Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Who’s going to NGS this year?

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This week, in Salt Lake City, RootsTech gets under way. I’ve gone to that conference four times but elected not to attend this year. (I’ll be following the hashtag #notatrootstech on Twitter in my spare time to see what my fellow non-attendees are up to.)

Instead of RootsTech, this year I’ll be attending the National Genealogical Society 2019 Family History Conference, which will be held May 8-11 in St. Charles, Missouri. It’s just a half hour from my home, so I can avoid the expense and inconvenience of travel. I registered last week!

By attending NGS over Rootstech, I’m not sacrificing education for convenience. NGS is a terrific conference, chock full of educational opportunities. I attended in 2015 and had some great takeaways. It was there, for instance, that I was inspired to order my three union Civil War ancestors’ pension files, which were game changers. And I learned how to process them. That was huge.

So I’m very excited for the conference. I can’t wait to find out what my big takeaways are.

Will you be attending? If you are, and you’d like to meet, please leave a comment and we’ll figure out how to meet. One thing I love about going to conferences is meeting readers, who often become friends!

Select NGS conference sessions available for livestream

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I was hoping to attend the 2018 National Genealogical Society conference, which is being held 2 to 5 May 2018 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but I’m not going to be able to. However, I have the option (as do you!) of watching a few of the classes via livestream.  Registration is now open for livestreaming of ten of the 175 lectures being offered.

The sessions being streamed are offered on Friday, May 3 and Saturday, May 4. Friday’s five sessions focus on DNA, African-American research, and Loyalists. Saturday’s five livestreams focus on BCG Skillbuilding. For a complete list of the sessions being livestreamed, go to the Livestream page for the conference.

You can buy a one-day pass for either day for $95 or a two-day pass for $149. If you want to watch the sessions live, you must register by May 2. From May 3 to 5, you can purchase on-demand viewing of the ten sessions for that price. (After that, you can purchase a video pass for all ten but the price goes up to $279.) The sessions remain available to you to view for a year.

Livestream registrants receive a copy of the electronic syllabus for the whole conference. For those registrants who miss the live broadcast, the session will be available on demand about 48 hours after the broadcast.

Click here to learn more and sign up.

P.S. If you’re planning attend the conference but haven’t registered yet, be aware that online registration ends on April 20!

Registration open for the 2018 NGS conference!

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As a member of the National Genealogical Society, I received the conference program in the mail that details the offerings for the 2018 Family History Conference, to be held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, May 2 to 5. I attended the 2015 NGS conference, which was held near me in St. Charles, Missouri, but I haven’t traveled to an NGS conference due mostly to scheduling conflicts.

I pored over the session offerings, placing stars by the sessions I might want to attend. There are 10 different choices per breakout session time slot, five time slots per day, except for the first day, when there is a keynote opening session. It is four days chock full of opportunities to learn. I’m a little exhausted just reading the schedule!

I starred at least three offerings per session, which I think is a good indicator that I ought to attend the conference. Registration opened yesterday, and the early bird registration fee for members (postmarked by 20 March 2018) is $215. (Early bird non-members pay $250.) To me that is a huge bargain, but I’m accustomed to organizers’ conferences where I pay over $700 registration fee.

Ten of the 180 lectures will be live streamed, for those not able to go. NGS will announce details of that next year. Some of the lectures will be recorded and the recordings available for purchase.

If you’re interested in more information or registering, visit the NGS conference website. You can see the full conference program here , though, weirdly, I have to admit I found the paper program (here’s a pdf) a little easier to take in.

If you decide to go, let me know and maybe we can meet up!

NGS conference offering live streaming

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Live streaming at the NGS conferenceI’m not going to be able to make it to the National Genealogical Society annual conference this year; my husband’s birthday falls during it. So I was delighted to see that NGS is offering, for the first time, live streaming of ten of its lectures (for a fee).

Interested genealogy researchers who can’t attend the conference (to be held in Richmond, Virginia, May 7 to 10, 2014) can sign up  to watch broadcasts of one or two tracks. Track One is Records and Research Techniques. Track Two is Virginia Resources and Migration Patterns. The charge is $65 (members) or $80 (non-members) for either of the tracks and $115 (members) or $140 (non-members) for both of the tracks

Once you register for streaming, you can watch the events live or view them at any time during the subsequent 90 days. You’ll also receive an electronic version of the conference’s syllabus.

People who are actually attending the conference may also register for the streaming, in case they want to watch these talks from home after the conference.

For complete information and registration details, visit the NGS website. Registration for streaming closes on April 30.