The Sixth Annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge

Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah

This poetry post is submitted for Bill West's "Sixth Annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge"
You can read all about it at this link:
http://westinnewengland.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-sixth-annual-great-genealogy-poetry.html   

I've submitted a few poems by my grandmother to this challenge in previous years.  Bertha Louise (Roberts) Wilkinson (1897 - 1990) was the poet in our family.  Usually she wrote about nature, or New England (she was born in Yorkshire, England) or members of the family.  In this poem she wrote about her first trip to Utah, and to Salt Lake City.  I thought the LDS members of the genealogy community would enjoy this poem.  My grandparents changed churches many times during their lives, and after retiring to California in the 1970s they joined the LDS church.  The landscape in Utah must have been rather exciting to my grandmother, after living in Yorkshire and in Massachusetts for the previous part of her life.

Our Trip to Utah      by Bertha Wilkinson

The trip we took with our friends the Browns

Riding through many country towns

Then through the mountain canyons pass

Now the valley green with grass.

Farmers with their stacks of hay

Sunny skies, a pleasant day

Mountains rising high and grand

Many shades of rock and sand.

Manti Temple of oolite stone

Standing in dignity all alone

The third to be built in Utah state

Dedicated in eighteen eighty eight.

Bryce Canyon was the next view to see

Its grandeur appearing quite suddenly

Spectacular red rock of many formations

Grander than anyone’s expectations.

The North rim of Grand Canyon we next went to see

And we all stood and admired it silently

Forms, figures, had shaped through eons of time

Mostly red rock, some upper part lime.

On our way down and back an over night stay

At Cedar Breaks where another display

Of the canyon there, with snow on the ground

Nic showed us pictures of plant life there found.

A visit with them at this high altitude

Enjoying their friendship and also good food

Then we went to Springville where we stayed two days

To chapel on Sunday to sing songs of praise.

The next day cherry picking and had lots to do

Went to Provo to see Wilkinson Center BYU

A beautiful building for recreation

Other floors for study and meditation.

Mary with her children four

Took us back to Salt Lake City once more.

Then the Dunconson family we visited.

Now we found our time getting limited.

A tour to Visitor’s Center, Temple Square

Where the restored Gospel was explained to us there

From the beginning of time to these latter days

Where God’s plan was revealed, how to walk in his ways.

Before we left on the train for home

Going past the Capitol dome

Taking pictures of Monument Square

Many tourists gathered there.

That night we went to Bingham town

To see a copper mine of world renown.

Now good byes were said to our wonderful friends

And our trip to Utah finally ends.

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The URL for this post is

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-sixth-annual-great-genealogy-poetry.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

The Hessian Soldier Episode Continues

Last year at RootsTech 2013 I had a wonderful time learning new things in the exhibit hall, and in the classrooms and lectures.  But some of the best learning moments were outside of the planned activities of the conference.  The usual schmoozing, hugging and hanging out with genealogist friends and blogging buddies is fun, but at RootsTech there was more than just social exchanges.  Some of the invitations I had to hang out on the air with Dear Myrt, meet up with friends at the famous Family History Library, and discuss technology with the innovators were RootsTech moments that don’t happen at other conference.

One of those moments that just seems to go on and on, and even continued on at RootsTech 2014 while I wasn’t even there!  This is what I call “The Hessian Soldier Episode”.   This episode started last year as a side comment about an ancestor, and that little comment took on a life of its own.  While being interviewed by Dear Myrt last February, I casually mentioned that it was my first trip to Salt Lake City and I was going to take advantage of the chance to use the famous Family History library.  My original plan was to mine the resources for Spanish records to look up my husband’s family tree, but I also figured that there might be some German records for my Hessian soldier ancestor.

After my interview, I was halfway OUT the door when Myrt called me back to continue the discussion.  It seems that Barry Kline, her photographer, was interested in Hessian research, and so was a viewer named Judy Holcombe Smith.   We had a great second discussion of the Hessians and the Johannes Schwalm Society.  Two days later I found the journals of the JSHA on the shelves of the FHL and we also found records about Judy’s ancestor, Anthony Schoppe.  I emailed these images to Judy.  The discussion of Hessians continued at “Mondays with Myrt” for a few weeks.

