Tag Archives: Family

Tomorrow is RootsTech!

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I’m so excited for tomorrow (except having to get up way earlier than I normally do). For the most part I think I’m ready. I’ve made arrangements for a puppy sitter for Dune. She is not ready to be at work all day with Bill and way to young to handle an event like RootsTech. Zodiac will go with me. It will be a great socializing opportunity for him. I’ve gone through the classes and narrowed down my options. Some sessions it wasn’t hard to pick a couple but other hours I had trouble and only got down to seven options. I’m signed up for one hands-on workshop each day so that will be cool. I’ve got clothes picked out to wear so that is covered. I still need to coordinate with my friend, who is going to RootsTech too. Her very dear aunt died on Sunday afternoon and the funeral is today. So her life is in an upheaval. But we will get that worked out. I wish I could figure out how to pick up my registration materials tonight instead of in the morning. But I can’t justify the time it would take to make the trip downtown just for that. I should probably download the RootsTech mobile app to my phone. I’m still new to the smart phone thing and it would be good for me to learn a new way to use my phone. I don’t have a data plan on it so depending on how well the WiFi functions might decide how useful it is.

In a perfect world I’ll get posts written every night about RootsTech. But I might just be way too tired to get anything posted. So don’t hold your breath. I know I’m going to learn lots of great things in the next three days. I’ll try to pass on as much as I can here.

Two Days to RootsTech

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One of the keynote speakers at RootsTech is Jyl Pattee of Mom it Forward. She put together a book called “Family History – 40 Ideas for Capturing your Family’s Story”. You can download the eBook for free on her website. It has lots of great ideas. I can’t wait to try some of them. Jyl says that “preserving your family’s life story doesn’t have to be a daunting or overwhelming task. The project can be as easy as capturing simple yet meaningful moments every day.” And I agree!

 

Three Days to RootsTech

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Even if you aren’t attending RootsTech you can still enjoy some of the speakers. Each day of RootsTech there will be free live streaming available. Go to RootsTech.org to join in the fun.

Live Streaming Schedule (Mountain Time)
Thursday
8:30 AM Keynote – Dennis Brimhall, Syd Lieberman, Josh Taylor
11:00 AM The Future of Genealogy – Thomas MacEntee and panel
1:45 PM Tell it Again (Story@Home) – Kim Weitkamp
3:00 PM The Genealogists Gadget Bag – Jill Ball and panel
4:15 PM Finding the Obscure and Elusive: Geographic Information on the Web – James Tanner
Friday
8:30 AM Keynote – Jyl Pattee and Tim Sullivan
9:45 AM Researching Ancestors Online – Laura Prescott
11:00 AM FamilySearch Family Tree – Ron Tanner
1:45 PM Google Search… and Beyond – Dave Barney
3:00 PM From Paper Piles to Digital Files – Valerie Elkins
Saturday
8:30 AM Keynote – David Pogue and Gilad Japhet
9:45 AM Using Technology to Solve Research Problems – Karen Clifford
11:00 AM Digital Storytelling: More than Bullet Points – Denise Olson

One Week to RootsTech

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In just one week I’ll be at RootTech! Each morning at 8:30 a.m. there is a General Session with keynote speakers. Some of them I’ve heard speak before but most of them it will be my first time. One thing I really like about RootsTech is the variety of presenters they offer. Here is who will be speaking at this year’s General Sessions:

Thursday Generl Session Sponsored by findmypast.com

Keynote Speakers:

Dennis Brimhall

Dennis C. Brimhall is currently the President and CEO of FamilySearch International.  FamilySearch International is a worldwide organization helping individuals find, preserve, catalogue, and search genealogical information.  FamilySearch International is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He was formerly the President and Chief Executive Officer of University of Colorado Hospital.

Syd Lieberman

Syd is a nationally acclaimed storyteller, an author, and an award-winning teacher. Many of his best-loved stories deal with growing up in Chicago and raising a family in Evanston, Illinois. Also known for his original historical pieces, Syd has written stories for some of America’s leading institutions and agencies, including the Smithsonian; Historic Philadelphia, Inc.; NASA; and the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.

