Life From The Roots: Meeting Bloggers I've Not Met Before

Even though I live in an area where there seems to be a lot of genealogists, not a whole lot are blogging. So I was thrilled to finally meet blogger Cynthia Shenette of Heritage Zen: this past Tuesday. We have been talking about meeting for a very long time, and finally decided to do it on a rather cool damp day at a Botanical Garden, because as members we both love that place.

Yesterday, I was happy to meet GeneaBlogger #1 Thomas MacEntee at the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston. He was the first person I saw when I entered the building. And, with him was Geoff Rasmussen of Legacy Family Tree. I thanked Geoff for all his wonderful webinars, and then the guys posed for a photo. They, along with 200 genealogists were on a Legacy Family Tree Genealogy Cruise and Tom arranged a day trip for 45 of them so they could spend time at the library. When I found out Tom was going to be in Boston, I immediately volunteered to help the group out, Heather Rojo also did. Two professional genealogists were also helping the group out, Sharon Sergeant (met her abt. 12 yrs. ago) and Mary Ellen Grogan (met a few months ago).

The attendees were a great group of people. I helped six, and asked maybe another seven if they needed help, but they were set. What did I do? Went to another floor and retrieved books for them, explained a few things, gave a number of suggestions. Nothing was difficult, except keeping my stamina up.

In the course of talking to people, I asked about the group as a whole and especially how many used computers. Because, I could see a lot of hand written charts, notes and such. Two people thought it was about half. I've been saying this for a long time, there are a lot of genealogists out there who do not use computers, and more importantly, don't want to use them. This is material for another blog.

I knew two Facebook and geneabloggers friends were going to be there, so I tracked them down and was happy to meet Amanda Perrine (of Amanda's Athenaeum) her husband, Aaron, and Linda Robbins of Hollingsworth Robbins Family Tree.

Around noon, many left for lunch or to tour the city, and a soon after, Thomas treated Heather and I to lunch. Since we didn't know where to go, I suggested a cafe in the Boston Public Library, so we went and sat outside in the courtyard...was very nice. We all went back to the Library for another hour to tie up loose ends and to chat. Then, Heather drove us to our destinations, me part-way, and Tom to the ship. All in all, it was a great day, concluded by my walking past some Wall Street protesters and then to the Boston Gardens where the Bruins were getting ready to raise the banner flag (for winning the Stanley Cup earlier this year) and play their first game of the season. Lots of activity there, but the police had it under control. Okay, now for the photos.