Over the past year I’ve been asked many times about this Hessian Soldier research.  This is not an area I have a lot of expertise in researching, but because of Dear Myrt’s show, the story spread.  Someone stopped me in the halls of the NERGC conference in April last year to talk about Hessians.  Another person got me talking about Hessians in the stacks of the NEHGS library in Boston last summer.  And then RootsTech 2014 rolled around…

I wasn’t at RootsTech 2014, nor was I in Salt Lake City last week during the conference, but I was so surprised to hear that Hessian story mentioned by Lisa Alzo during her talk on Friday February 7^th.  She had emailed me about this story and asked for photos many months earlier, but I had completely forgotten it was going to be used in this lecture. And then email poured in from friends telling me to watch Dear Myrt’s RootsTech 2014 classes because the Hessian story was discussed twice!  Yes, the story was repeated during both her classes on Thursday  February 6^th and Friday February 7th.  I’ll post the links below.

This little story started out as a passing comment and then grew and grew.  I hope that along the way it was valuable to Barry Kline, Myrt’s viewer Judy Holcombe Smith, and anyone else who had never heard of the Johannes Schwalm Society.  Perhaps a few people found more information on their Hessian ancestors, or confirmed that their ancestor did belong to one of these regiments.

It also got me thinking about family stories.  They all start out years and years ago, and are passed on through the generations.  Finally someone takes that story and does the research to confirm the who, what, where and when at the root of the tale.  That’s probably not the end of the story because most researchers take the myth and the truth and continue passing on it on, through articles, reports, blogs, books, and social media.

Good luck with your family traditions and myths.  They are probably true!  And they’ll continue being passed around, just like “The Hessian Soldier Episode”.

Thank you to Lisa Alzo, Dear Myrtle and Russ Worthington for mentioning this story at RootsTech 2014.

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To go along with all the serendipity in this story,  today on "On Point" on National Public Radio, there will be a story on "Crowdsourcing and the New Genealogy Boom".  Guests will be journalist J. J. Jacobs, Judy Russell "The Legal Genealogist", and Spencer Wells, geneticist of the Genographic Project.  Listen live online at 11am or on the air, or catch the archived version:
 http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/02/13/genealogy-family-tree-cousins

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For the truly curious:

Lisa Alzo “Tweets, Links, Pins and Posts: Break Down Genealogical Brick Walls with Social Media”

RootsTech 2014

https://rootstech.org/about/videos/?id=3168208980001  (check minutes 32:15 to 35:15)

The following two classes are from RootsTech 2014, on YouTube (not the RootsTech website):

Hangouts on Air – The Panelists View (Thursday)  (check minutes 40:30 – 43:30)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-z4sudgBec

Hangouts on Air – The Panelists View (Friday)   (check minutes 7:10 – 9:20)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkdQy4nMLV8

The original “Mondays with Myrt” 18 March 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D11HuZpTq3c

To see the Hessian soldier story tune in to about 18:00 minutes, and after I tell the story I almost walk out of the interview booth at 20:20 minutes, but Myrt calls me back to collaborate on the air with Barry Kline and viewers!  (18:00 – 27:00)

The Johannes Schwalm Historical Association (Hessian Soldier Research)    http://www.jsha.org/

UPDATE:  added 17 February 2014
A database sent in by a reader (see the comments below)
http://lagis.online.uni-marburg.de/en/subjects/index/sn/hetrina

UPDATE: added 21 February 2014
sent in by reader Skip Murray (see the comments below)
http://freepages.military.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bonsteinandgilpin/index.htm
 

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The URL for this post is

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-hessian-soldier-episode-continues.html 

Copyright ©2014, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

New England GeneaBloggers RootsTech Bash

UPDATE:   This event has been cancelled 

Can’t make it to RootsTech 2014 in Salt Lake City?  Some of the biggest presentations at this genealogy conference will be live streamed at https://rootstech.org/ on the weekend of February 6, 7 and 8.   Immediately following the conference, there will be an exciting event “RootsTech Genealogy Blogger After Party” at the home of Dear Myrtle.   Many of your favorite bloggers will be there, fresh from the excitement of the event. 

Since many of your favorite New England Genealogy Bloggers will not be able to be in Salt Lake City that weekend, we are gathering at my home in New Hampshire for our own bash.  We’ll watch some of the videos of the conference, chat, socialize and believe it or… we will meet up with the bloggers at Myrt’s house, too!