D. Joshua Taylor

D. Joshua Taylor, MA, MLS is the Business Development Manager – North America for brightsolid online publishing, the creator of findmypast.com. A nationally known and recognized professional genealogist, lecturer, genealogical author, and researcher, Taylor is the current president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and the former Director of Education at the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
Friday General Session

Sponsored by Ancestry.com

Keynote Speakers

Jyl Pattee

Jyl Johnson Pattee is the founder of Mom It Forward Media, a digital agency and network of social media influencers. Currently, she sits on the Mom Advisory Council for ONE.org, is a Shot@Life Champion with the United Nations Foundation, was named one of Parent Magazine’s Top 10 Power Moms, and is on Babble’s list of Top Twitter Moms.

Tim Sullivan

Timothy Sullivan has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer and as a director of Ancestry.com, Inc. since September 2005. Prior to joining Ancestry.com, Mr. Sullivan was Chief Operating Officer and then President and CEO of Match.com. Mr. Sullivan holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Saturday General Session 

Sponsored by MyHeritage

Keynote Speakers

David Pogue

David Pogue is the weekly personal-technology columnist for The New York Times. He is also an Emmy Award-winning tech correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and the current host of NOVA ScienceNow. Merging his musical background with his scientific knowledge, David Pogue delivers unique presentations that generally end with him sitting at a piano performing a couple of his famous tech-industry song parodies.

 

Gilad Japhet

Gilad Japhet is the Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. A rare mix of hardcore genealogist, hands-on technologist and visionary, Gilad is one of the most influential people today in the advancement of online genealogy. Gilad has grown MyHeritage into the world’s second largest genealogy company with 72 million registered users and 1.5 billion family tree profiles.

Celebrating Nine Decades

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90th birthday invitation for my mom

My family is preparing for my mom’s 90th birthday this month, so I thought I’d share the invitation I made for the event. It looks a little funny because I’ve blacked out some of the personal information. (Too bad we have to worry about those kinds of things.) I was really happy with how it came out and the format and concept could be easily adjusted for someone else so I thought I’d share it here. By choosing one photo from each decade of her life it gave a nice progression and made it so much easier to decide which pictures to include on her invitation.

Below are links to my Dropbox and two InDesign templates that you can edit for your personal use. (Please don’t use them for commercial projects without my written permission.) The first file is the invitation placed in the center of an 8.5 x 11 page with crop lines. By cutting along these lines and folding on the edge of the invitation it creates its own envelope for mailing. I printed them on a heavy weight brochure paper.

The second file is for stickers using the “Celebrating Nine Decades” logo. By printing this file on a sheet of sticker paper and cutting out the stickers, you then have an easy and elegant way to close up the envelope. After cutting out the stickers, I used a corner rounder on the corners. This was a nice finishing touch to the project.

90th Invite with Envelope

Nine Decades stickers

To download the InDesign Templates click on the link, then right click on the strange document that loads up and click “save page as”.

Book of the Week – The Story of John Alexander Moncur

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I really like how Joe Sisco organized this book “The Story of John Alexander Moncur.” Each spread covers a ten-year span. This seems like a very doable way to cover someone’s life history. I also like how the bottom of the page shows significant events in the world each year. This is what Joe had to say about his book.

The idea for this endeavour evolved from the simple concept that people’s life story’s need to be told. Life by the Decades Incorporated allows people to create lasting memory books filled with photos, mementos, and many interesting facts about a life well-lived. With our help, you can share your story with your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. All of your loved ones can share in the experience of a life of love, laughter, loss and a tapestry of memorable moments. Intended as a celebration of life, our memory books provide a chance to bring loved ones together through the process of gathering photos, sharing stories and recounting the great memories unique to your life.

While it looks like the business attempt did last, I’m going to file this idea away for future reference. It has lots of possibilities. He also did another book showing the life of a couple.

