I am in Salt Lake City to teach at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy this coming week. Right now I am sitting at a table on the 3rd floor of the Family History Library. It’s a busy library today. I just looked up and decided to list the states where the people I know here are from: MN, TX, WA, MI, CA, OH, MD, NC, CO, MT, TN, MI, UT, TN, IN, NM, NJ, VA, IL, ME, NY, PA, and I know I have missed some.

The camaraderie is wonderful. The time spent bouncing research issues off each other is helpful. The discussions of research techniques is amazing. We sit at home in front of our computers all by ourselves too often.  It’s also nice to be able to walk to the microfilm cabinets and pull out several films I need to view. Then to just walk over to the film scanners and scan the needed images on to my flash drive.

I have had discussions with fellow researchers I never met before. Others have been with people I have known for 25 years. We are truly friends and colleagues. Seeing long-time friends is wonderful but so is meeting new friends. I already added new friends on Facebook this week.

The weather has been great. I only need my spring jacket! I am definitely not missing the weather back in Minnesota.

After SLIG is finished, many of us will be back here for FGS/RootsTech in February. Two months of great genealogy immersion.

I highly advise saving your dollars for at least one trip to Salt Lake City to experience the great research at the Family History Library and be one of the ardent researchers. Three floors of film cabinet after film cabinet of microfilmed records that are NOT online. It’s one of my favorite places.

 

© 2015, Paula Stuart-Warren. All rights reserved.