Day 3 of RootsTech2013

As I fly out of Salt Lake City, Utah to go back home, I am still thinking on all I have learned so far.  I was really impressed with the 3D visualization of family direct line on a Google Earth platform.  I am hoping that MapNTour gets this going.  I really want it to demonstrate to the younger generation that genealogy is pretty cool, but I need places other than the US and UK and they are in the process of getting those geocodes for other countries. When they are up and running I'll let you know. Pretty cool tho'.

Are any of you using Evernote for your record/note taking?  I'm just getting started and could use some tips if any of you would like to share.  I have seen it used during RootsTech and had some help from a fellow patron of the Family History Library.  Thanks Liz Stratton from Ohio!  I've started making my folders on areas and families but haven't decided to put them in family or areas folders or both.  Any ideas on how you use the folders?

Saturday's keynote speakers were more lighthearted as we were just a bit overwhelmed by all that we were exposed to during the past few days.  

Our first speaker of the day was David Pouge from the New York Times, he chatted about how technology has changed and how we need to do the same.  There were some very interesting apps shown, some were to make music from your smartphone.  One of them was Ocarina, when installed it puts four holes on your screen and you blow into the mic and out pops music.  They even have sheet music for you to download to play.  You might want to download this one and kinda blow your kids minds that you have something they just think is pretty cool.  Also, if you like parodies, you might like to download David's YouTube versions.  His I want an IPhone is great.  http://youtu.be/GZCDVpB63g4

The next speaker was to be Gilad Japhet, founder and CEO of MyHeritage.com.  Unfortunately is father passed away.  Condolences to his family.  They instead brought in James L Tanner who is an avid MyHeritage user and has his own blog; Genealogys Star, Jim told us about he has done using the software.  I know from my own experience it is a wonderful tool, I am constantly getting matches from every line I have on there.   If you have family outside of the United States, this is the software you need.  It has a very strong Eastern Europe following as well as Worldwide.  So there is something there for everyone.  Give it a try, there is a free version to trial or you can keep it at that level. I liked it so much I went for the premium version.  

My first class that day was with Elaine Collins talking about successful strategies for searching on FindMyPast whether in the US or UK versions.  Love listening to the accents and different spin on words they have to make our "American" language sparkle.  Brilliant as usual Elaine.  Loved your talk.

Barry Elwell gave a talk on 10 habits of a successful genealogist that actually ended up to be 25. He also was going to give us his book in a pdf form on the same topic.  If he'll let me I will post a link for you at a later time.

I decided to forgo the last class as I was sure I would be taking home the IPad they were giving away at the end of the show. For this one you must be present to win after running around for the past 2 day gathering signatures and talking to the companies (no problem there) and getting their freebies, then dropping it off at the help desk and anxiously awaiting 3pm on Saturday. The drawing was held in the demo theater section, imagine all those souls thinking "pick mine", hundreds of us gathering in a small area.  If you were not there when your name was called, sorry about your luck, so you see why we were all there.  Prizes from gift subscriptions by Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, Archives.com, a 7 day stay at the Plaza (I love the Plaza and it just happens to be right next door to the library), printers, and the IPad finally.  SO masses of us gathered around in hopes of taking home the big one.  I would have been happy with the Plaza one.  Instead of prizes of any sort, most of us took home the wonderful ideas, programs to try and a knowledge base to build on.  I invite any reading this because you like family history and use technology to better facilitate your research to attend next years event.  Mark your Calendars for February 6-8, 2014.  I am sure you will have an amazing experience. Hope to see you there next year!

This was just a small portion of the people awaiting for that Ipad!