A good time was had by all

A great turnout for the Ancestry.com Seminar today at the Handlery Hotel. Over 300 people interested in genealogy attended the event.

Suzanne Russo Adams from Ancestry.com presented four sessions on different areas available. The first session was on the best strategies to do research, with primary attention to the new search. The second session was an overview of Rootsweb and Ancestry's collaboration functions. These included the mailing lists and message boards at Rootsweb and family tree sharing at Ancestry.

A pretty decent box lunch was provided at the noon break.

In the afternoon she explained the Ancesry World Archives Project. This is an effort to attract volunteers to digital images of records that Ancestry.com has created. As the documents are indexed our genealogical research is made considerably easier. The final session was on using a new service of Ancestry called "My Canvas". My Canvas is an online publishing function which helps you construct the books you want to publish. You can create family history books from your Ancestry.com family tree or other photo books. My Canvas has numerous ideas and guides to help you create your book. The finished product can be printed on your computer or you can have them print and bind your work.

Randy Seaver will present his views on the seminar later this evening, he will probably have a more thorough synopsis as he attended each session. If you want to check out his entry hop on over to www.geneamusings.com and take a look.

I spent my time helping scan pictures for the attendees. We had one high speed scanner that copied about 1000 images. There were two stations that took digital images of family photos. Our attendees brought old tintype photos, diplomas, funeral guest books, high school annuals and even family snapshots. There were a few glitches in the scanning but we were able to create over 2500 images.

You can view some pictures at SDGS Picasa Web Albums

All in all it was a very good day.