And the Rootstech winner is....

.... an Australian, Helen V Smith.

Helen at work

Helen is one of Australia's foremost Geneabloggers and Genealogy Presenters. Although she has previously travelled to Salt Lake City this will be her first experience of a Rootstech Conference.

Now this may look as if it smacks of favouritism but I only had a small number of entries for my Free Rootstech Registration and Helen's was the most thoughtful response in the competition.

This is what was required of entrants:

For your entry in this competition:

1. In an email to jillballau@gmail.com  please suggest one of the people who will be at Rootstech 2013 that I should try to interview, why I should do so and suggest at least three questions I should ask them. Your entry is not to be a treatise but a concise piece of writing.

2. The subject of your emailed entry should be  "Rootstech Giveaway". Your contact details are to be included in the email.

Helen replied:

Elaine Collins

Representing BrightSolid

1.      Are there any plans to allow searches by collection as previously available eg search just the Plymouth and Devon collection or the Westminster collection?
2.      Are there any plans to develop further into continental Europe records as many Australian and American ancestors were from these countries?
3.      Have you any special clues for advanced searches?

Thomas MacEntee

Well known social media guru, Geneablogger extraordinaire and announced speaker on 4^th Unlock the Past Cruise

1.      What do you think is the number one positive to becoming a geneablogger?
2.      Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blogging where should someone start?
3.      We have seen the rise of Twitter FaceBook, Google+, Pintertest, YouTube etc, what do you think the next “Big Thing” we could use for genealogy will be?

Janet Hvorka

The “Chart Chick” recently published a book ‘Zap the Grandma Gap’ about getting your family involved willingly in family history

1.      Just how do you get younger people in the family interested in their family history?
2.      Can you  give some examples of how you have integrated your family history into daily life?
3.      Have you some suggestions for integrating family history into family or special occasions such as Christmas?
4.      Your company produces a range of family history charts. Is there a any restriction on what family history program is used?
5.      How is the information sent to you?
6.      How do you send the chart back?
7.      Is there a restriction on size you can send?
8.      Are you able to print a range of images on the charts as well as a range of fonts in different colours?
9.      What is the average turn-around or how long should one allow from the idea of printing a large chart to getting it done? Is now too soon to be getting organised for Christmas?

There are so many people that it would be good to show to Australian audiences.

Lisa Louise Cook is known to some here with her Genealogy Gems. A chat with her talking about Google Earth would be interesting and may give people more ideas.

Geoff Rasmussen about his Legacy webinar series and what makes a good webinar.

Thomas Jones about advanced research techniques.

How many interviews did you want to do?

Helen, I'll try to do as many interviews as I can.  Thanks for the suggestions.