Friday, March 2, 2018

Day 3 (Friday) at RootsTech 2018

This was the first day ever at RootsTech that I did not attend the Keynote talk.  My reason was simple:  I wanted Linda to see the Keynote presentation and enjoy the Scott Hamilton story.  So we stayed in the hotel room and watched it on the Internet.  Sporadically.  The wifi would pause every five minutes or so, and then pick up when it left off.  There are actually benefits to this - I didn't have to show up early (I blogged instead) and I didn't have to fight the crowds leaving to go to the Expo Hall.  Ben Bennett and Tamsin Todd opened the Keynote session with a description of their new Catholic Record collection and their Big Tree plans (partnering with FamilySearch).

I drive Linda in the wheelchair over to the Expo Hall and she went visiting the vendors all morning.  Then we had lunch and raced back for the Blogger photo at 12:15 p.m.  Scott Hamilton drew a big crowd when he visited the Media Hub.

I visited some vendors, talked to friends, and wrote blogs while Linda wandered.  A lot of people know her from my blog and Facebook, but she doesn't remember names and faces well now.

After lunch I had a nice visit with David Lambert (American Ancestors) and Scott Fisher (Extreme Genes) and took some photos.  I spoke to several Ancestry folks about their Big Tree (which has many errors in it) and about indexing and searching the Ancestry Member Trees.  Daniel Horowitz came by with a videographer and we did a short three question interview for their Facebook page.  I have an interview later in the afternoon with Tamsin Todd of Findmypast.

Here are some of the photos I took today:

1)  Marian Pierre-Louis took a break from the Legacy exhibit and joined Cheri Passey and Elizabeth O'Neal in the Media Hub:


2)  I made it to the Geneabloggers Tribe photo opportunity just in time, and hid in the back row on the left.  I took a picture of the photographers but don't have a photo of the group.  I hope someone will share with me.


3)  The Geneabloggers Tribe photo provided opportunities for bloggers from the east to meet bloggers from the west - here are Dave Robison of Massachusetts and Diane Gould Hall of California:


4)  I took a photo with Lisa Gorrell from the Bay Area with Robison in the background:


5)  The RootsFinder tree guy was out and about and we took this photo (Lisa Gorrell, Sheri Fenley, Katherine Challis, Melinda Culpon and myself):


6)  Here is David Allen Lambert and me at the American Ancestors exhibit:


7)  Here are Scott Fisher and David Allen Lambert - they are dressing up tonight for the MyHeritage party:

AncestryDNA had a promotion called "Find Your Match."  I picked a badge with the locale "West Midlands and North West England" and if I find another person with the same locale we both win Ancestry prizes.  15,000 people here, it seems hopeless.  But one of the exhibitors, Xistance started a registry and if they found the match then the two could phone or message each other.  I have a match and we'll meet up on Saturday.

I visited a bit with Jack Minsky of Family Tree Maker this afternoon, and his 11-year old daughter Nikki who seems to be one of the brains of the company.  She knows everything about their products.  Anyway, they have a new mobile app called AlbumWalk (see AlbumWalk.com for more details.  This looks like it will be very useful when it will sync with Family Tree Maker in the coming months.

I probably will not post again tonight because we all have the MyHeritage After-party to attend tonight at 8 p.m.  I expect to get to bed after 11 p.m.

There is one more busy day at RootsTech - it goes by so fast!  I'm having fun - I hope all of the attendees did too, and learned a lot.

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Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver

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2 comments:

Marian B. Wood said...

There were many misty eyes in the ballroom while Scott told his moving story. I wonder what the rest of the story is on his genealogy! They only did a preview this morning. Anyway, your timing was excellent to squeeze into the photo! I hope someone shares it so I can get a copy too.

KSteckelberg said...

Thanks for your posts about RootsTech! I’ve never been to a RootsTech conference (going to NGS this year), so it’s fun to live vicariously through all the blog posts that you and your fellow bloggers have been doing.