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

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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.