The Shamrock Genealogist

I recently won a contest on KingSumo for the annual RootsTech pass I give away (a fun perk of being a RootsTech ambassador!*) The lucky winner for this year's registration pass is Cheryl Townsend from Middlefield, Connecticut. Congrats Cheryl! I hope you have a wonderful time at RootsTech. *As a perk of being a RootsTech ambassador, I was given a free registration to RootsTech 2020. In exchange, I help promote the event through social media posts.

I am an ambassador for RootsTech London and one of the wonderful things I get to offer is a 3-day pass. I recently held a contest via KingSumo to win the conference pass. I'm happy to announce the lucky winner. Drum roll please Congratulations Elizabeth Graydon! I know you are going to have a wonderful time. Disclaimer: I am an Ambassador for RootsTech London 2019. I provide blog posts (in my own words), and social media coverage from now until after the conference. I unfortunately will not be in attendance but will be promoting virtually.   P.S. I know I've been quiet as of late but I have a lot of great projects going on and will be sharing soon some updates. 

RootsTech is officially over. The last two days (Friday and Saturday) were a bit of a whirlwind.  Friday Early that morning I attended the MyHeritage Friends breakfast. It's always a fun opportunity to learn about some new features and announcements (including some news ahead of the keynote). The big news is that MyHeritage will donate another 5000 DNA kits to help adoptees and their families reunite. You can apply for a DNA kit on  www.dnaquest.org.   I then attended the power hour hosted by my company, American Ancestors . The session was " Breaking Down Genealogical Brick Walls: Strategies for Success" I thought it was a great session and was well attended. Lots of great tips on how to use records on extended family, associates, and neighbors to bust down those pesky brick walls.  Later I attended the American Ancestors luncheon where my colleague Claire Vail, Director of Creative  and Digital Strategy, discussed the Mayflower web site . The site has a...

RootsTech 2019 is speeding by so fast. Yesterday was a very full day. Ancestry sponsored the keynote session. Some of the key features that were rolled out are tags for DNA as well as incorporating newspapers.com into search results using OCR software. The star celebrity for the keynote was Patricia Heaton. She shared a lot of stories about her family. I really enjoyed seeing the reveal with all of the different Catholic records that were found on her family. It was a nice tie-in to my lecture later that day. Speaking of Catholic records, I lectured for the first time at RootsTech. It was an unforgettable experience (definitely a bucket list item that I had on my resolution list). The attendance was awesome and I received great feedback. I'm lecturing again tomorrow (Saturday) at 3 pm if you missed my first lecture. Last night I had the honor attend the FamilySearch VIP dinner for the first time. I It was a great networking opportunity to talk with others in the industry and ...

RootsTech 2019 kicked off yesterday officially. I love this community of genealogists. You feel the energy of everyone coming together in support of documenting our family histories and helping others find their stories. I've been here since Monday afternoon prepping for this great event, spending several hours at the Family History Library. Lecture is finished and ready to go and it includes some recent discoveries. I'm lecturing on Roman Catholic Church Records in Room 155B today at 3 pm. I hope you can make it if you're here in Salt Lake City.  So what's happened already? First, we had the media dinner on Tuesday where ambassadors like myself get ready and network with other genealogists and press. We're pumped up and ready to share our experiences all week long. Yesterday afternoon classes started bright and early at 8 am. The opening session with Steve Rockwood was at 4:30 pm and was fabulous. It was a historic moment to see Martin Luther III, son of Ma...

It's officially the first day of the new year, 2019. It's been a whirlwind this past year, particularly over the last few months. Since my last blog post I made a huge change in my life. I quit my current job as an IT analyst and become a professional genealogist at New England Historic Genealogical Society. I'm so excited for this opportunity. I've been working hard to advance in the genealogy industry by lecturing at local events and even my first international conference (Ontario Conference). I was accepted to speak at RootsTech and NERGC in the next few months. I took a position at the end of the summer being an on-call genealogist where I was filling in for other employees at NEHGS that were out. This greatly helped me understand what it means to help other genealogists do their research in a library setting. I learned in the past year that it's never too late to chase your dreams and that you can get your dream job. I feel I'm making more of a difference...