April Garwood, Helen & John Lehman, Lois Gilbert
At RootsTech 2014 in Salt Lake City,UT
The Roots Tech Conference 2014 was an overwhelming success. We all learned new things about Family History work that we are more than willing to our share with our Stake members. This year there were over 10,000 people in attendance, plus 4,000 youth from Utah coming in Saturday for a full day of classes. The youth were very excited to be there and John Bytheway was the Keynote speaker in the youth session.
Keynote speakers for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning sessions included, but not limited to: Dennis Brimhall, who is the President and CEO of FamilySearch; Ree Drummond who writes "The Pioneer Woman" blog; Judy Russell who writes "The Legal Genealogist" blog; Dr. Spence Wells a leading population geneticist for the Genographic Project affiliated with National Geographic; Todd Hansen reporter and host of "The Story Trek" on BYU TV; and Stephanie Nielsen popular blogger and author of the bestselling book, "Heaven is Here". All very exciting and well received speakers. Stephanie Nielsen was the only one who received a standing ovation after her heartfelt story of her long struggle recovering from 80% burns suffered in an airplane crash.
You may ask what did the keynote speakers have in common with a family history conference? STORIES: they are telling their stories in their blogs, in their lectures and their books. It demonstrated the point that you should start now to record your own story. Stories can be about anything in your life and start at any point along the way of life. Stories are the key factor to welcoming the Spirit of Elijah into your heart. That spirit is what will motivate you and your descendants to want to work on your genealogy.It is now possible to add Stories and Photos, now called "Memories", to your ancestors on your FamilySearch Tree. Think about this, if you don't write your story, who will, and what will they say about you? A story is much more interesting to read than names and charts.
Besides the great Keynote Speakers, there where many classes that I attended on DNA as a tool for genealogy; Writing a family history that will have lasting value; Creating a Valuable Family History Blog; and of course classes on What's new in FamilySearch Tree; Indexing Changes coming our way; Indexing Obituaries, the new Indexing Project in 2014. Saturday was LDS day and Elder Alan F Packer gave a wonderful talk on "Igniting Family History in Your Ward, Quorums, and Groups". It was a very inspirational learning experience for all of us and we are grateful that we were able to attend.
If you were unable to attend the Class I had on Feb 15th at the Stake Center on the changes coming to Indexing in 2014, you can pick up a list of those changes at the Family Search Center in Oklahoma City Stake Center. You may see some minor changes after February 26th, but the rest of the program has not changed. The major changes will be available around August of this year.
WORKSHOP ON INDEXING OBITUARIES
There will be an Indexing Workshop on Saturday March 8th in the High Council Room at the OKC Stake Center, from 10:00 am - 12 Noon. Please bring your lap top if you can and you would like to have a hands on experience with OBITUARIES. This new project has may new rules and we will review those rules and try our hand at indexing them. Later this year we will be able to create an Obituary Indexing Group and have our own webpage to communicate with each other and track our progress. This is one of the new features coming to Indexing in August. If you are an Arbitrator, please do not try to arbitrate these records unless you have indexed a few batches.
There is an indexing blog that has lots of negative posts recently about the bad job the arbitrators are doing on the obituary project and I am sure it is because the arbitrator did not try indexing the records and learning the new rules.
Generations Genealogy Conference
and Fireside
Friday Night Fireside at the Stake Center in OKC, April 25th, for ages 8 - 100. Guest Speakers will include Stake Youth and Elder Michael Southward, area Seventy. Time 7:00 - 8:00 Pm
Refreshments to Follow
Saturday Conference, April 26th starts at 8:00 am - 4:00 pm in the Stake Center in OKC; Registration available at http://OKGenealogyConference.weebly.com
or print off the registration form and mail it in.
There will be broadcasts of selected RootsTech Conference classes available for viewing through out the day as well as many live classes . More information to follow on this blog.
