Report from the 2008 FGS Conference: Some Good, Some Not So Good

I just returned home a few minutes ago. I spent the past four days at the annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. I enjoyed myself. All was not perfect, however.

This year's event was held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, a first-class facility. This convention center is huge. Several months ago, I attended a different convention with about 15,000 attendees in the same convention center. Those 15,000 people easily fit into this modern facility, so it was no surprise when the 800 or so genealogists who attended this week's conference found plenty of room. The seminar rooms were first-class with good seating, (mostly) adequate ventilation and excellent acoustics.

In fact, the size of the convention center was a problem for some folks: it was a long, long walk from the hotel to the seminars and the exhibits hall. Anyone with mobility problems soon learned of the difficulties.

Conversely, the fact that this facility was directly connected with the conference hotel was a major advantage when the heavy rains and high winds moved in on Saturday: those of us who stayed at the conference hotel were able to walk to the day's events without jackets or umbrellas. We stayed nice and dry. Meanwhile, those who stayed at other hotels or commuted from the suburbs had to deal with the elements.

The rain and wind were the remnants of Tropical Storm Hanna. The storm lost ferocity long before it reached Philadelphia, but lots of rain and wind descended on the area. As the storm whipped through the streets of downtown Philadelphia's high-rise buildings, the winds appeared to be peaking at about 40 miles per hour or more. Sheets of rain were blowing horizontally through the streets.

The worst of the storm only lasted a few hours, but it did make for a miserable walk for those who had to venture outside. Luckily, I stayed at the conference hotel and was able to walk to everything I needed in very dry and calm indoor comfort. I only saw the storm through the large windows of the hotel and the convention center.

The conference itself was most everything I expected it to be. In short, I had a great time, and I think most of the other attendees enjoyed it also. I did have a few frustrations with the hotel, and I also have some thoughts about preventing such problems at future conferences. I'll write my thoughts on these issues in a separate article.

This year's conference featured more than 200 presentations, lectures, luncheons, and workshops.  The presentations covered almost every conceivable genealogy-related topic: Italian, Irish, German, Czech, Slovak, Black American, and other ethnic groups; computers; DNA; Revolutionary War; and much more. (You can find a complete list at http://www.fgsconference.org/program.)

The presenters included a “Who's Who in American Genealogy:” Deborah A Abbott, Dennis Ahern, Janet A. Alpert, James M. Beidler, Pamela K. Boyer, Jana Sloan Broglin, Tony Burroughs, Amy Johnson Crow, Wendy Bebout Elliott, Henry B. Hoff, John T. Humphrey, Dr. Thomas Jones, Susan D. Kaufman, “Bobbi” King, Barbara Vines Little, J. Mark Lowe, Marie Varrelman Melchiori, Julie Miller, Elizabeth Shown Mills, Paul Milner, Gary Mokotoff, Steve Morse, Elissa Scalise Powell, Christine Rose, Dr. George K. Schweitzer, Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, Paula Stuart-Warren, Maureen A. Taylor, Curt B. Witcher, and many others.

I suspect that most everyone who attended this year's conference benefited from these many first-class presentations.

Most of the presentations went well. There was one exception, however. If you have read this newsletter on a regular basis, you know that I often advise everyone to make regular backups of all computer files. One of this year's presenters apparently did not follow my advice. When she booted her laptop about thirty minutes before the beginning of her presentation, she found her hard drive was unreadable. The computer would not boot. Sadly, her only copy of the required PowerPoint slides was on that hard drive. She had no backup of any sort. I am told that she gave the presentation but without the slides she had planned to use. If she had a copy available on a jump drive, she could have borrowed someone else's computer at the last minute and proceeded as planned.

The exhibit hall was huge, and the number of vendors appeared to be less than that of recent years. The number of attendees also was significantly less than usual. As a result, the hall looked like a ghost town much of the time. I talked with several vendors on the last day and can report that most were disappointed with their sales figures.

One thing that caught my eye was the number of Macintosh systems spotted in vendors' booths. Five years ago, when I walked through the exhibits hall at any genealogy conference, I never saw Macs. This year I saw many. I had my Macintosh laptop in the EOGN booth and offered it to everyone for use in checking personal e-mail. Those who did not bring their own wi-fi equipped laptops could always use mine. Two big iMacs with twenty-three inch screens were prominently displayed in the Geni.com booth, and several other Macs with smaller screens were in use elsewhere in the exhibit hall. I didn't count the number of systems although it appears that Windows systems still outnumber the Macs. However, the gap seems to be narrowing.

I was also a bit surprised that very few new products or services were introduced at this year's conference. One announcement, however, was rather controversial.  On Wednesday, The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com, announced a new partnership with the Federation of Genealogical Societies. The two organizations, including many member societies of the Federation, plan to cooperate in creating indexes to many public records. You can read the full text of the announcement that posted to the newsletter on Wednesday at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/09/ancestrycom-and.html.

The new project would appear to be a near-clone of and a direct competitor to an indexing project announced some time ago by FamilySearch, the genealogy organization sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (You can read more about THAT project at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/01/familysearch-in.html.)

