My first genealogy conference: SCGS Jamboree 2012

This past weekend, I was in Burbank, California, for SCGS Jamboree 2012. Travelling so far was exhausting, but so worth it! First of all, I finally got to meet the rest of the WikiTree team (I'm just realising now that I never actually wrote on this blog about how I now work for WikiTree... well now you know!): Chris Whitten (the founder of WikiTree), Tami Osmer (developer of the Relatively Curious Internet Genealogy Toolbar), Elyse Doerflinger (who writes Elyse's Genealogy Blog), and Thomas MacEntee (whom you probably know from GeneaBloggers). It was very cool to meet people (in person!) that I exchange emails with all the time. You really get a better look at people's personalities that way.

Left to right: Tami, Elyse, me, Chris, and Thomas

I spent most of the weekend sitting at the WikiTree table in the vendor hall, talking to people about the site and trying to get people who seemed like they'd be great contributors to sign up. In the process, I had a lot of awesome conversations about the wiki concept, the importance of citing your sources, and a bunch of other things. I also heard a lot of people's genealogy stories, and, in the case of people who were not comfortable signing up for WikiTree, got some insight into the generation of genealogists who did not grow up with the internet, and consequently often have a totally different perspective of online genealogy tools.

I also got to meet some other bloggers, which was exciting, as well as lots of vendors. And I bought some books, and some software, and a decorative fan chart (reviews of all these things to come!).

Overall, the weekend was super fun, and also really inspiring. I feel like I have all these ideas now and can't wait to work on them! This is true for my personal genealogy, as well as for WikiTree. For example, while I was at the conference, I started categorising all my WikiTree profiles by city/town, and this has turned into a potentially huge project! More about that to come, as well!

So, other than the actual flying across the continent part (which was exhausting, uncomfortable, and resulted in me losing my water bottle and breaking my favourite sunglasses), I had a great trip, and can't wait until my next genealogy conference!