope you enjoy being part of our family for a few minutes. I just wish I could give you a taste through the blog. You'll just have to come visit next Christmas--but be prepared to help with the extraction if you come. :)



and part 2:



Thank you thank you to my 15 year old son for editing the videos into a coherent flow. He even put his great-great grandmother's picture in the corner. How cool is that? And there's outtakes too. Enjoy.