RootsTech London in Review

RootsTech London was excellent!

The big event for me was presenting to an international crowd outside of America.  It went great!  I was glad to be scheduled on the first day so that I could just enjoy the rest of the conference without thinking endlessly about making sure my presentation didn’t go over 45 minutes.  (Those of you who have attended one of my presentations in the past know that I am a talker!)  I was so proud of myself for only going about 35 seconds over.  Haha!

If you weren’t able to join the party, you can experience some of the RootsTech London magic through the video archive and Virtual Pass.

You can watch the keynote sessions here.  Kadeena Cox was my favorite.  She was refreshingly real, honest, and open.  She is not a polished, regular keynote speaker and it showed, in a fantastic way.  Her story is inspiring.  She worked her way right into my heart.

There are a few class sessions available to view here.

The Premium Virtual Pass is still available for purchase.  You can learn more here.

The Virtual Pass can be purchased both as a stand-alone option for those who did not attend RootsTech London and as an add-on purchase for those who did attend.  The pricing is different for each option.

If the Virtual Pass interests you, it is important to note that the purchase path feels a bit weird, you create a login or use your FamilySearch login and then register as you would if you were attending the conference, then you can view the registration options and pricing for the two types of Virtual Passes.

I attended two of the presentations included in the Virtual Pass.  They were both very good.  My favorite was “Tools for testing genealogical proofs” by, Robert Anderson.  I was very impressed and ordered his book.

The Expo Hall

I always love wandering the Expo Hall and learning new things!  My favorite Expo Hall finds/experiences were:

• The many things I learned at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain booth!  They sent me away with several free pamphlets, old issues of their society journal, some research strategies, a few names of Jewish research experts who live in Utah, and a book that I purchased about Jewish Genealogy in Poland.
• Spending time with a Trace research expert to learn some techniques for navigating Polish records.  She wrote out my names for me as I would see them in the records I will be working with.  Awesome!
• The Society of Genealogists booth was excellent.  I bought myself a great book of handwriting examples from 1550-1650.
• I also bought myself a couple of back issues of the Who Do You Think You Are? magazine.  They looked up a few of my places and there was a magazine of interest for my research and then the other I chose based on the featured articles.

The best part of RootsTech is the people!

I love the energy of RootsTech and the delightful connections that are made.  I was so happy to reconnect with genealogy friends and meet virtual genealogy friends for the first time in person!  Enjoy a few photos from my conference experience (the captions are long, to read them in full click on one caption and a new window will open that allows you to see everything):

My fantastic crowd of learners. The room filled up and we had a great time together!

My American cousin that I met for the first time in London!

My American cousin who flew to the UK to hear me speak and spend time with UK cousins.

One of our Scottish family members who lives in the UK.

My American 4th (I think) cousin who lives in the same city as one of my 1st cousins. She was under instructions to find me and take a selfie. Mission accomplished!

What a delight to finally meet in person one of the industry’s greatest treasures, Jonny Perl!

Met my Twitter pal, Paul Chiddicks, in person for the first time!

This delightful young woman was a FamilySearch volunteer who helped in the Media Hub. She is coming to America very soon and will be living 20 minutes from me. It was so sweet to be able to answer her questions about places to see while she is here. What a sweetheart she is!

That silly photo bomber is none other than the fantastic author Nathan Dylan Goodwin.

As you can see, I was still laughing after that high quality photo bomb! Laura Hedgecock, Elizabeth O’Neal, Me, Nathan Goodwin.

I sat front row for Donny Osmond. (I felt a bit guilty being seated there, I am too young for that seat. No Donny posters ever graced my walls and I can’t list his songs. Haha! I did, however, enjoy his keynote and the seat was awesome!)

The lovely Elizabeth O’Neal was my roommate along with her equally lovely daughter. We had a fun day exploring London together and wearing ourselves out!

The London Eye is very cool! So is the London Eye River Cruise.

Can you walk around London without an obligatory red phone booth photo? I guess I can’t!

My trip over wasn’t perfectly smooth. I missed my connection in Amsterdam. Someone didn’t end up boarding and their bags had to be removed from the plane in SLC. Lucky me, they had the seat next to me so I had an empty seat beside me, unlucky me, it meant I didn’t land in time to make my next flight. After about 5 hours of waiting in the airport in Amsterdam my friend John Boeren arrived to join my flight. It cheered me up immensely after such a long day to have a friend to chat with. He also helped me with my bags (I always pack too much!) and we shared a cab to our respective hotels. John’s friendship turned what could have been a dismal ending to a very long day into a happy ending. Thank you, John! Bonus? I bought some very delicious stroopwafels in the airport. Yum!!

Now it’s time to start planning for RootsTech Salt Lake in February!  Will I see you there?

Happy Monday, I wish you a wonderful week filled with genealogy learning, discovery, and sharing!  xoxo

ps – I still need to go through the lovely photos from my nice camera and do some preserving.  On the list for this week!

pps – I totally brought the wrong hair stuff.  I live in the high desert of Utah where the air is dry, dry, dry.  My hair is pretty curly and/or frizzy.  On day one, I was having an awesome hair day.  Right up until I went outside.  My sleek, straightened hair instantly started curling/frizzing out.  I ended up having to throw it in a ponytail — the mixture of a few ringlets and general frizz was not cute!  I didn’t bother straightening it again while I was there.  Next time?  I am definitely bringing curly hair product that is not very effective for me in my dry climate but I’m guessing would work fantastically well for me in London.  Also, water was VERY difficult to come by.  After a day in London, I started ordering a pint of ice water everywhere I could and every server asked essentially the same question, “Did you really mean a pint?”  I wanted to respond with, “No, I really mean a whole pitcher but I’ll take a pint for now, and ask for another when I finish.”  Instead, I just smiled and said yes, please.