Last night after the Next Generation Genealogists met for drinks (and dinner), I conked out, so my blog posts are a little late.

For the third day in a row, I first opened my eyes and looked at the clock at 7:14am. I turned off my alarm before it made a noise and got ready. I still didn’t feel ready to give my computer workshop, but I had no more time to prepare. I showed up early and got the IT guy to give the admin credentials to install the MyHeritage search application and he printed out my notes for me. In the end, it seems I had about three or four hours worth of information to share with them. I wish I had less because it was a computer lab and they should have been participating more. I could have taught this one as a lecture and still run out of time. I prefer to have my computer labs actually have some computer work for the attendees, but all my feedback was good, so I’m glad for that. I still have to email them my notes for a lot of the sites that I didn’t get to share.

I unexpectedly spent a lot of time in the SIG/BOF Fair, visiting with people at multiple tables and having interesting conversations. I snuck in to the end Josh Taylor’s session on attracting the younger generation (just in time for the last two slides). I found Kahlile Mehr was in the room, so I’m glad that the other attendee from UJGS was in the session.

I hope I get to some lectures this week, but I have a lot of BOF and SIG group meetings to go to.

The President’s Reception provided some badly needed sustenance, though it was just some vegetables and cheese and crackers. I got to speak with several of the other JGS presidents, many of whom I hadn’t really spoken to before at previous receptions.

I wrote some of this blog post from near the back of the room at the keynote address. (I think I also found my soulmate there, when he booted up his computer next to me and Eudora 7 started up.) Marlene Bishow did her introductions and handed the floor to IAJGS President Michael Goldstein. He announced officially that the 2014 conference would be in Salt Lake City. IGS had until the beginning of the conference to sign the contracts for the conference to be in Jerusalem, so there was still the possibility that that would have happened. At least this will make it more affordable for Americans, without the two international conferences two years apart.

Peter Lande introduced the keynote speaker, Sara Bloomfield, Honoring the Victims: “It Takes a Village”. She told a lot of great stories of finding records and reuniting survivors with the information about their families. I was tweeting during it but missed a lot of the details at the time. She spoke about the World Memory Project, playing a video that looked like the same or a variation of one I’d seen online a while back.

Instead of rushing to dessert, I stopped to socialize again and missed all but one type of chocolate concoction, but it was good. The under 50 group met at the Grand Slam, where I finally had some food and more conversation, until I finally gave in to sleep deprivation around 10pm.