The annual conference of the National Genealogical Society came to a close on Saturday, May 14. This year's event was co-sponsored by the South Carolina Genealogical Society and was held at the North Charleston Convention Center in North Charleston, South Carolina.
I'd say this was a great conference. I know I enjoyed it and most of the people I talked with made similar comments. I never did hear the final attendance numbers, although I suspect it was about 1,900 or 2,000, based on my own very unofficial estimates. That doesn't include the several hundred additional attendees who came to a one-day free event sponsored by Ancestry.com on Saturday. The free Ancestry Day included presentations on "Getting the most of Ancestry.com search," "Overlooked Secrets in Census Records," "Searching Your African-American Roots on Ancestry.com," and "Getting the Most from Family Tree Maker." Since attendance in the exhibits hall was available to everyone free of charge, the Ancestry Day attendees also were able to spend time with the vendors. I saw a lot of people on Saturday walking around in the exhibits hall, wearing the distinctive Ancestry Day name tags.
On Saturday morning, another General Session was held for all attendees. Jay Verkler, President and CEO of FamilySearch, spoke on "What’s New [at FamilySearch]." He was followed by an especially interesting presentation by South Carolina State Senator Senator Glenn F. McConnell, describing "The Hunley: Where Science and History Come Together to Tell Time." Senator McConnell is President Pro Tempore of the South Carolina State Senate and Chairman of the Hunley Commission. His talk was fascinating.
For more information about the many events at this year's conference, you can read the Program Schedule at http://goo.gl/SxZV3.
For me, the highlight of the week was the EOGN Dinner held Saturday evening shortly after the conference closed. However, I'll write about that separately.
I also recorded several audio podcasts with a number of genealogy experts and will be editing them and placing them online over the next week or two.
Next year's conference of the National Genealogical Society will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio on 9–12 May 2012. A new announcement was also made this year about the 2013 conference: it will be held in Las Vegas. That strikes me as an excellent choice as Las Vegas is well equipped to handle conventions. It also has numerous attractions for spouses and other family members who probably would not otherwise attend a genealogy conference.
It is too early right now to think of next year's conference. However, as the dates become closer, I suspect information will appear at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/conference_info.
See you next year in Cincinnati!
In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy some of the pictures I snapped at this year's event. Click on any picture to see a larger image:
Note the crowd at the Ancestry.com booth during one of the presentations.
Wholly Genes managed to keep the hot South Carolina sun off their booth. (Did I mention this was indoors?)
Wholly Genes made two major announcements at the conference, both of which are on this banner.
As always, the Flip-Pal battery-powered scanner booth was crowded with people wanting to see it in action. The company sold out their entire inventory on the third day but continued to take orders for futurte delivery by mail.
The Flip-Pal scanners have always worked on the Macintosh operating systems as well as Windows, but the company now has new and improved Mac software.
Paul Larsen sold many copies of his "Crash Course in Family History" book. See my earlier interview with Paul at http://goo.gl/nNl1i.
Ed Zapletal of Moorshead Magazines talks with a customer.
Archives.com had a busy display booth.
A video crew taped some of the activities at the FamilySearch booth.
This is just a few of the people registering at he Ancestry Day activities on Saturday.
I wish I could afford one of these in my living room!
GenDetective created a lot of interest at the conference. You can read the earlier announcement about this new program at http://goo.gl/VuZ4R.
Gordon Erickson displays the latest FGS brochure about the War of 1812 pension files digitization project.
If you missed a session or even if you attended it and want to have a recording of it, these are the folks to contact. The catalog of all the recorded presentations will soon be available at http://www.jamb-inc.com (I checked when writing these words and the catalog is not yet available. However, I suspect it will appear within a few days.)
Here are just a few of the CDs awaiting pickup by customers.
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