A great week in Arkansas

I am writing this from Little Rock, Arkansas while attending the Arkansas Genealogical Society’s Seminar. Yes, attending and not speaking. Last night, Carolyn Earle Billingsley, PhD. presented two thought provoking lectures and today Sharon Tate Moody, CG, presented a full day of lectures related to legal research. Tonight my mind is whirling from all the wonderful and clearly presented information from these two women. My other purpose for being in Little Rock was to attend meetings related to a genealogical conference.

In 2009 (September 2-5), the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) annual conference will be hosted by the Arkansas Genealogical Society (AGS) in Little Rock. This past week several of the national level committee chairs from FGS for that conference had a joint meeting with AGS representatives as well as Arkansas, Little Rock, and North Little Rock representatives with historical connections. It was a comfortable meeting (of course, very businesslike ) but we had some fun too. I felt that we all were "on the same page" and I felt very welcome. We also were privileged to tour the great host hotel and the convention center.

Of course I explained to the local group why a Minnesotan made sense as a National Publicity Co-Chair for the 2009 conference – my late father-in-law was born in Arkansas and once that genealogy bug hit, our family made multiple trips to beautiful Arkansas. Tomorrow I will visit Johnson County where he was born. The next trip to Arkansas will be less sightseeing and more family research for my children and grandchildren.

Do put the Arkansas dates on your calendar BUT before that be sure to plan for the 2008 FGS Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 3-6. Keep watching the website for that conference and the conference blog for the evolving details of the 2008 event. As I said in a previous post on this blog, some unique aspects are being planned for the Philadelphia conference.