Thursday, March 1, 2018

Day 2 (Thursday) at RootsTech 2018

There were several major highlights for me this day - including meeting longtime online friends in person and hearing Gilad Japhet's MyHeritage lunch talk about the future.

The day began with the Keynote talk by MyHeritage's Aaron Godfrey who highlighted the DNA Quest and other recent MyHeritage announcements.  Then Brandon Stanton came on and talked about his years doing Humans in New York, which he now does around the world.  Interesting, but not genealogy until the end when we sang Happy Birthday to Brandon and then David Rencher provided him with some family tree information about his ancestors.

At 9:30 a.m. , the Expo Hall opened and I wandered in and claimed (homesteaded!) my spot on a table in the Media Hub.  My neighbor knew the wifi password so I didn't have to look it up.  I posted about today's MyHeritage and Findmypast announcements.  I updated the Compendium, then wandered the Expo Hall. In my wanderings, I found Marian Pierre-Louis whom I have never met before, and we shared some time together with Sheri Fenley.   I took some pictures today!  Some of the pictures are below.



I scouted out the Family History Fanatics exhibit and found Devon Lee interviewing Elizabeth O'Neal:

When I came back to the Media Hub, there was a big crowd around Brandon Stanton in the video area.


At 12 noon I went to the MyHeritage lunch and met Roberta Estes for the first time, and we took a photo and then sat together with Robert Raymond.  The food was mediocre as always, but the talk by Gilad Japhet, the founder of MyHeritage, was excellent.  He discussed coming features, some of which will break on Friday and some in the weeks ahead.  I'm not sure what I can share so I won't try.

Here's my photo with Roberta Estes:

Then it was off to my interview and meet-and-greet at the Family History Fanatics exhibit, with Andy and Devon and Caleb Lee.  I talked about probate records in the interview.  I'm terrible at these things without some notes or a script.  I stuck around for another half hour and talked to a few passersby.  Here is a photo of Marian Wood, myself and Devon Noel Lee:


I have no idea why they held up fingers.  A secret society symbol?

I visited the Forever exhibit and bought a medium size box from my San Diego friend Jenny Lynn Campbell.  There is really no time like the present!

Then it was back to the Media Hub and I updated the Compendium again.  I sent out wandering again and saw more friends and took more photos.  I may add another photo post tonight.

At 5 p.m. I went to the Findmypast exhibit and talked for 30 minutes with Jay Verkler, their Chairman of the Board, who I've known since RootsTech started.  He shared his thoughts on the future of FMP, and asked my opinion about some aspects of it.  I appreciate the opportunity.

After this I packed up and got back to the Radisson at 6 p.m., gathered Linda and the wheelchair, and we walked through the Expo Hall to Hall C for the BYU show.  Linda enjoyed it.  After that, we headed for JBs and dinner and were back to the Radisson just after 8 p.m.  I updated the Compendium post and wrote this post.

My phone says I had 11,235 steps today, over 4.2 miles.  I made two round trips from the Radisson to the Expo Hall today, plus a side trip to JBs, but I walked a lot in the Expo Hall.  My feet are still tired!

All in all, a fun and full day.

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Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver

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