Busy Time

Activities with the Rochester Genealogical Society

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity for me. As many of you know, I was elected as a vice-president and technology chair for the Rochester Genealogical Society a few months ago. I was able to ease into the role over the summer. But November brought an uptick in my activities. Actually, uptick is probably understating what’s been going on.

Working with a small task force, we are beginning the process of updating and re-designing the society’s website. It has good bones, but some information on it is hard to reach. So, we’re looking at other genealogical society sites and trying to decide what organization makes sense for us. It’s not difficult, just time-consuming. Our goal is to have a fully developed plan ready to present to the Board of Directors in January.

On top of that, I was asked to create and deliver two presentations in November. The first was a workshop we called “Wiki Your Tree.” Working with one of our members, I developed the workshop and presented it on Monday, 17 November, to a fair number of participants. Some were in-person, but most took part virtually, over Zoom. Unfortunately, we had a number of technical issues, and the recording of the workshop was not usable. So, I am reworking some of the slides to include information we gave in live demonstrations and will do a voice-over narration to post online.

Then, the very next evening, I took part in two activities and the society’s November General Meeting. The first part of the meeting was dedicated to a “Stump the Experts” panel. I joined three other members of the society to take questions from the membership, offering our suggestions on how to solve their genealogy roadblocks. It was a fun session. We offered some differing approaches to the questions asked.

After a short intermission, I was the featured speaker for the evening. My topic was “Artificial Intelligence: Using Technology to Find Family Connections.”

We had a fun time with the topic. I offered my experiences using AI and gave a few suggestions for best practices. I ended my presentation with an example of some of the things we can do with our genealogy. Randy Seaver generously agreed to allow me to present his ABC (Ancestor Biography Creation) process. It would be an understatement to say that our members were impressed with what Randy has done. I’m still hearing from members who have started their own AI experimentations.

I’ve taken a bit of time since my presentation to recover and prepare for some future projects. Additionally, my mom is visiting us from Texas for a week or so. We’re having a great time catching up and taking her around the Rochester area. We’re going up to Niagara Falls tomorrow.

I’ll be working on my voiceover for the workshop after mom leaves for home. I’m selfishly spending as much time as I can with her. We only get together a few times annually, so we try to make the best of it. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.