The benefits to FGS and its member organizations, if any, were not clearly defined in Wednesday's announcement. The announcement did state that “Ancestry.com will donate a digital copy of the sponsored index and images back to partnering organizations,” but the same is true of the earlier FamilySearch project that is already underway with tens of thousands of active indexers already in place and millions of records already indexed. Both projects are to include free access to the INDEXES created, but the Ancestry.com project clearly will lock the images up behind a “pay wall.” That is, most users will have to pay to view the original records. In contrast, FamilySearch typically provides free access to original records indexed although I don't remember any promises of that being true 100% of the time. In any case, the Ancestry.com project will provide free images zero percent of the time while the FamilySearch project will provide a much higher percentage.

After the announcement, the conference attendees were abuzz with “hallway conversations” questioning why FGS would want to be involved in a new, competitive project that seems to produce little, if any, additional benefits over a similar project that is already producing excellent results. While not mentioned in the original announcement, the project's web site does state, “Ancestry.com will provide free advertising to partnering genealogy societies.” However, that one sentence does not provide any further details nor any estimate of the value of future advertising. It would seem that the benefits to participating organizations, if any, have not yet been clearly defined.

You can read the details at http://community.ancestry.com/wap/download.aspx to see if I and a few hundred other conference attendees missed something significant.

My personal low point of the week was one of my own making. Last week I announced in this newsletter that I would be providing free wi-fi services in the exhibit hall of this conference. I encouraged conference attendees to connect and use the free networking service to check e-mail and perform other personal tasks as desired. Luckily, I also wrote a disclaimer: “The wireless network is offered 'as is.' It usually works, but there is always a chance of hardware failures. The service is free and is offered with no guarantees.”

I even briefly tested the several pieces of hardware used before traveling to Philadelphia. However, when I set everything up in the exhibit hall on Wednesday, I was appalled to find that it didn't work. Actually, it would work for a very few minutes but would always lock up and stop working within ten minutes or so. Sometimes it locked up within two minutes. My earlier brief test obviously wasn't long enough. I had hardware problems.

I'll skip over the details but can report that I ended up purchasing two different emergency replacement hardware devices, one of which was delivered to the hotel by FedEx on Friday morning. The original “air card” was defective and also is no longer manufactured. I had to purchase a newer model, which turned out to be incompatible with the two-year-old router I was using. I then purchased a brand-new router on the web and had it shipped overnight by FedEx. By mid-day Friday, the free wi-fi network was in operation, and it worked well for the rest of the conference.

I plan on sending the defective unit back for repair. At the next major genealogy conference, I hope to travel with both the new hardware and with backup hardware as well: my (repaired) older gear. Backups are a good thing.

All in all, I enjoyed the 2008 FGS conference, and I believe that most attendees did as well. If you would like to attend a future FGS conference, mark your calendar now for September 2 through 5, 2009. The conference will move to Little Rock, Arkansas, on those dates. A bit of information is already available at http://fgs.org/2009conference/index.php and I am sure that further details will be posted at that address in the coming months.

You can read my thoughts about convention centers and conference hotels in a separate article.

Comments

[Patty Huston]

When I attend a Genealogy conference I try to stay in a nice hotel. I travel with my job so I know to watch for the "extra charges & taxes". I did not attend this year's FGS or NGS conference because of the expense. I have attended genealogy conferences in Chicago, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, Dallas, St. Louis, Davenport, Pittsburgh, etc. If the price of the conference & hotel accomdations continue to increase I will not be attending a major genealogy conference instead I will attend smaller conferences.
Patty

[Linda Stienstra]

I agree with Patty. I live very close to Philly and by the time I added the conference hotel, registration, and meals my costs were almost 1K. Now if I'd flown rather than spend $24 for a RT train ticket, my costs would have been dramatically higher. Perhaps the fact of "significantly less than usual" attendees could be attributable to the costs. I saw very few from the area I live in and nobody I knew.
This is not to say I don't enjoy conferences. I do attend as many as are feasible. I only stayed three nights but I can only imagine the costs associated with staying five nights. I'll at least get my Marriott points out of the stay. :-)

[Mary Finley]

I attended the conference traveling each day by regional rail...$2.00 round trip for seniors. I was surprised to discover other senior attendees did not know they could travel Septa FREE with their Medicare card as proof of age. I rode a bus to HSP and the Market St. El to the archives.
Walking did become a problem for this reasonably fit senior. Maybe that's why I missed your display after all these years reading your newsletter!
It was a great conference. I am hearing impaired and didn't miss a thing.
I told everyone I met about LDS FamilySearchLabs.org where one can find great "new" records FREE.

[Joan Shurtliff]

I agree the hotel and subsequent parking costs (if not staying at the hotel) are high. Perhaps the groups should start looking at what I call "second tier" city facilities. They are not quite as large and, perhaps, not quite as expensive and many have good (not great) transportation connections. The conferences I have attended have had about 1,500 people and a 15,000 person facility may be overkill.

[Barbara Hug]

Isn't it time for the different genealogical societies to stop the competition and start to "Partner" on regional and national conferences? As expenses get higher and people's income become more stagnant, I believe there will be fewer and fewer conference attendees, which isn't good for anyone.

