Wednesday, February 8, 2017

My First Day at #RootsTech 2017

Our first day in Salt Lake City was yesterday - we got to the Radisson Hotel at 4:45 p.m., and I was off at 6 p.m. for the Media Dinner sponsored by FamilySearch.  DearMYRTLE gave me my Blogger beads.  I lucked out and got a seat in the back with nine female American and Aussie friends, and we had good discussions over dinner.  There were a number of speakers but it was mainly about RootsTech process and not news or content.  I didn't take notes, but I know James Tanner and the Ancestry Insider did.

There was a blogger photo taken with about 50 people, but I was in the back row and probably can't be seen.  Someone will probably post the photo.  I'm the one with my hand up in the back taking a photo of the camera person.

On Wednesday morning, I got to the Family History Library just after 8 a.m., and was #2 at the Family Discovery Experience.  I did one thing and then the computer failed.  I decided to come back later.

I posted my Family History Library plans this morning, and managed to do about half of the tasks on my to-do list.  It was mainly land records - Mercer County, PA, Killingly CT, Foster RI,  Lots of switching films and trying to find index entries and then finding the actual deeds.  I took digital photos of the deeds on the microfilm machine base where the image was projected.

At lunch time, I headed to the Salt Palace and got my RootsTech badge and gift bag, and had lunch (a donut and a banana) and decided to watch the Innovator Showdown at 12:30 p.m.  That was interesting - a big crowd and several excellent applications.

I headed back to the FHL, and found some more deeds on my list.  Then I went down to the B2 (British) floor and searched on microfilm for Hilperton records for my Richman and Rich families.  I talked a bit to Kirsty Gray and told her my tale of woe about John Richman's parents, and she took some notes.  I didn't find anything new in the Hilperton Poor Law and Tax records.

Before leaving, I took a second shot at the Family Discovery Experience, and this time it worked for me.  They give you an iPad to use, you sign in with your FamilySearch ID, and then point you to a number of stations.Here are some photos:

1)  At the "Who Am I Related" To station, they show you a list of famous persons in different categories:


One of the neater things is they show you a list of people who have done this today - I found David Lambert (of NEHGS) on the list:


2)  At the Where I Come From? station, they show you migration paths for your ancestors:


Note: The one off of Africa is for a person from "British Colonial America).  The map assumes that is Longitude 0.0 and Latitude 0.0 because that place is not in their list of places on FamilySearch.

I can pick one of the buttons on the screen at the top - I tapped on "My Heritage":


3)  There was also an "All About Me" station, and here I could tap on any of the items on the screen.


There is also a panel with information about names.  I found out that there were 9,333 people with the name Seaver in the USA:


The Discovery Experience is pretty cool.  I already knew about it so I wasn't really overwhelmed by it or surprised by any of it.

Of course, you have to have a FamilySearch account (it's FREE!) and know your password, and also be in the FamilySearch Family Tree with links to lots of ancestors.  The information they provide is only as good as the information that you and others have provided.

I got back to the room about 4:15 p.m. and wrote this post, and now it's nap time before we go to dinner.  I'm tired, especially my eyes and feet.

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Copyright (c) 2017, Randall J. Seaver


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