The Red Deer Branch of the Alberta Genealogical Society and the Alberta Family Histories Society hosted a conference this weekend in Red Deer, Alberta. I had an opportunity to attend and also to make several presentations. I was joined by presentations by Gena Philibert Ortega, Thomas MacEntee (presenting remotely via webinar), Penny Allen, Jim Benedict, Ronna Byam, Shannon Cherkowski, Janice Cushman, Peter Darby, Elise Friedman, Nancy Millar, Wayne Shepheard, Lois Sparling and Jean Tilbert.
With a title of Find Your Tree in the Forest, about 250 genealogists headed to the Holiday Inn in Red Deer. We flooded the place! Proof could be found in the two hotel restaurants, both of which were totally unprepared for the crowd! Despite the long lines and poor service in the restaurants, most everything else worked perfectly. The sessions went well and most everyone I saw was smiling, with the exception of those waiting in the restaurants.
Gena Philibert Ortega started the event on Friday evening with a talk on Research Like a History Detective. She compared genealogy research to the popular television programs and suggested all of us should copy the techniques used by the TV researchers.
We then adjourned for the evening and started again on Saturday morning. Four simultaneous tracks ran all day on Saturday, covering a number of genealogy topics. You can find the entire schedule at http://rdgensoc.ab.ca/schedule.html.
I enjoyed myself and especially enjoyed talking with all the genealogists. I hope to be back again at a future conference. I must admit that I was a bit unprepared for the snow, after spending most of the past three and a half months in Florida! We had almost constant snow flurries all during the conference although there was little snow build up on the ground.
If you live in Alberta and missed this conference, all I can say is that you missed a good event. You might want to join the Alberta Genealogical Society in order to be aware of future events. You can learn more at http://www.abgensoc.ca/ and especially more about the Red Deer branch at http://rdgensoc.ab.ca/.
If you enjoyed this article, Tweet it, share it on Facebook or on your preferred social network. Republishing of this article in newsletters, blogs, and elsewhere is allowed and encouraged. Details may be found at http://goo.gl/hoHH1.
Of course, if you haven’t done so already, you should join my email newsletter mailing list to stay current on my latest articles and announcements. You can also cancel at any time within seconds. I promise to never, ever send you any unrequested e-mail, other than newsletter updates.
