Well, here I am in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA with a whole lot of other excited genealogy and family history types. So excited am I that I forgot my own blogger anniversary yesterday. It's 9 years this year; next year's TIN! Thank you for all the messages.
Some here are excited, of course, because we've had a few research days at the FamilySearch Family History Library and have already met up with others we know to talk genealogy.
On Monday I was one of the guests on Mondays with Myrt which was broadcast right from the third floor of the Family History Library. I got to talk about women's history with Myrt, one of my all time favourite subjects. As those who watch DearMYRTLE know, she always has some breaking news. We had a tidbit from FamilySearch - involving a celebrity. (I'm guessing a cheerful, family friendly comic character, one who's already had his family tree almost done, and whose known family lines are pretty well documented and cited.) We also heard about the NGS / National Genealogical Society's new online course on Documentation and Citation with Michael Hait and an NGS field trip to the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, 20 to 23 August 2014. Both sound great.
While at the Library, I've been searching through 17th and 18th century Somerset, England records (mostly) especially tax and voting records. I've found some new info on a few of my favourite ancestors and family connections (including Elizabeth Ann Adams and Henry Parker of Backwell and Nailsea who some of you have heard about recently) and I've added two more generations of family members to one line. Hope to sneak more research time in this week; I'll be at the Library late Friday night for sure. I brought a research plan and a backup plan and so far all went according to Plan A. So Friday I might get to Plan B.
Tomorrow Rootstech 2014 begins with the Innovator Summit (formerly called Developer Day). I'm so looking forward to hearing about what's coming in the tech end of genealogy for searches, software, DNA studies and beyond. See my personal conference session schedule here. And I certainly want to see Who's Who in the Rootstech 2014 Developer Challenge. In 2013, the winner was Tammy Hepps for her innovative story line product, Treelines. You can read about her here. The Challenge was one of the 'missing pieces' last year for me. I thought the competition Developers didn't get featured strongly enough, so I'm glad to see that Tammy is being recognized in this year's promotions.
After the Summit, I'll be attending a FamilySearch dinner and I expect to hear much more about the scope and background to today's announcement on FamilySearch's partnership initiatives and "collaborative agreements". (So far, as announced, these are with Ancestry.com, Archives.com, Find My Past.com, Fold 3, and My Heritage. Three of those companies are, I think, quite closely related.) As both a FamilySearch patron and volunteer, I have a number of questions myself about what's happening. I know others do too. Many of us will be blogging the news as we hear and understand it - tomorrow and throughout Rootstech 2014, so do stay tuned.
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