RootsTech :: Day One

The day began with the Keynote Address by Jay Verkler (with a little assistance from a few other people). It was rather mind-boggling listening to his vision for the future of genealogy research – if only it were possible to live to 2060 to see if his vision becomes reality! Wow. Mr. Verkler has recently stepped down as President and CEO of FamilySearch. In that capacity he helped guide and transform FamilySearch into a leading genealogy-tech company that is bringing online so many wonderful digital documents.

Along with many of the other 4,000+ attendees, I went into the Exhibit Hall after the keynote address The hall was absolutely packed! I found Thomas MacEntee handing out the geneablogger beads and picked up mine.

Michele Goodrum and I were chatting away like old friends when a “crew” came up and asked if they could interview one of us. I said sure, and then literally pushed Michelle in front of me as I stepped aside!

Luckily, Michele didn't hold that against me and graciously allowed Bart Brenner to take our photo.

And, here is Bart...

The first session I attended was Mining Newspaper Archives. It was a little disappointing as it was mostly about the process of getting the newspapers digitized and online. They also only discussed two of the sites available for newspaper research.

After lunch with Michele, it was off to the RootsTech Genealogy Idol presentation. Each of the contestants did a great job and congratulations go to Marian Pierre-Louis for winning the most votes and becoming the first Genealogy Idol.

I must say, I was very impressed with the enthusiasm and style of Elyse Doerflinger. She is going to make a wonderful teacher.

Evernote was the topic of the next session I attended. I had heard of Evernote but had never taken the time to learn anything about it. I think it definitely has possibilities for research purposes.

As with Evernote, I knew almost nothing about tablet computers so was hoping that Jill Ball could tell me all about them in her “Galaxy Girls” presentation. Jill discussed some of the benefits of the Samsung Galaxy tablets as well as their limitations. Then went on to talk a little bit about some of the apps and widgets that are not specifically genealogy apps but can be useful in doing research.

All in all, it was a good day – attending interesting sessions and seeing “old friends” once again!