Tika & RootsTech & Conference Tags

Tika told me these lanyards and tags and buttons could not be hung in her house but they were okay for my office!  I really enjoy coming home from a conference and hanging up my conference "jewelry" (you wear it around your neck, right?) from the ceiling. Every time I look at them, I'm reliving the experience. And seeing the little stick-on flags helps me remember to learn more about that topic. My very favorite little sticky strip is an orange one reading DESCENDANT..... see it near the bottom on the left? Yep, that's me.

What do YOU do with your conference jewelry??

Tika & Story Telling

Tika was in the car to welcome me with doggy kisses when hubby came to the airport to fetch me home from RootsTech.  Over the next few days, she was more eager to just sit in my lap or beside me than she was to listen to my reports about the conference.

But when I was explaining that nearly one-third of the emphasis of this year's RootsTech was on getting our family stories preserved, she listened and agreed. One speaker told how 1/3 of the people living on Earth today have no documentation that they lived..... and that percentage would surely increase when thinking of all the ancestors who lived in Earth. The only way to make these people, these ancestors, "real" is to document their stories. And a great many of the vendors offered products to do just that.

Tika whispered in my ear (during a doggy kiss) that all you really, really need to get started is a spiral notebook and a pencil. Or the simple WORD on your computer.

I hope you will be inspired to get your story, and the stories of your family, preserved for your great-grandchildren to read, enjoy and perhaps learn from. At least they will know you lived on Earth.

Tika & RootsTech Trivia

Tika did not view any of the RootsTech presentations but I told her all about them. Some 4500 people from a dozen countries and nearly all U.S. states attended and in the main auditorium the speaker was in the center and there were two huge screen to the left and two to the right so everybody could see. It was awesome.

What did I learn about Evernote:  "It is no improvement to go from a mess to a filed mess..... it's still unorganized and you still can't find what you want."  Meaning, stuffing binders, filing cabinet drawers and file folders is no answer; using a computer genealogical program, or putting your tree up on the cloud, or using a super online note keeping program (like Evernote) makes good sense in this digital age.

What did I learn about Facebook? "Facebook has 845 million active users per month and only 8% of them are in the U.S. Genealogy is about people; Facebook is about people."  If you think of Facebook as a way to connect with cousins and not just a wuzz-wuzzing forum, you'll see Facebook in a new light.

What did I learn about Ancestry?  Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry, used the term "bag of words." They use this term in-house to mean "we have this bag of words that is meaningful and how are we going to make it accessible and useful to genealogists?"  Ancestry has a team of several hundred engineers working to develop new techniques in content recognition and record linking; they're working to make more data "searchable, hintable, recognizable and attachable to your tree."

Was RootsTech worth the effort, the time and the expense to attend? Absolutamentally. Will I attend next year (21-23 March 2013)? Absolutamentally.  Will Tika miss me? Absolutamentally.

Tika has no clue about the 1940 census.

This was taken at RootsTech but in the Family History Library where on Friday evening they remained open until midnight for eager researchers............ and they had cookies at 8pm and pizza at 10pm and showed the Martin Sheen episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on the main floor. There were balloons and everybody was in an upbeat mood. The big thing right now, stressed both at RootsTech and in the FHL, is the coming soon availability of the 1940 census and getting us all onboard and signed up to help index those millions of names. The images will be available on April 2nd, but the indexes will be available as soon as we.... you and me........ get the indexing accomplished. Anybody and everybody can help do this....... all you need is computer access and a finger or two for typing. I know Tika would help iffen she could.