Genealogy Conferences: Why I like them!

In 2011, I was happy to attend  many genealogy conferences.

WDYTYA Live! Family History Fair (London, UK)

These events included the annual events of the National Genealogical Society (Charleston, South Carolina), Southern California Genealogical Jamboree (Burbank, California), IAJGS International Jewish Genealogy Conference (Washington, DC) and the Federation of Genealogical Societies (Springfield, Illinois).

I even traveled to Norway for the Slektsforskerdag 2011, held October 29, and organized by DIS-Oslo/Akershus – the largest genealogy association in Oslo.

At all these events, MyHeritage shared the exhibit hall with many vendors as well as genealogical and historical societies.

But that’s not the only reason I like to attend these conferences.

Each conference offers lectures, where attendees hear the latest news, techniques, resources and information in the genealogical world.  Also high on my list is meeting again with old friends and making new ones. It’s also great to spend time with the genealogy bloggers and other exhibitors.

I truly enjoy seeing old friends, bloggers and genealogy industry movers and shakers at every event. Even better, I meet so many new people who are just joining the genealogy world.

There’s a special pleasure in meeting personally with our users who walk down the aisle, recognize the MyHeritage logo and immediately come over to say: “I have an account here and you are great” – just like Meredith.

Meredith enthusiastically shared how she used MyHeritage to collect  information about her family, placed it all on a nice chart, and then had it printed – in a huge size – for the family reunion:

“I created a fan chart with more than 200 names, placed it on a long table and relatives came closer to read it, identified themselves and figured out how they were related to those distant cousins they remembered from childhood. It was also a great opportunity to update and collect more information“

This year is not yet over, and we are already hearing about genealogy events of all sizes. MyHeritage – and me, of course – are planning to be there. We’ll have a booth and also present programs and lectures.

So far, the schedule for 2012 looks like this:

— RootsTech: February 2-4; Salt Lake City, Utah.

— WDYTYA Live: February 25-27; London, UK.

— 13th Australasian Congress on Genealogy and Heraldry: March 28-31; Adelaide, Australia

— National Genealogical Society (NGS): May 9‐12; Cincinnati, Ohio.

— Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree: June 8-10; Burbank, California.

— International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS): July 7-14;  Paris, France.

— Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS): August 29-September 1; Birmingham, Alabama.

If you’ll be attending one or more of these events, please come by and visit the MyHeritage booth to say hello and share your MyHeritage experience. Or, write us about it now and send it by email to marketing AT myheritage.com.

Also, if you are a member of any society or group near any of those locations, I would be happy to present a program. Send me an email –  daniel AT myheritage.com – and I’ll do my best to include it in my schedule.

We look forward to meeting our MyHeritage users at all our events!