RootsTech 2018 - Day One is done!!

Just a quick post about today as I'm am BEAT!!!! Yesterday was travel day. Naturally, I couldn't just have an uneventful trip. The VERY FIRST thing I did was severely twist my knee before I even sat down on our first flight!! Ouch!! I limped my way through Baltimore and into Salt Lake City, Utah. By the time we got to the Hilton, I was a little worried, anticipating a difficult four days ahead if I couldn't walk. I babied my knee the rest of the evening and iced it. Luckily, it's feeling a lot better today. Whew!!

We got in early enough yesterday to go straight to the Salt Palace Convention Center and pick up our conference materials.

Cheryl Townsend

Me!!

Marian B. Wood - fellow blogger

Next stop, dinner at the Olive Garden. My knee was pretty achy, so we were pretty lucky to have the conference center, the restaurant, and the hotel all in the same block. Imagine my surprise to see my blogger friend and member of JGSCT (Jewish Genealogical Society of Connecticut). Marian Burk Wood at the restaurant, waiting for a table! Marian graciously invited us to join her. We spent an enjoyable evening chatting with Marian, her husband, and fellow blogger Yvonne Demoskoff and her husband.

Wednesday morning we headed off to the Salt Palace. The line to check in was soooooo long! We were so pleased that we were able to check in the night before.There are at least 20,000 attendees at RootsTech this year. It's going to be a crazy busy week!




Classes I attended today included:

Family History in 5 Minutes a Day - Deborah Gamble
I learned great tips for doing quick things on familysearch.org. I will be able to make better use of the FamilySearch website now that I know a few more of the "bells and whistles."

Thomas MacEntee

Translation Tools and Technology Tools for Genealogy - Thomas MacEntee
I always learn a lot from Thomas! I'm not going to add more about this talk now, but I will in a future post. I was so happy to meet him - and he even recognized my name!!!

Downsizing With Family History in Mind - Devon Noel Lee and Andrew Lee 
If it wasn't  for Devon, I probably wouldn't be at RootsTech!! I won the pass from her website! Thanks, Family History Fanatics! Devon and her husband shared great ideas for how to start the downsizing process. The most important thing I learned was a system to help me determine what is important (Genealogical Gold) and what is not (Chrome Plastic)  Do you hear that. Scott? I'm beginning the process of getting rid of stuff! Again, I will share more about this talk in a later post.

Ancestors Into Art- Tony Burroughs
Tony shared techniques on how to use Photoshop Elements to create photo collages and colorize black and white photos. Great. Now I have more projects on my list!! I have some really poor photos that I might be able to improve now that I know a couple of new techniques.

After a delicious dinner at a local Italian cafe, Cheryl and I headed back to Expo Hall to visit some of the many vendors. I had a nice chat with Daniel Horowitz (MyHeritage) and was able to put a face to the name (Jim Shaughnessy) of one of the instructors of a terrific online class I took last summer through FindMyPast. We talked with a bunch of other people, but I'm too tired to remember it all now!!

Cheryl and I are planning to visit the Family History Library tomorrow. I have a list of at least 15 things I'd like to find. Better head off to bed and get some sleep now!!!

(PS - My knee is feeling pretty good now - Yay!!)