This last month was pretty intense with the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, the Association of Professional Genealogists – Professional Management Conference, and RootsTech.  I also finished working with editor Karen Mauer Green to publish part one of my article in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, “Joseph and Daniel Chaplin of the Town of [...]

Do you want to create your own family tree website but don’t know how to write code?  I’ve got just the tool for you!  It’s called The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding or TNG. I’ve seen this product at other conferences, but more recently I attended Laura Prescotts’ RootsTech lecture, “Publish Your Genealogy Online.” Laura [...]

Wouldn’t you love to find a website indexing courthouse records?  There is one!  It’s not complete, but it’s better than nothing, and new indexes are constantly being added.  If you find a family member in this index, you may order the copy of the record directly through this site, or note the volume and page [...]

Whether you want to attend an institute, a cruise conference, or virtual conference, there’s something for everybody in this line up! Family Tree University Virtual Conference, March 9-11, online!  Instructors include Thomas MacEntee, Lisa A. Alzo, Lisa Louise Cooke, Diana Crisman Smith, and Nancy Hendrickson.  Since the classes are pre-recorded, you may download it during [...]

The RootsTech Exhibit Hall had something for everyone, genealogists AND techies.   For your benefit, I’ve created a virtual exhibit hall.  Since it never closes, you may walk this hall in your pajamas!  (These are the companies that had a presence at the exhibit hall.  Obviously there are other companies doing similar things, but I wanted [...]

A few months prior to RootsTech 2012, genealogy booksellers were informed by the conference staff that they would not be invited to have an exhibit booth in the RootsTech exhibit hall because, in the organizers’ opinion, books are not technology.  Excuse me?  Books ARE technology!   Paper is just an earlier version of the same things [...]

This was my roller coaster day.  First, I had fun, fun, fun. This morning I was eager to hear the latest from Tim Sullivan, Ancestry’s president and CEO, and a panel of Ancestry engineers.  Their presentation titled, “Making the Most of Technology to Further the Family History Industry,” kept me taking copious notes.   Sullivan reported [...]

For this morning’s opening address, Josh Coates, addressed the topic, “Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities.”  (If you have any idea what that means, you know more than I do.)  As CEO of Instructure, an education software company and founder of Mozy, Coates’s remarks were way over my head.  I’ll have to leave it to [...]

Three cheers for the organizers of RootsTech 2012!  They’ve done it again, even better than last year.  Here’s how it went today: Bruce and I were slow getting to RootsTech this morning, not because we didn’t wake up on time, but because he left his cell phone at home and we had to turn around [...]

Today I attended the Association of Professional Genealogists: Professional Management Conference, held this year in Salt Lake City the day before RootsTech. My day began at 6:15 am.  After I showered and dressed, I blended up some green smoothies, put them in water bottles, and Bruce and I left home at 7:22.  We drank our [...]