The 2005 annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies opened on Wednesday under beautiful sunny skies in Salt Lake City. Attendance on the first day was reported to be more than 1,400 genealogists. The conference is being held in The Salt Palace, a modern, state-of-the-art convention hall that can easily handle gatherings of ten times the number who are at this week's event. The Salt Palace is about a five-minute walk from the famous Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
I wrote about this year's FGS conference in the July 17, 2005 newsletter which you can still read at http://eogn.typepad.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2005/07/2005_fgs_confer.html. The full agenda of presentations and a list of all the presenters is available on the FGS web site at http://fgs.org/2005conf/FGS-2005.htm. Since that information is already available online, I won't repeat it here. However, I thought I would write about some of the new genealogy products and services that I have seen so far.
"Podcasting" is a hot new buzzword in the online world and a new podcast service for genealogists has just been announced. George Morgan and Drew Smith, two well-know genealogy authors and lecturers have launched "The Genealogy Guys Podcast." The Genealogy Guys will publish a weekly, 30-minute genealogy discussion. When they say, "publish," they are referring to an audio broadcast. You can listen to it on your computer or on an iPOD or other MP3 player. You can learn more about The Genealogy Guys Podcast at http://genealogyguys.com/
The Family and Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released two new sets of the Pedigree Resource File. Set 22 contains disks 106 through 110 while Set 23 contains disks 111 through 115. Together, these disks represent the latest data collected through June, 2005. Both sets also contain a Master Index of all disks through the highest numbered disk in that set. Both sets also contain Progeny Family Explorer for CDs,a very powerful search tool designed to quickly and easily search large databases published on CD-ROM disks.
Starr Hailey Campbell has published two books for children. The first is "The Adventures of James, A Trip to the Cemetery." This book is aimed at preschoolers, a first I believe. I do not remember any other genealogy oriented book aimed at children this young. The second book is aimed at somewhat older children and is entitled, "Youth in Family History." I hope to write about each in a future newsletter.
MyFamily.com has made a couple of announcements that are published in separate articles in this newsletter. In other news from MyFamily.com, Family Tree Maker 2006 was announced a few weeks ago and is now available; the program is available at the conference.
The vendors' hall at this year's FGS conference is huge with a very large number of vendors in attendance. I only got to visit a few of the booths today. I plan to do more of that in the next two days and plan to write about what I see in this newsletter. Stay tuned!
