Monday, February 10, 2014

Tammy Hepps: "Top 10 Things I Learned About My Family From My Couch" at RootsTech 2014

I worked hard all day today on blog posts and my society newsletter, and finished both tasks in good time, so I decided to reward myself with watching one of the videos from RootsTech 2014.

I saw that the first one on the list after the Thursday Keynote was Tammy Hepps, the developer of Treelines, and her topic was "Top 10 Things I learned About My Family From My Couch."  I met Tammy last year at RootsTech and tried out her website and liked it, but I didn't get a chance to stop at the Treelines display at RootsTech this year (she was always busy when I went by).

So I thought, "I'll see what Tammy has to say and to show us on video."

What a treat - it is informative, funny, and instructive.  Her ancestry and research is so unlike my own.  It is entirely recent immigrants from Eastern Europe into the northeastern states in the late 19th century.


In her presentation, Tammy describes how she started out on each of ten research problems, the resources she found from her couch online, and then the offline research she performed in most cases to find more information about her families.

In the process, she demonstrates all of the basic genealogy techniques used by most experienced researchers, and finds a wide range of online resources that I didn't know about (mainly because I don't have the same ancestral challenges she has).  Then she finds a wide range of offline resources also.

What an excellent presentation!  I loved it.  I think every genealogist will love it - please don't miss this one!

Thank you, Tammy, for teaching this old dog a few new tricks, and when I talk to a person with similar ancestral research challenges, I'll point them toward your RootsTech video and, if necessary, to you for consultation.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/02/tammy-hepps-top-10-things-i-learned.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver

4 comments:

Randy said...

I agree!

Elizabeth Lapointe said...

Oh yes, she gave such an energetic engaging talk. I loved it. She mixed doing online genealogy with family stories - very good.

Elizabeth

Rebecca DeMarino said...

Wow - thanks for sharing this! Wonderfully presented info!!

Tammy said...

Thanks, Randy! Sorry I didn't get a chance to connect with you this year -- I didn't get much time to circulate in the exhibit hall. Thanks for your kind words about Treelines and my talk!