[Ray Wolfgang]

Very nice to have had an opportunity to personally thank Kick Eastman for so many really useful tips and comments over many years.

Of great interest to any genealogist or historian, of course, is the NARA's "Electronic Records Archives". The brochure on this project, however, reads like the concept for a futuristic weapons system, and the contractor selected to implement this program is none other than the nation's largest defense contractor. What happened to simple indexing, scanning, and the folks at familysearch.org, Ancestry.com, or USGenWeb, among others?

My concern here is that government agencies, after spending years and billions of dollars to "go electronic" walk away from a project, because it simply failed. This has happened to the IRS and the FBI, for example. In my opinion, this task should have been turned over to an organization(s) with a track record in genealogy.

[Kip Sperry]

Experienced family history presenters should know enough to (1) take a back-up of their presentation on a flash drive to the meeting, (2) arrive early and test the presentation to make sure it works okay, test the focus on the projector, and know how to dim the lights near the front of the lecture room, (3) test the sound system.

[Roy Nelson]

Dick:
Regarding your hardware problems, I seem to recall that in one of your past articles you mentioned getting a Verizon aircard. I recently got the Verizon USB727 aircard and have been looking for a router to go with it. But there seem to be very few compatible routers for the aircard because of the need for a USB port. Would you mind letting me know what router you used with your aircard?

[Cindy Hineman Davis, Vero Beach]

Thank you, Dick, for a neutral view of the FGS national conference, in person and in writing. Your booth in the vendor hall is like a breath of fresh air!! The end of conference dinner is another place to discuss how it went and I enjoyed that, too!!
I would like to add a bit of additional information I learned and a few comments. Since I became active in the genealogy world, the one thing I find invaluable to my family history education is attending the NGS and FGS conferences. In addition to meeting and talking to the best of the best in genealogy, I look forward to the 'big announcements.' I recall the FamilySearch.org announcement and the excitement it caused. It's too bad more details were not offered in the TGN announcement, as I had some concerns, too. Although, after questioning the FGS and Ancestry contributing team members, my enthusiasm began to build.
Here is what I was told: FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com are indeed working together, as they meet weekly to discuss this massive project of digitizing the world's records. One goal of these meetings is to avoid duplicate work. FamilySearch.org has helped Ancestry.com fine-tune their indexing process. FGS and their Societies or individual members who participate in an indexing project WILL be able to view and receive a copy of the images of the project they index. FGS is hopeful that local societies will be able to draw new members from the millions of on line users of Ancestry.com. (It is likely that many people who do their research on line are not even aware of the benefits of belonging to a genealogical society.)
It is my intention to stay informed and watch how this develops. I am presently a local society officer and look for any additional benefits we can offer to grow our membership. Let's hope this becomes a win-win for all!

[Mary Lou Delahunt]

Labor Day weekend is a poor air travel experience. Especially if you have to use connecting flights as I do.

[Bev Petersen]

Dick -

I sat with a speaker one night for dinner at the conference and we chatted out who gained and who lost at this conference. This speaker gave three talks and with the fees he got, air travel, conference hotel lodging for 4 nights and the seminar, he netted about $1900.00. I started listing my expenses and quickly came up with a minimum of $3200.00 which included gasoline, hotel, food, parking (!!! which was INSANE !!!) and booth "rent" and more to come! This is all before I sell a thing!!!

What the seminar folks don't realize is that the one owner vendors, as myself, cannot keep doing this. If they keep this up, no one will be to vend except the Utah Hotels, the DNA folks and Ancestry! I too noted the lack of vendors attending and see less and less each time I go.

It was great seeing the wonderful artifacts in Philadelphia, but at what cost? I was told there were 1200 registered before I left from Indiana but you say 800? Hmmmmm.......I guess they really wanted me to get there BUT, who is correct here? They better review a lot of things.

Thanks to those who supported me!

Bev - http://www.FunStuffForGenealogists.com for those interested.

[George L. Trigg]

I have some other negative comments about this conference. First, the little map in the introductory brochure was less than useless. It did not point out that while the postal address for the hotel is on Market Street, the main entrance is not on that street. It did include an arrow leading from Market Street to the side street on which the main entrance is. I tried following this arrow, and found the entrance to a valet parking facility -- which turned out to be that for another hotel, as I found out when I tried to register at the hotel, believing that I had a reservation. I must say that the people in the parking facility were helpful far and above what might have been expected, and took my car, with my luggage, to the parking facility at the correct hotel. And they would not even accept a tip! However, the main entrance was not clearly identified even on the correct street.

I also have a comment on two related presentations, by a man from the Irish National Archives. Instead of one of the electronic projectors, he used an overhead projector. Unfortunately, the woman who handled the transparencies was not very adept, and kept moving them during the discussion, with the natural result that it was next to impossible to relate the display with the talk. To make matters worse, the presenter himself often turned away from the microphone, making his speech largely inaudible. I was very disappointed, as I expect to be in Dublin in early October to do some research, and would have appreciated getting some input from these talks.

And I heartily agree with the comments on pricing.