After the events of yesterday I fully intend to soak up everything I can from this year’s conference! So let’s jump right into a recap of NGS Day 1.
The opening session was definitely worth getting out of bed for! John Philip Colletta was fun and engaging as a presenter. He spoke about the Erie Canal and covered subjects such as working for/on/along the Canal and migrating, transporting cargo, business and leisure travel on the Canal. He threw in some song references and a pretty sweet hat for flavor and gave the audience a wonderful experience.
After the opening session was the mad rush for the exhibit hall opening. The exhibit hall seems to be smaller this year, which was a little disappointing. But there were a few new exhibitors to discover. I had the chance to sit down and talk with one of the ProStamm exhibitors. I really like the concept of ProStamm but I usually don’t buy or subscribe without more research into the product and since they don’t offer anything like a trial period I don’t know if I’ll jump on board that ship yet. Another new exhibitor I spoke with was MemoryWeb. I really like the concept of this app as well and they did offer a trial, which I took advantage of. It provides several different connection options for services such as Facebook, Google, Flickr, Dropbox, etc. and pulls the photos in from the services you connect. I’m scheduling a follow up post about MemoryWeb so I can review it more in-depth.
I attended sessions by Rick Sayre, Ruth Ann Abels Hagar and Paul Milner and WOW were they great! Rick Sayre’s presentation “The Goldmine of Military Pensions” was well researched and presented. Ruth Ann Abels Hagar’s presentation “What Do I Really Have Here?” was fun and enlightening. I especially loved how she presented the concept of looking at the “container” of the data in addition to the data (she had a fun cereal box analogy she used to illustrate this). One of the sessions I was very excited about this year was Paul Milner’s “Digging for Gold: Locating British Miners and Their Records.” Part of the spousal unit’s Scottish family came from a mining location in Scotland and we don’t have much information on them yet so this was a session I definitely wasn’t going to pass up. I’ve had the opportunity to hear Paul Milner speak before so I knew his session would be good but the information he provided simply blew my mind. He not only has the practical knowledge to speak on the subject (having actual practical mining experience!) but he’s also one super-smart cookie to boot. The session was better than I anticipated it would be. I couldn’t help myself, during the session I started looking up some of the resources Paul was referencing and I’ve already learned some new things about the mining area the family came from. I can’t wait to really dig in!
To wrap up the day I attended the ProGen meetup which celebrated the 10th anniversary of ProGen (yay!) and Society Night. Sadly, I was so exhausted by the time I’d finished with Society Night I was too tired to attend the APG Dessert Reception but I’m sure it was fabulous.
It was a fabulous day and I’m looking forward to another one tomorrow!