You will be able to see the bloggers online at both events.  The New England GeneaBloggers will be asking the attendees about RootsTech, and the bloggers in Salt Lake City will be able to converse online with the New Englanders.  It should be a fun and informative hour of exchange, and we'll all learn a lot about the latest genealogy news and upcoming technology.  It will be one big virtual on-line party! 

How will this magic happen? Through a Google+ Hang Out On Air we will live stream from my living room, and from Myrtle’s living room, right into your living room, iPad, mobile device, laptop or where ever you would like to watch, too.  There will be an archived version of this event, too.

If you would like to watch the “Blogger After Party and Blogger Bash” live stay tuned here at this blog for an announcement with the URL (web address) of where to tune in.  You will need to have a Google+ account set up ahead of time.  I’ll post complete instructions on how to tune in.   If you aren't available to watch live (8:30 pm Eastern Time on Saturday, 8 February 2014) there will be an archived version available later.

http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/

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The URL for this post is

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-england-geneabloggers-rootstech-bash.html 

Copyright (c) 2014, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Conferencia Iberoamericana de Genealogia

Brigham Young University and FamilySearch.Org would like to announce a unique and exciting Spanish language family history conference September 9 – 14, 2013, in Salt Lake City, Utah. There has never been a conference like this in Utah and may not be another one of this nature again for many years to come.

This unique conference will feature expert genealogists from throughout the Hispanic world. These teachers and presenters are experts in the areas they will be presenting in. The Spanish experts will focus on many of the challenges and resources for those with Latin and Hispanic heritage. This will be an opportunity for attendees to connect with and get help from specialists from genealogical communities in many Latin countries.   These teachers will include Sonia Meza, Javier Tobón, George Ryskamp, Luis José Prieto Nouel and others.

To learn more about signing up for this unique family history conference, visit the Conferencia Iberoamreicana de Genealogia webpage. To see a list all the classes and other social events and experiences offered by the conference, visit the main blog page. There will be a track of classes in Portuguese and another track in English; the other five will be in Spanish.

Please share this information with your friends, research societies, and anyone else who might have ancestors from any of the Spanish speaking countries throughout the world. This is a conference that you will not want to miss.

This conference is a joint effort of Brigham Young University and FamilySearch.org.

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Image by Army Sgt. Nina Ramon 345th Public Affairs Detachment (United States Army) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Discoveries from RootsTech 2013

 

The speaker's bag (yellow) and the regular
conference goer bag on the right (blue)

1. I discovered that every conference goer receives one of these cool RootsTech bags.   But I also learned to pack light since it's a long day and all the goodies you collect at the Expo will magically and exponentially weigh more by about 5pm.

2. I learned some new vocabulary, and my favorite new word is “Geneajaunt”- from Australian genealogist Jill Ball.

3. And I learned even more new vocabulary, like “Flying monkeys”- a collective term for all of Thomas MacEntee’s bloggers and followers.  Another “new to me” moment.

4. I saw David Pogue live on stage and learned that he is much more than just a geeky technology writer (he is also a pianist, composer, comic as seen in this video of his keynote address at www.rootstech.org on Saturday, March 23^rd at 8:30am  )

ZUCA rolling bag

5.  I discovered the wonderful ZÜCA bag while waiting in line for a session to start.  The woman who owned it raved about it, and showed me all the features.  It is the ultimate gadget for genealogists at http://www.zuca.com/  This expensive rolling travel bag also comes in a carry-on size, too (but it’s even more expensive).   It is very light (aluminum) and has a built in seat for waiting in those long lines, or to support a second load piled on top.  This bag is perfect for the long walks in Salt Lake City between your hotel, the Family History Library and the convention center, or to carry all your stuff during the day.  I saw two people using this bag at RootsTech.  Beware - It costs as much as a new mobile device! But it is super cool.  These are the things you learn while waiting in lines…

6. I learned that there are battery phone cases and capacitor chargers to extend the life of your mobile devices at conferences, in the FHL, on the plane with a capacitor that stores energy for hours, or a super capacitor that stores enough energy for days at a time.  The battery mobile phone cases double the life of your regular phone battery and the capacitor chargers (also called external battery chargers) can be used on your laptop or tablet.   Thank you to Jill Ball from Australia and Marie Doughan from Scotland for introducing these to me.  They used them on those long airplane trips to RootsTech.

7. I also learned about the value of Blogger beads- You must wear them everywhere- to the FHL, to restaurants, around town to spark conversation (speak up at the first raised eyebrow) and be prepared with a ten second "elevator" speech and business cards with your URL.   These beads are not just a fun accessory; they are a powerful media tool.  The blogger bead subtle advertising is so successful that I am going to supply beads at NERGC 2013 in Manchester.

