Friday, September 9, 2011

Day 2 (Thursday) at the FGS Conference

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I may be the only San Diego blogger writing today - the power went out on Thursday afternoon and apparently won't be on until Friday afternoon.  I'm in Springfield, Illinois attending the Federation of Genealogical Society Conference through Saturday.  Now I'm wondering about my refrigerated foods...oh well!

Thursday at FGS for me started with rushing across the street to the Hilton Hotel for the 100Memories hosted breakfast, with a panel featuring Josh Taylor, DearMYRTLE and Jonathan Good.  The early birds got the worm, er, pastries, I was five minutes late and got a glass of water.  The discussion was interesting, but it was difficult to hear in the back of the room without a microphone.  About 60 people attended.

Hungry, I went to Starbucks but the line was out the door, and I needed to be back for the Keynote talk at 8:30 a.m.  recalled that there were vending machines in the Convention Center, so I ran over there and the blinking machine wouldn't take my dollar bills.  Foiled again.  I decided to eat the Peanut M&Ms in my laptop pack for breakfast, and went back to the Hilton.

The Official Bloggers got front row seats for the FGS welcome and keynote talk by David Ferriero, the National Archivist.  Jennifer Holik-Urban's blog post I’m at the Media Hub at FGS2011 summarizes David's talk. 

The Exhibit Hall opened at 10 a.m., and there was a mad rush to get in.  I quickly found the Media Hub where the Official Bloggers have a dedicated area with Internet connections.  The hard-wire system didn't work, but we eventually got hooked up using wireless from the Convention Center.  I read my email, and blogs, and checked in on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. Many sessions were tweeted from smart phones and iPads on Twitter using the hashtag #FGS2011.  Got to http://search.twitter.com/ and you can read all of the FGS tweets.

I wandered around the exhibit hall, seeing old friends and meeting new friends at the vendor displays.  Joy Shivar demonstrated her Just a Joy site that I highlighted in a blog post last night.  I discussed the MyHeritage synchronization issues with Daniel Horowitz.  I talked with David Dilts at the FamilySearch booth about volunteer opportunities, and submitted my Fun Card for a free iPad.  The exhibit hall was pretty busy during the first hour and at break times between classes.  Lunch was a cheeseburger from the concession stand in the hall.

The early afternoon was more reading and chatting in the Blogger cage, and I met a number of geneabloggers and readers that I had not met in person before.  I enjoyed chatting with Roger Moffat, Ruth Blair and several others (I'm sorry, I didn't write down everyone I talked to!).

I attended the 3:30 p.m. session by Lisa Arnold on "Online Member Trees: Ancestry's Powerful Tool Keeps Getting Better."  I sat next to Curt from Michigan, who reads Genea-Musings, and we chatted before the talk about Family Tree Maker 2012.  Lisa reviewed Ancestry Member Trees capabilities and features, and noted the benefits of having an Ancestry subscription, and the synchronization with Family Tree Maker 2012.  There were many questions about the details about picture copyrights, searching in trees, and the FTM synchronization.

I packed up and went back to the hotel to take Linda out to dinner.  We walked over downtown Springfield (not many restaurants were open in the near area) and finally ate at Subway with a visit to Cold Stone for dessert. 

We wandered over to Bennigan's at 8 p.m. to join the large group of geneabloggers and readers for fellowship, laughs, and drinks. 

I even took some pictures but will wait to post them when I have more time. 

1 comment:

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

Your post, and other bloggers at FGS, made me smile. You are all doing a great job writing about the lectures and workshop, but the #2 most popular subject is the FOOD! I know I survived Jamboree with the food bars and bags of peanuts in my book bag. Good for you for packing those M&Ms.