Mary Book Update

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cover illustration by Kimberli Johnson

We are so close to being ready to print a proof copy of our Mary Taylor story book. In a perfect world we will be doing that the end of the week. Since the world isn’t usually perfect it might be a few days later than that. Kim got me two more illustrations done. The one above will do double duty as the cover and one of the middle illustration. On the cover I cropped the image in to show just Mary.

The illustration below will be the first one in the book and then we will crop it down as tight as we can for the last image in the book. I’ve got at least one more edit on the text to do. And if a friend who teaches writing classes has time there will be another one before the we print the proof. The plan is to present the proof copy to my mom on her 90th birthday at the end of the month. I know she is going to love it even if no one else does.

first and last illustration by Kimberli Johnson

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Two Weeks to RootsTech

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March is well on its way and RootsTech is in just two weeks. I’m very excited to get to go again this year. I feel lucky to have such a great family history conference just a few miles away from where I live. If you have a chance to come to RootsTech it is well worth it. They have so many different kinds of classes. They have added tons of new things this year. I’m sure it is going to be tough to decided which classes to go to. Having a clone those three days would be handy. If any of you happen to be at RootsTech let me know. We can meet up somewhere.

Here is some of what RootsTech offers:

Where Families Connect

RootsTech is an opportunity unlike any other to discover the latest family history tools and techniques, connect with experts to help you in your research, and be inspired in the pursuit of your ancestors. Learn how to find, organize, preserve and share your family’s connections and history. Read More…

New at RootsTech 2013

The 3rd annual RootsTech conference has something for everyone, whether you are an avid genealogist, just getting started, or simply want to discover the latest technologies and solutions to better connect with your family.

  • NEW! Getting Started Track – learn the basics, start your family tree, and get help with your family research (starts at only $19) Learn More
  • NEW! Story@Home – discover how to preserve and share your family stories Learn More
  • More Classes, More Speakers — choose from over 250 informative sessions and interactive workshops Learn More
  • 40% Bigger Expo Hall – visit many exciting exhibitors to discover the latest products & services Learn More
  • Developer Day – consolidated track specifically designed for technology developers Learn More

 

Book of the Week – “That’s My Daddy”

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I came across this book while doing research for a book I’m working on about my dad’s years in the Navy. That’s My Daddy by L. Douglas Keeney is full of great images and just a little text. The preview only shows the first 15 pages, which makes me sad. I wish I could see more of the book. Guess that is more reason to by it. Here is what the author said about his book:

A visual feast for those who love modern military aviation — and a tribute to the airmen and aviators of the United States Air Force, Navy and Marines.

Originally intended as a best-of-military-flight-photography book for my friends, this book instead became a portrait of American heros, a portrait that answers the timeless question — “what does daddy do?” — with the timeless squeal of delight — “that’s my daddy!”

For the author of Secret Messages (Simon & Schuster) This is Guadalcanal (Wm.Morrow), The Doomsday Scenario (Zenith Press) and No Easy Days (Doubleday).

Thank you Douglas Keeney for this inspiring project!

L. Douglas Keeney Books on Amazon

 

 

When He Was Young

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My nephew had to do a school report recently and decided to do his presentation on his grandpa. His main source of information ended up being a book I did in 2006 about my dad’s childhood. This was the first history type book that I did which with a non-traditional look. No white pages with lots of text and a few photos. I enlisted the help of my niece Kimberli to do some illustrations. She was just starting her artistic training and she tried to do a different style than she was really comfortable so the quality of the drawings is inconsistent but the illustrations still add to the book. It was a learning experience for both of us.

One of my main goals with this project was to make it a more approachable history to read for all ages. And I think that it was at least partly successful with that since Jacob was able to use it for his school report. Now he knows something more about his grandpa that he can probably relate to in more ways. My dad had a kind of interesting childhood growing up in the days of prohibition in a suburb of Chicago.

While I’m sure I would do somethings differently if I was starting this project today, I still think it is a pretty good example of what can be done when you don’t have tons of information or lots of photos. I’m hoping that it will inspire someone in how they can tell one of their family’s stories.