8. Be prepared to hug in the oddest places. Suddenly a complete stranger will come up to you in the restroom, or the elevator, or when you have your mouth full at breakfast and introduce themselves as a blog fan, Twitter follower, or Facebook friend.

9. Also be prepared to act like a complete fool and gush like a groupie when you find out you are sitting next to Cyndi Howell of cyndislist.com or MaureenTaylor, the “Photo Detective”.  More hugs usually follow this encounter, too.

10. I learned that even when you fly across country to a national convention, there will always be a New England Yankee, or someone who lived briefly in your state, or someone with New England roots sitting right next to you at a session, or at the same table at the luncheons. This happened to me at all three luncheons, every session and even at the keynotes. Even at the FHL because it was busy and every table was full. A gentleman sitting right next to me at the NGS luncheon lived on Alexander Road, Londonderry, NH in the 1980s!   Strangers from New England introduced themselves even on the street waiting to cross at the lights because apparently I have some sort of accent when I pronounce the word “car”…

11. Another important lesson- If you want to enjoy an adult beverage, be prepared to walk away from Temple Square to other hotels and restaurants. It is still possible to enjoy a lovely evening at the Roof with Pellegrino as the only bubbly in your glass.

12. I discovered the joy of belonging to the Geneabloggers community!  Many, many times my fellow Geneabloggers have helped me solve technical problems on my blog, or helped me stop sploggers, or even gently suggested edits and corrections.  I've also made cousin connections with dozens of Geneabloggers, and shared lineage information.  We find time to share meals, cheer each other on before presentations, and support the newbies.  

At RootsTech I found time, even with a busy schedule, to return the Geneablogger karma.  I filled in on a panel that needed an additional genealogist, I found information at the FHL for someone who commented on Dear Myrtle’s HOA video show, and I was able to steer several other bloggers towards good resources for New England research at the Family History Library.  What goes around comes around.  And it’s fun, too!

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Friends at RootsTech 2013

My first day in Salt Lake City, and I met up with lots of friends

at Dear Myrtle's interviews at the Family History Library

Sonia Meza, a genealogist from Spain, gave a talk at the 

Family History Library with her translator Debbie Shurtz Gertler

Sonia's blog is "Red de Antepasados"

The RootsTech Genealogy Gadget Gang

Jill Ball, the Australian "Geniaus", Marie Doughan from Scotland, Yours Truly and A. C. Ivory

Catch our act at this link: 

http://rootstech.org/?start=23142&end=25882&id=G18&video=2243194494001

At the Billion Graves booth with their

blogger, Lisa Moncur (check out her great blog post at

http://blog.billiongraves.com/2013/03/wow-moments/ )

Linda Seaver, Yours Truly, Randy Seaver, 

New Hampshire genealogist Laura Prescott, Kevin Grooms and 

the Man of the Hour, Thomas MacEntee (celebrating his 50th birthday)

Dear Myrtle and Mr. Myrt

Alona Tester of Gould Genealogy in Australia

On the last afternoon I bumped into Audrey Collins from the United Kingdom,

blogger at the National Archives

I finally found Eric Jelle "GenDocs Wetpaint" in the Expo on a computer

Cyndi Howell of Cyndislist.com

Genealogists and bloggers relaxing after the end of RootsTech

It's amazing to go all the way to Utah from New Hampshire, and find so many friends to hang out with, to discuss genealogy, to try out new technologies and have fun with for a few days!  Please try out the links to see if you like their websites and blogs.

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

A NH Yankee at Day Two of RootsTech 2013

Here I am at Day Two of RootsTech.  There were two keynote speakers today.  The first speaker was not as interesting to me today as the presenters yesterday.  Jyl Pattee is a popular blogger with a very nice message about family, and she demonstrated how to use technology to preserve family memories and stories.  Nice and sweet, but her methods were all things that have been blogged about and demonstrated before.  I was very surprised that she was a keynote speaker over other presenters who had messages that were more cutting edge and ground breaking. Perhaps her celebrity won out over other choices for speaker? I had never heard of her before, but I surmise she was a "big deal" for RootsTech.

