BYU Family History Conference 2011 Recap

Have you found heaven lately?  I did.  I spent this last week at the 43rd annual BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy.    I felt I’d found heaven as I listened to the plenary speakers, learned from the lecturers, viewed products from the vendors, met new people, and made new friends.     Here’s a recap:

The first day, Tuesday, July 26, I drove to the free parking lot, parked the car, and walked only a few steps to the Conference Center.   Since I had picked up my registration materials the week before, I went straight to the auditorium, selected a seat, and went over my schedule for the day.

The conference opened with one noticeable glitch.   D. Joshua Taylor’s Monday flight from Massachusetts had been cancelled and he had not arrived by Tuesday morning!

Not to worry, however, because the conference planners seamlessly switched to plan B, shuffled some of the presenters’ schedules, and the conference slipped into gear.  Meanwhile, Taylor rerouted and spent long hours in many airports and finally arrived by Tuesday evening.   Ever the trouper, he ended up giving FOUR lectures on Friday to make up for the two he missed on Tuesday.

Each morning (except Friday) opened with a plenary speaker.  As I conduct genealogy research, it’s easy for me to slip into a narrow view focused on things I need and what I need to do.  The plenary speakers gave me a more global perspective of family history work, taught me to broaden my mindset, and think about how I can contribute to this worldwide genealogical community.   For example, Tuesday, President Dennis E. Simmons spoke on “The Mission of the Church.”  President Simmons recently presided over the LDS Family and Church History Mission, leading all those volunteer missionaries you see at the Family History Library.  He noted there are 4500 Family History Centers in 80 countries.

Wednesday, D. Joshua Taylor, titled his talk, “Genealogy in Prime Time: Family History’s Next Generation.” As Director of Education and Programs at the New England Historic Genealogical Society and an expert on the TV series “Who Do You Think You Are,” Taylor brought new insight to the future of genealogical research.  He talked about the different generations of genealogy researchers and labeled the present time as Generation 3.0 where we have new resources, new records, traditional genealogists, and we are working to blend the genealogy community.

Thursday, Ransom H. Love spoke on “Embracing Change Together.”   He is FamilySearch’s Senior Vice President of Strategic Relationships.   Love is responsible for negotiating third party relationships around the world and talked about bringing the genealogy community together.   For instance, students in South American Catholic seminaries are involved in indexing records from their own country.  It’s just one example of how the world is coming together to help move this work forward.

After the plenary session, it I headed to class.  The conference featured over 100 classes for all levels of genealogical experience.   Seven classes were offered each hour with tracks in Computer Tools Lab, Basic Research, Methodology, DNA and Related Research, U.S. Research, British Isle, Researching with Ancestry.com, Using NFS (New Family Search) Affiliates, Internet Research, International, Computers & Technology, Researching with FamilySearch, Scandinavian, British Isles, and New FamilySearch, Writing Family Histories, German Research, Church Records Worldwide, and Family History Centers!   With a line up like that, it was hard to narrow my selections to only one class per hour.

The speakers were fabulous.  I hate to give you a partial list of the presenters for fear of leaving out someone that is worthy of the list. Come to think of it, they were all worthy.  They came with certifications, accreditations, doctorates, and master’s degrees. Some work for genealogy societies or major genealogy businesses, or at FamilySearch or as consultants at the Family History Library.   Some have lectured at national conferences.    Needless to say, it was a great lineup.

I learned so many things.  I always do.  It’s heaven to be able to learn from the experts, whether it’s strategies or sources or methods, because the field is evolving daily with new online resources and new products.   Technology is changing and it’s changing the way we do genealogy.  I’m trying to keep up, and this was a great opportunity to expand my tech knowledge and skill level.

Just learning from the speakers was a fabulous treat.  The frosting on the cake, however, was the 600+ page syllabus!   I loved being able to take notes right on the handouts in the syllabus, but it’s also great to have on hand the handouts of the classes I had to miss.  Each speaker contributed four pages of handouts for the syllabus and it is full of bibliographies and internet sites for searching and sources.  It is a handbook for finding repositories in places I haven’t yet searched.  It’s such a great resource to have on my bookshelf, I already added post it notes to the side margin, making quick access to the various topics.

Lunch time each day provided an opportunity to eat lunch and visit with the vendors.  Conference participants could have purchased a meal ticket of four meals at the Morris Center for $25.  This was a great deal because the Morris Center is a cafeteria with all you can eat hot meals, salad bar, drinks, and desserts.   The center is right across the parking lot from the Conference Center, an easy walk.  I chose to brown bag it from home to save money and my waistline, but then the famous BYU brownies and Creamery Ice Cream continued to tempt me as I spotted others eating them.   I passed on both, just to be really good.

During Friday’s lunch I spoke with Bruce on the phone.  He asked if I’d like to eat out for dinner.  Of course I would, I had so much to tell him about the conference and he’s been cooking all week, so maybe he didn’t want to cook anymore and neither did I, so I said “yes!”

Then he surprised me.  We had originally decided I would not attend the FGS Conference this September in Springfield, Illinois, because I had already gone to Samford’s IGHR in June and there’s only so much money in the budget.  Bruce had been thinking about FGS, honest, I hadn’t done any whining or moping about it but inside I was feeling let down.  BYU’s conference was so good and I regretted having to miss a similar experience in September.  I felt like there was a big party coming up and everyone’s been invited,  including me, and everyone’s going, except me.  So, inside I had been feeling a little sad about that.

Bruce surprised me by asking if I wanted to go to FGS!  Of course I wanted to go.  I warned him not to dangle a carrot in front of me that he wasn’t willing to come through on, but he was serious.  He said he’d been doing some calculations and maybe WE could go.  WE.  He would come too!  THAT would be really great.  He said he’d work on it some more and we’d talk about it over dinner.

After I got off the phone I headed to the vendor area.  Over 30 organizations and vendors comprised the exhibit area with some demonstrating their products after the block of classes each day.  The exhibits included Family Chartmasters (formerly Generation Maps), Family Roots Travel, Visit My Past, LLC, Ohana Software (makers of Family Insight,  EasyFamilyHistory.com (Paul Larsen’s book and CD, Crash Course in Family History), Family Roots Publishing, Cherish Bound, GeneTree, Roots Magic (software), FamilySearch, the BYU Bookstore, Legacy Family Tree, Carr Printing, Utah Genealogical Association, LifeStory Productions, Inc. (Heritage Collector software), BYU Print and Mail, and Flip-Pal (handheld scanner).

I loved talking with the vendors and learning about their new products or books or services.   Of course I couldn’t possibly purchase everything I liked (which is just about everything), so I had high hopes to win something in the raffle.

Conference planner John Beck raffled off 37 prizes donated by the generous vendors and local organizations including  software, print services, books, CDs, T-shirts, memberships, a 16 GB flash drive, M discs, and a handheld scanner!  I didn’t win anything in the raffle, but I had already won just by attending the conference.

When the last class ended, I regretfully said my goodbyes.  Thank you to conference planner John Beck and his great staff for hosting a fantastic conference.  Mark your calendars now for next year’s conference July 31-August 3, 2012.

When I got home, Bruce and I decided to eat at a local restaurant.  We had coupons for a buy-one–get-one free Teriyaki Chicken Sandwich with fries and a buy-one-get-one free hot fudge sundae.  It was a LOT of food.  I ate it all.  I was glad I had been good all week and passed on the all-you-can-eat buffet, the BYU brownies, and the Creamery Ice Cream.  If I had lost any weight during the week, it surely came all back with this one meal.

We chatted about going to FGS, breaking down the time, the cost, etc.  Apparently his fingers had been flying over all the internet travel sites today because he discovered it would be cheaper to fly than to drive.  If we flew, we wouldn’t have to spend four days in the car!   If we went it would tap into the budget, so I’d have to give up on lobbying for patio furniture.  Let’s see, I wouldn’t have to spend four days driving in the car and I wouldn’t get patio furniture.   This is a choice?    We made the decision.  WE’RE going to FGS!

So that’s my recap for the week.  If you feel like I’ve just sent you into information overload, imagine how I feel!  No worries.  It’s all good.  Despite the overload,  I found heaven this week.  It was bliss.

So, what would I do differently?  Probably try to make a clone of me so I could attend more classes!

Student Planner Alyssa Call has posted the keynote speakers notes or slides on the internet.  You may access the these.  They include Dennis Simmons written address, D. Joshua Taylor’s slide presentation, and Ransom Love’s notes.   

There are a few ways that you can access these documents.

1. Please go to BYU’s conference website: http://familyhistoryconferences.byu.edu

2. Click on the Conference on Family History & Genealogy

3. At the bottom of the homepage, there are listed who the keynote speakers were and under each is the link to see their presentation notes.

4. Or on the left side of the website, there is a link titled, “Keynote Presentations”. Click on that and it will take you to see the presentations.