MY FIRST GENEALOGY CONFERENCE

Well, it finally happened! I made it to my first genealogy conference, the
2012 New England Family History Conference! When I saw the announcement
for it posted on Facebook a few months back, I was excited. Not only was it
closeby(about an hours drive by back roads in Ping the Wonder Car) but it was
FREE but for $8.00 you could get a brown bag lunch that would help support a
good group.  This was definitely doable!

So yesterday morning Ping and I headed off to the LDS Chapel in Franklin, Ma
via a series of backroads and actually arrived on time for the start of the day.
The conference was divided up into 4 one hour sessions each with 7 classes
to choose. There was quite a variety of subjects and I chose the following:

Ist hour:Websites and Blogs: Difference?  with Lucie LeBlanc Consentino

2nd hour: Genealogical Materials at the Boston Catholic Diocese with
Michael Brophy

       (Then came the one hour lunch break.)

3rd hour: Finding Obscure Revolutionary War Patriots with Michael Potaski

4th hour:Brick Walls:Cracking the Case/Nathan Brown's Parents with Marian
Pierre-Louis.

Then there was an hour to socialize with refreshments during which I had the
chance to talk some more with Marian and Alice Kane.

All the talks were informative and enjoyable. Lucie and Marian surprised me by
recognizing me on sight and are as fun to talk to in person as you might expect
from their online personas!   And I introduced myself to Michael Brophy who is
the only other genealogist I know of from Abington.

Although the Conference was over at 4pm I left earlier and after driving home
I found my copy of the 5th edition of the Genealogist's Handbook for New
England  edited by Michael Leclerc had arrived in the mail!

All in all, a great genealogical day and I really enjoyed hearing the presenters
and meeting my fellow geneabloggers.  My thanks to the folks at the
Franklin LDS Chapel who did a great job making everything run so smoothly.

Now I'm looking for another conference I can attend!