Speaker two was an improvement.  Tim Sullivan had a balanced message about Ancestry.com, recognizing the shortfalls of some pedigrees submitted to the website, as well as admitting that the presence of these family trees is a valuable lesson in genealogy for all who use the website.  He also made several breaking announcements you can hear in the archived version of the video. I won't rehash his entire talk here, since you can see it for yourself, but the main announcements were a new iOS app 4.1 for Ancestry on iPhone and iPad devices (he explained that 1/3 of users now arrive at the website via mobile devices), $99 DNA tests, $100 million to digitize documents over the next four years, and a collaboration with FamilySearch to digitize 140 million US Probate records.  It was a great message, and the perfect place to break the great news to the genealogy community.

David Lambert from the
New England Historic Genealogical Society

The rest of the day was spent in smaller presentations, including hearing David Lambert of NEHGS at his talk on "Creating a Virtual New England Community Archive",  Thomas MacEntee at "Backing up Genealogy Data", and Amy Johnson Crow in "Turning Google Street View into a Time Machine with HistoryPin and WhatWasThere".  Then a few hours at the Family History Library, cramming in a last research session.

Thomas MacEntee hosted a huge birthday party for himself at the Radisson, and it was a "Who's Who" of genealogy bloggers, genealogists and genealogy company representatives. Thomas was the Man of the Hour and everyone in attendance had a great time!  We were sorry to leave early and crawl into bed (but not before posting this to my blog!)

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

A Thank You to the Family History Community

Our awesome view of the choir from our 2nd row seats!

I just arrived back in the hotel from a wonderful "mini concert" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  We arrived late, and were ushered seats in the SECOND ROW!  Wow!  I thought we were attending a rehearsal of the choir, but to my surprise it was a special RootsTech presentation of a concert titled "Land that I Love- the Immigration of Irving Berlin".

According to the program, it was a thank you concert to the genealogical community for participating in the 1940 US Census indexing program.  "For all who participated in that massive effort, we offer sincere and heartfelt thanks. And now Family Search would like to extend another invitation.  Seventy one percent of all immigrants to the United States from 1892 to 1954 entered through the port of New York.  There are close to 100 million records that need to be indexed....Won't you join the cause and help to remember those from your families for whom America became the "Land that I Love?"

Of course, after this appeal, and when the massive choir began to sing "God Bless America" tears ran down my cheeks with emotion.  It was a very emotional moment for me, and most of the audience.  I do hope that if you helped with the census indexing you are continuing to index the US Immigration and Naturalization records.  If you if you haven't tried indexing, this is a wonderfully easy way to give back to the genealogy community.

This concert will be broadcast on TV across the USA and internationally.  Go to http://mormontabernaclechoir.org/ to find the local listing for your area.

Go to familysearch.org/immigration to learn how you can get involved.

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

A New Hampshire Yankee, Home on the Range...

My first trip to the wild west!  I've never been out west, other than to Burbank or San Francisco, so we took advantage of a free day to see the sights in Utah.  My first choice was the Golden Spike National Historic Site, part history, part beautiful scenery.  This is the famous spot in Promontory, Utah where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad companies met up with their work crews.  You've seen the famous photograph and painting below, or seen this re-enacted in movies.  The famous Golden Spike was driven into the railroad tie here, or actually TWO golden spikes, one silver spike, and one iron spike covered in gold and silver.  None of these valuable spikes are still here, but one of the Golden Spikes is on display now at Stanford University in California. 

This is the famous spot.  There are still four holes drilled into this wooden railroad tie because in the summer months the ceremony is re-enacted on weekends.  You can ride one of the reproduction steam rail cars, and watch the golden spikes being hammered into place. 

"Oh, Give me a home where the buffalo roam,

and the deer and the antelope play!"

The National Park Ranger at Promontory's Golden Spike Park suggested we stop at Antelope Island State Park on our way home to Salt Lake City.  What a terrific suggestion!  We saw buffalo, deer, antelopes, and beautiful views of Salt Lake and the mountains.  

Isn't this beautiful? The mountains reflected in the Great Salt Lake... 

You don't see this in New Hampshire....

 Back in Salt Lake City, just in time for sunset from "The Roof" restaurant on the tenth floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Temple Square.  We not only saw the sunset, but we saw the lights of the city after dark, and the temple illuminated.  It was a very wonderful day in Utah.

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

A New Hampshire Yankee at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City

The entrance to the Family History Library 

in Temple Square, Salt Lake City

The front desk inside the library has this marvelous mural

and several volunteers jumped up to greet us at the door.

