Wonderful surprise for the returning traveller

Mr and Mr Geniaus have been off globetrotting for the last few weeks.Although it was not a genealogy field trip I managed to visit a few institutions, see some distant cousins and collect a few new resources on our round the world journey.  Over the next few weeks I will blog about some of my experiences and finds.


After our 20 hour journey from New York I was feeling a little flat on my return home yesterday. In between loads of washing I managed to log into my email where I found a great surprise.There were two emails with the subject line "RootsTech Proposal Accepted".  My spirits immediately soared; I will be presenting in two sessions at Rootstech 2012 in Salt Lake City.


I was absolutely stoked to get this news but now have tummy butterflies. I don't think there will be many other Australian presenters at this international event so I feel a responsibility to do Australia proud. This will not be too difficult for the first session "Genealogy 2.0: international panelists discuss their use of social media to connect with cousins, collaborate on projects, discuss issues, market and promote genealogy services and perform acts of genealogical kindness" in which I will be joined by esteemed genealogists Amy Coffin (USA), Audrey Collins (UK) and Joan Miller (Canada). I was thrilled when these genealogists whom I met at Rootstech 2011 agreed to my proposal to form a panel to discuss Genealogy 2.0. We should have lots of fun collaborating with Web2.0 tools to prepare our presentation.


Although my second gig "The Galaxy Girls –three genealogists and their Android tablets" will be a solo performance I have the support of two Australian genealogists, Shelley from Twigs of Yore and Tanya Honey from My Genealogy Adventure who also purchased Samsung Galaxy Tablets not long after I did. Via email, blog posts and more recently through a Huddle on Google+ Shelley, Tanya and I have been discussing our tablet use. I am indebted to The Galaxy Girls for agreeing to allow me to report on their tablet experiences.


The generosity of the genealogy community is demonstrated by the willingness of these five genealogists to support my proposals for Rootstech 2012, I am most grateful to you.

The Galaxy Girls

My experiences with my Android gadget, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, have been documented in a few blog posts:

Connecting with the Galaxy

The shiny new toy - Carnival of Genealogy

Genealogy True Confessions: I take the tablet to bed

 Addicted to the Tablet 

These posts only describe one person's experience. I have read and reread yesterday's posts by two of my Genimates, Shelley (Life in the clouds and across the Galaxy) and Tanya (Using a Samsung Galaxy Tablet for genealogy, and other things), who blogged about their experiences with the Tab. These posts demonstrate the benefits of collaboration through blogging. We three all have the same little gadget but have taken different approaches to customising our gadgets with apps and widgets.

I burnt the midnight oil last night investigating, downloading and playing with some of the apps that Tanya  had suggested. This morning I woke to Shelley's post and, having read that, have more things to explore.

As a cheapskate I had stuck with free apps and not yet purchased any but, on the recommendation of my GeniMates, I'll now buy Family Bee. Although I can access my tree on the web it will be handy to have all of my data available on the tab for times when I don't have a connection or simply in the interests of economy so I don't need to use my data plan to access the family info.

I selfishly look forward to following Shelley and Tanya's journeys with their Tabs so that I can learn more tricks to play with mine.