We were given "newbie" name tags and library maps to help us start out.

We also saw an orientation video (there are tours available, too)

Look at all the friendly, familiar faces on the third floor!

Yours Truly, Dear Myrtle, Jill Ball, Thomas MacEntee

Lisa Alzo , Dianne Miller from Flip-Pal and Lisa from Billion Graves

It was a lot of fun to finally meet up with Jill Ball,

author of the Geniaus blog from Australia

Dear Myrtle and I getting ready for the Monday's with Myrtle live hangout 

Dear Myrtle's interview is at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D11HuZpTq3c 

During the two hour live show she interviewed bloggers and vendors who will be at RootsTech later this week, a major conference held across the block at the Salt Palace Convention Center. 

Yours Truly can be seen in the interview between minutes 12:00 and 27:15, even though I almost escaped out the door earlier, I was called back in to talk with Myrt and Barry Kline about researching a Hessian soldier ancestor… 

Geneabloggers ready to sing "Happy Birthday" to Thomas MacEntee

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

A New Hampshire Yankee has arrived in Salt Lake City!

We just arrived in Utah, and with only a few hours of afternoon sunlight left in the day we drove straight to Park City from the airport.  We wanted to see the venue of the 2002 Olympics, and the mountains still covered with winter snow. 

Hubby tries out the Olympic medal stands

Historic Main Street in Park City, Utah

Deer Valley

A nice view of  Salt Lake City's Temple Square from our hotel

Tomorrow we will go next door to the Family History Library to meet up with Dear Myrtle.  After a few hours in the library we'll do some more sight seeing, and spend time later in the week doing research.  RootsTech 2013 doesn't start up until  Thursday, but already our few days in Salt Lake City are filled up with scheduled events and meetings.  It's going to be a busy, busy week! 

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

A New Hampshire Yankee at RootsTech 2013

Yes, I will be attending RootsTech 2013 next week!  I’ve never been to Salt Lake City, which is the absolute Mecca for genealogists.  The Family History Library there is the largest genealogy library in the world.   Hubby and I will be setting aside at least one whole day to explore the library, and maybe two. 

I carefully followed the directions of the genealogists and bloggers I know who attended RootsTech in 2011 and 2012.  We booked the Plaza Hotel, which is the closest to the library, but not the closest to the Salt Palace convention center.  I followed all the tweets and Facebook comments from last year about using the library, and I think I’m prepared.  I've made up lists of things to look up while we are there, and downloaded the latest information to family trees accessible to our mobile devices.   Since we only have one real day to do research, I want to make sure I’m prepared to make the most of it.

One big problem seems to be the lack of WiFi access in the Salt Palace Center, so I just ordered a new iPad mini with 3G phone internet service.  My iPhone runs on 3G, too, so I have backup.  I’m hoping to live blog from the keynotes and other scheduled events, just like I did at the 2011 SCGS Jamboree.  I don’t get to many conferences, but I’m prepared to keep my readers informed on the latest and greatest technology for genealogists while I’m at RootsTech 2013!  The RootsTech app is installed, and I've gone over the schedule a zillion times to try to pick events (it’s a good thing the two of us will be there, so we can use the “divide and conquer” technique if needed!)

We are also setting aside one day to explore Utah.  From what I’ve been researching we are four hours from Bryce Canyon and five hours from Yellowstone National Park.  These are very tempting to me, but I think I’ll save them for a time when I don’t have to rush and see them in just a few hours.  There are other interesting historical and natural parks closer to Salt Lake City, so we will probably pick one of them to visit before the RootsTech events get underway.  Stay tuned…

Several other New England genealogists and bloggers will be in attendance.  I hope to meet up withLaura Prescott, Dick Eastman, David Lambert and other staff from NEHGS, and others with Boston connections like D. Joshua Taylor and Michael J.Leclerc.   Sonia Meza, who I just missed seeing the last time we were in Madrid, will be here from Spain as a presenter.  There will also be lots of other bloggers I met at Jamboree, and of course, the Genealogy Ninja, Thomas MacEntee.  Seeing all these folks will be a highlight of the trip.

The RootsTech 2013 website http://rootstech.org/

Family Search Library, Salt Lake City   https://familysearch.org/locations/saltlakecity-library

Historic Temple Square, Salt Lake City   http://www.visittemplesquare.com/

Visit Utah  www.visitUtah.com

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo