My Dad

There’s something about my life that many of you do not know. Something that I’ve not been very open about. I’m not even sure how to talk about it now, because I never really have.

But… it’s been 10 years, so now seems like a good time to start.

My dad killed himself when I was 17.
Ten years ago today.

It wasn’t because he wanted to end it all or because there was too much pain to bear. It was because he was high on cocaine, paranoid after prolonged use, confronted by the police, and afraid he was about to go back to jail (why / if he was in jail in the first place, we don’t even know).

At the time, I hadn’t seen or talked to him in several months. I didn’t want to. Even though he had denied it all to my face, I knew what was going on. I wasn’t stupid. The endless pages (remember pagers?), the hushed phone calls, the not-so-subtle drug runs, the doped up acquaintances. It really wasn’t too hard to figure out. But he lied about it all when my sister and I confronted him, and that upset me.

I didn’t want to help him. I wouldn’t have even known how. I thought, “it’s his problem, he’ll have to straighten out his own life. [If he cares about us at all.]” But of course, I didn’t really understand addiction back then. And I didn’t know how far it’d gone.

So, we cut him out of our lives and he didn’t seem to fight it.

At that point, not seeing him anymore wasn’t a huge deal. It’s not as if he’d always been there anyway. My parents divorced when I was five, so for twelve years we pretty much only saw him every other weekend and on special occasions. We weren’t what you’d call close. [But now, looking back, I feel like we could have been if things had been different, if he were still alive.]

My father’s death made the front page of the local newspaper. That is how I found out about it. It was a truly bizarre story. Fucked up, to put it bluntly. Unreal. My first reaction to it was, honestly, a laugh. Possibly a laugh of disbelief, possibly one of anger, I’m still not sure. Sadness was not my first emotion, though [which maybe makes me fucked up too]. I laughed and said, “And that’s why you don’t do drugs.” I left the discussion and went to my room to try and process it all. I don’t remember crying. I don’t think I cried about it until several years later, when I realized what I was missing and could never have.

The news articles:
   

Life went on as usual, for the most part. Not much had changed really. Except that I now thought about him every single day. At first I was mad about it, and confused. I was raised Catholic which meant I was now to believe my dad was in hell. That just didn’t seem right, but I plunged deeper into religion looking for answers. I found none. This lasted a few months, through my senior year of high school. It was my first year of college that lead me to abandon religion for physchology and philosophy. Still no answers, even more questions.

About a year ago, I had my first and only dream about him since his death. It was so strangely surreal that it woke me up. I remember I was sitting at the dining table in the house we lived in before the divorce, talking to my mom and his foster mother (he was adopted), our grandma, when he came into “the scene”. I remember feeling shocked. I must’ve known I was dreaming because it seemed obvious to me that he wasn’t real, or that he was some sort of ghost or angel, or figment of my imagination. But he was so detailed, it was the most vivid image I’ve had of him since I last saw him alive. His appearance, his body language, his voice. It was him. Maybe that’s what caught me off guard, seeing him so clearly – something I’ve been unable to do consciously. In my dream, he could tell I was unprepared for his appearance and he said something to the effect of, “It’s ok, I’ll be here when you’re ready.” It was then that I woke up, wishing I hadn’t.

And so here we are, ten years have passed. I still think about him and what happened almost every day. I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I still wonder what life would be like had it not happened, what would be different, where we’d all be. I wonder how much I’m like him. If we’d have ever become close. If we’d have things in common. No one will ever know.

What do I do now? Where do I go from here? I don’t know. All I can try to do is remember the good in him and the good times that we did have. I can stay away from dangerous drugs and do my best to keep the ones I care about away from them too. I can find comfort in knowing that deep down inside I can still remember the details of his face, the sound of his voice, and his overall presence. I can watch an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, know that he watched it before me, and be reminded of him by characters like Worf and Riker.

I can do my best to remember his lifetime and hope to dream about him again, or maybe, if we’re all lucky, even see him again in the after world.

Well once again, RootsTech was a huge success. With registrations up over 30% from last year, we had over 4000 genealogists and developers in attendance. And if I had to guess, there were probably twice as many developers as last year.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been up since 5am, have a cold, and generally haven’t gotten much sleep in the last 4 days, but I find it difficult to describe the overall essence of RootsTech – at it’s purest, perhaps: passion and excitement. Everyone who was there, or who followed it online, knows it was a big deal, a game changer. Two booming industries, two completely different types of people, massive age gaps – but – everyone’s on the same page. Everyone knows that technology is what will move the field of genealogy forward. Everyone is excited about the possibilities.

This was a recurring theme among attendees. Seeing genealogists and technologists sitting down together and discussing the need for advancement and the possibilities for implementation was a sight to be seen. And we already know this mashup of communities works – GEDCOMX is a direct result of it. Genealogists made the call for a better standard, a better way to house data – of all types – and technologists are coming together to find and implement a new, dynamic solution.

The Sessions

I attended a pretty even mix of user and developer sessions, here’s a semi-brief run down on my favorite five:

The Powers of Evernote: Photos, URL’s, Censuses,
Geo-location, and Stories

I already use Evernote quite a bit, even for genealogy to some degree. In fact, I’m composing this blog post in Evernote on the flight back to Detroit. So I already had a fair idea of what it’s capable of, but I wasn’t familiar with the many of the integrated tools and was interested in how others are using it to supplement their research. Here are just of few of those tools and uses:

• Evernote Web Clipper – This one is pretty straight-forward. You install a plugin and can create new Evernote’s with the click of a button that contain the content of a webpage, snippet of a webpage, or just a link to the webpage. An easy way to bookmark and store research.
• Clearly – This browser plugin makes web content easy to read in Evernote. Great for those ancient, hideous web pages.
• Skitch – An app that allows you to markup images. Perfect for highlighting names or keywords and annotating photos or records.
• NoteFuser – This Chrome plugin, created by Jimmy Zimmerman, won First Place in the 2012 RootsTech Developer Challenge. The plugin hooks into FamilySearch.org and geni.com person pages allowing you to tie Evernotes to specific people in your tree.
• ifttt (if this then that) – Here’s a really interesting service that “puts the web to work for you” by automatically… doing stuff. For instance, it can create a new Evernote everytime your favorite genealogy blogger publishes a post. Their site can explain it better than I can.
• EverPress – A lot of genealogists seem to like keeping their research log in the form of a WordPress blog. This allows you to automatically share the contents of an Evernote folder with your blog.
• Scanning directly to Evernote. Did you know there are scanners that can do that?
• GEDCOM storage. It was suggested you could store your tree files in Evernote. However, another session suggested keeping them in Dropbox – which I like even more, since you could setup your apps to source that file and keep it in sync.

Basically, it was suggested that you store everything related to your genealogy research in Evernote. Could be cool, will I try doing that… mmm, I don’t know… we’ll see.

Eleven Layers of Online Searches

This was an awesome presentation from Barbara Renick – she really knows what she’s talking about here. So if you’re having trouble finding someone, here are 11 steps to take that might just lead you to a breakthrough:

1. Try just the name – see how many results you get, look for patterns
2. Try the name with identifiers – such as event, place, dates, relationships
3. Try name with initials – there is a handy page on the FamilySearch Wiki on guessing name variations
4. Add wild cards – use *, ?, AEIOUY replacements, adjacent location searches
5. Try no last name with identifiers – see Layer #2 for identifiers
6. Try no first name with identifiers – see Layer #2 for identifiers, including the sex of the person will help with this one
7. Try no name with identifiers – mix and match identifiers, expand or contract geographic focus
8. Try another name in the household – a more unique name
9. Try another name in the neighborhood – that has been enumerated nearby in other census years
10. Try combining names – husband and wife, multiple generations, related surnames – godparents, witnesses, etc
11. If at first you don’t succeed try a different search tool – websites, CDs, search catalogs for resources by keyword (not name), or go classic – books, films, manuscripts.

Telling Stories: Transforming the Bare Facts of Genealogy Into the Astonishing Tale of You and Your Family.

As genealogists, we’re constantly digging up facts and compiling information – but just having all of that data doesn’t mean we have a story to tell. Presenter, Ian Tester, discussed what it takes to turn your own family stories into Who Do You Think You Are? worthy tales. The following video was shown as a basis to that discussion.

Stories Through Data from Ross Forrest on Vimeo.

Making the Most of Technology to Further the Family History Industry (Ancestry.com Panel)

This was a great panel with some of Ancestry.com’s top technology leaders led by Tim Sullivan, President and CEO of Ancestry.com. They discussed technologies they’re working on, technologies of the future, what it was like to support the website during the third season premier of Who Do You Think You Are?, and the growing IT needs at Ancestry.com.

Creating Cross-Platform Mobile Apps with Titanium

So Titanium is pretty awesome. Now that I know more about it, it seems like a good candidate for an idea I have (see the conclusion). The session discussed the pros and cons of using Titanium, and ran through a simple demo. It was led by some of the Family Search developers – who just the day before – launched the brand new, Titanium made, Family Search Indexing app.

Honorable Mentions

• Genealogy Idol – Just like it sounds, four genealogists competed for the title.
• Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities (Keynote) – A very fun discussion of where technology has been, where it is now, and where it’s going.
• Genealogy Internet Gems – A run through of some of the best genealogy sites and services available.
• Ancestral Lines Pairing Systems: Uniquely Numbering Each Ancestral Line, Generation, Pairing and Sibling – An overview of a newly published pedigree numbering system. Pretty interesting, I am currently working with my own custom system that is somewhere between this and Aftenafel.
• Event Driven Web Apps with Node.js – A solid overview of how Node.js works and what you can do with it.

Video for a lot of these sessions will be up soon, but the highlights are already streaming on the RootsTech homepage. You can also check out the session schedule, where you’ll find syllabi for most of the sessions, as well.

Events & Excursions

Ryan Hamilton

The first night of the conference, RootsTech brought in comedian, Ryan Hamilton. He was hilarious!! I think he thought our odd combination of genealogists and technologists was pretty entertaining as well – cracking a few jokes about the age gap. At one point, he started taking audience questions which was epic. Here’s a bit he did for our show:

Late Night at the Library

A tradition carried on from RootsTech 2011, Late Night at the Library was an even bigger success this year. They had to ask us not to all come at once so that they wouldn’t run into fire regulation issues!

First up was the Who Do You Think You Are? Season 3 premier! It was a blast watching the show with such a huge group of genealogists. The crowd’s reaction to the findings and to Martin Sheen’s reactions were very entertaining. And hving an inside look at the production of the show made it that much more enjoyable.

After the show, it was time to get down to business. First, I hit up the subscription sites and scored three key obituaries that confirmed some things I wasn’t quite sure of! After that, I decided to try my hand at searching the microfilms (for the first time) for a specific naturalization record and declaration of intent. I found the naturalization record as referenced the by index, but no luck finding the declaration – I even went back and tried again after the conference.

Salt Lake City

Me, Benjamin, Mary Lou

Between all the sessions and events, I had a bit of time to explore the Temple Square area. First, I went at night to take a few photographs. The second time, I went back with a few new RootsTech genealogist friends – Mary Lou and Benjamin. Benjamin, mysteriously, has no legal surname… no joke. Being that he is a genealogist (ie. someone who spends his time looking for last names), this baffled Mary Lou and I to no end. We have not been able to pry to story out of him yet. Maybe next year.

After strolling around the Square and taking a tour of the top level of the secondary LDS office building (where we got some great views), we headed out for a drink at The Beerhive. I had a pretty good Desert Edge UPA, although it was a little weak as far as the alcohol content goes – a theme you can expect from UT beers.

Compared to last year, I didn’t see nearly as many SLC oddities. See last years RootsTech Recap if you want to know what I’m talking about. I did get a few alright photos though – check out the best in the Flickr slideshow below:

Ready for Next Year

Last years inaugural event was excellent, and to me, my official entry into the world of legitimate genealogy. Obviously, I enjoyed the event so much that I didn’t even hesitate to return. This year’s event, however, left me with a much stronger feeling of inclusion and forward momentum. Throughout the conference when people would ask, “Are you a user or developer?” I replied with, “I’m in the middle,” and I think that’s probably the best place to be. I have a strong interest in doing the research and seeking out dead people, but I’m also interested in creating the technologies to help me do that research.

Just a week ago, an idea for a genealogy research log tool popped into my head – because, in all honesty, I suck at logging my research. There’s no easy way to do it! You either have to write or type out long names, specific spellings, data sources, and more. I just want to do the research, not spend 75% of my time compiling the details on how I’m doing it. And, it seems like I’m not alone. In D. Joshua Taylor’s Genealogy Software Forecast session, there was an overwhelming majority of attendees who admitted to not keeping a log, and a discussion that went on to cover the need for an easy, fast, intuitive, and even automatic way to log from any location. So that is my goal this year, to create and develop an awesome multi-platform (see the Titanium session mentioned above) research logging tool – specific to genealogy. If all goes well, I hope to be entering it into the RootsTech Developer Challenge in 2013!!

Well that just about covers it! It was a pretty awesome and successful trip and I can’t wait for next year. Side note: it was also pretty successful for my Twitter account – I was retweeted by @RootsTechConf, @AncestryDotCom, and even @RyanHamiltone – hello >20,000 impressions!!

Overall, our search was a huge success – we found two sets of great-great grandparents and 14 relatives total!!

The Schick Family at Oakridge

Starting with Oakridge Cemetery in Hillside, we knew where to look as our mother had been here before and told us that the family was in section 3, and sure enough there they were. This plot includes my great-grandmother Ella Schick Lindstrom, her parents (my great-greats!) Conrad and Mary (Pagels) Schick, and a few of Ella’s siblings. All of the Schick’s had lovely matching headstones.

And at this point, I have to admit that I feel like an a$$. Somehow, in my excitement over Conrad and Mary, I neglected to photograph Marie Schick’s headstone – I took soooo many photos I must’ve thought I’d gotten her when I didn’t!! Thankfully my sister nabbed a shot!

The Niedzwiecki’s at St. Adalbert’s

Next up, we headed over to St. Adalbert’s in Niles to look for our great-grandparents – Henry and Agnes (Sinwelski) Niedzwiecki. To find them we had to use the burial lookup kiosk, which worked fairly well – but could certainly use some UI adjustments. We found them pretty easily; they both had lovely matching headstones, as well.

In addition to Henry and Agnes, we also knew that Agnes’s younger brother Herman was buried here. Herman died of acute gastroenteritis (infection of the digestive tract) while he was still baby, at the age of one month. As it turns out, Herman was buried in a “term grave,” meaning there is no way to know exactly where he is in the cemetery as these graves are generally unmarked and the caskets are stacked up on top of each other. Here is a great article with more detail on how term graves work: Where are grandma and grandpa? Confusion over term graves

The Sinwelski’s at Holy Cross

In searching the cemetery database at St. Adalbert’s, we came across a few other familiar names in the Sinwelski tree – all now lie rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in Calumet City. Since Calumet City is on the Illinois/Indiana border, I decided to make the detour on my way back to Michigan.

My first stop was in Section 19, Lot 5, where two of Agnes’s brothers lie – Frank S. and Eugene F., both WWII veterans. Interestingly, their graves were separated by an unknown couple – the Grout’s. There were a few other Grout’s surrounding them as well… hmmm.

Just a few yards away, across the road and in the adjacent Section 18, I found another brother – Roman H.

And last but definitely not least, it was time to find the most challenging of them all – Leo and Mary Sinwelski, the Sinwelski sibling’s parents and my great-great grandparents – in yet another adjacent section – Immaculata. All I had was a lot number (no block or grave number), and the numbered signs placed around the section with the intention of providing guidance were really rather confusing, plus I had to clear snow off every grave. But soon enough, I found what I was looking for.

These two were not side by side, but rather toe-to-head – at Leo’s feet lies Mary, which I found to be somewhat strange. Another interesting point is that the database listed Leo with the last name Szinwelski, but his headstone spells it without the “Z.”

Well, that’s it! I think between these great findings and my new car, this qualifies as a pretty successful weekend :)

Walerja was born in Polish Germany around 1868 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1886 at the age of 14. She married twice; first, around the age of 20 to my 3rd great grandfather – Unknown Szynwalski, also of Polish Germany; and second, around the age of 30 to Unknown Szymczak, also of Polish Germany. She had 10 children, but only 5 of them were living in 1910 – including my 2nd great grandfather Leon. Szynwalski.

All of this information, I’ve been able to extract from one 1910 U.S. census record found on Ancestry.com. Of course, all of it is unverified, but at least I now have a theory and an idea of where to look next!

Additional Finds

First, my 2nd great grandmother (wife of Leon. Szynwalski), Mary Szareck’s New York Passenger List entry. I now know she emmigrated from Dabie, in Polish Austria, at the age of 18. She was 5’2 with blonde hair and blue eyes and destined for Chicago. I’m not sure which ship is the S.S. Bremen in the photo, but either way, it’s no luxury liner.

Second, my great grand uncle (son of Leon. & Mary Szynwalski), Edward Sinwelski’s WWII Army Enlistment record. Edward was married to his wife, Vera Carnagey, in March of 1941 and enlisted in the army a month later in April of 1941. According to the record, he served as a Warrant Officer. After a bit of googling, I’m still not entirely sure what this position entailed, but it’s definitely respected. I found a SSDI for Edward that indicates he died in December of 1982, so I do know that he survived the war. Unfortunately, there isn’t an image for this one.

Those are this week’s big ones – see you next week, I hope!

If you’re unfamiliar with RootsTech 2011, it was an inaugural conference event at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, that aimed at bringing together professional and amateur genealogists, technology creators, and technology users with the goal of reducing friction and generating stronger ties between the two fields of genealogy and technology.

A side note on Utah, Mormons and Family History

I’ve never been to Utah before, nor did I prepare by doing any sort of research on the city of Salt Lake, so I really had very little idea what to expect. I did know it was a genealogy hub because of the Family History Library, but I had completely forgotten about the massive Mormon population and never really bothered looking into the connection between family history and the Latter Day Saints.

As I quickly learned, Mormon’s are such avid family historians because they hold the belief that people who have died before them can be baptized into the church by proxy, allowing ancestors who weren’t living church members to join them in the afterlife. This essentially means that if your grandfather was a serial killer or baptized Catholic, for example, you could be baptized by the church of Latter Day Saints on their behalf, thereby allowing them to leave their “spirit prison” and join you in the heavenly afterlife. Apparently, people like Adolf Hitler and the Pope have been baptized vicariously in this way. From what I can tell, Mormons base this belief on a single New Testament scripture line:

“Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?” — 1 Corinthians 15:29

For more on this controversial concept of baptism for the dead, there’s a great article on Wikipedia.

That all being said, I found Salt Lake to be a very strange city – comprised mostly of white folk, most of whom seemed to be Mormon, and many of which were recruiters. While this population did seem to contribute to the overall sense of safety and order of the town, it definitely left something to be desired. I can’t say I’ll ever go back to Salt Lake except for the next RootsTech conference which is already scheduled for February 2-4, 2012.

Back to the conference! Between the keynotes, sessions, nightly events and vendor exhibits – there wasn’t any time to waste. So, let’s get to the highlights!

Sessions

Digital Images for Genealogists & Technologists

Lead by Geoffrey Rasmussen of Legacy Family Tree, this session looked at tools and techniques to help with digital image cleanup, preservation and organization. Geoffrey focused primarily on using Photoshop Elements and Picasa for both manipulation and organization, but touched on a few other services as well. Both PhotoShop Elements and Picasa offer offline photo organization as well as online backups (for a fee, of course). And since both services offer slightly different features, Geoffrey suggested using the combination for ultimate organization and meta tagging assistance.

This was a very interesting session for me personally, as I recently developed my own DIY photo archiving solution: jarchiver.com. At the time of development, I had avoided services like Picasa as I felt they were too detached from other aspects of genealogy and in the case of sites like Flickr, required hefty monthly payments. While I’m still not sure what my ultimate photo organization solution is, a lot of good ideas definitely came out of this session. I discovered another interesting option from one of the vendors called PhotoLoom, which ties your tree into your photo storage – so I’ll definitely be looking at this service in the future.

Systems and Methods for Geospatial and Temporal Interpretation of Genealogical Data

Bernie Gracie lead this session which went over using his site, AncestralHunt.com, to break down brick walls by looking in depth at the geographical locations and migrations of your ancestors and their communities. Most of the session was a demo of the service, which made it clear that there’s a lot of potential for this kind of research – especially since a large part of what the site offers is community collaboration.

Since the nature of family tree research is so fluid, Bernie suggested using the site as a tool for ideation and theorizing, rather than a place to keep verified data. This concept in itself is worth noting. A related idea was presented by Jimmy Zimmerman in an Unconferencing session: since our trees are ever changing and since we often encourage collaboration, while simultaneously fearing the inadvertent destruction of all our hard work, why not implement a kind of version control system for family trees?! Think github for your ancestry! You want to invite your cousin to work on your tree, but you don’t want her going in and tearing shtuff up – create a “branch” of your tree that see can work in! When she’s done she can submit her changes back to you and it will ultimately be your decision whether or not to include them in the main trunk.

Google Earth for Genealogy

This session, lead by Lisa Louise Cooke, host of the Genealogy Gems Podcast, demonstrated how you can create virtual tours of your ancestry using Google Earth. These tours can help tell your family story in a very visual and engaging way, so they’re great for people don’t quite understand your obsession with genealogy.

To create a tour, you essentially plot a bunch of points on Google Earth which you can then “play” through. Each point can contain any amount HTML including embedded images, videos, and audio recordings. So as the tour plays and Google Earth pans around the globe to each point, it launches each coordinate description allowing you to effectively tell the tale of your family.

Events

Night at the Clark Planetarium

As unrelated to genealogy as astronomy is, this event was a pretty great time. Between the free food (which was pretty tasty), 3D IMAX movies, star shows in the Hansen dome theater, prize drawings, and other exhibits, there was plenty for everyone to do.

My favorite part of the night was watching Hubble 3D in the IMAX theater. Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, this eye-candy film documented the efforts of the seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis and their mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. The whole film was full of breathtaking views of Earth, distant galaxies and other celestial presences. It was really just a pleasure to take in.

Late Night at the Family History Library

As the heading implies, the Family History Library stayed open late especially for RootsTech attendees. Genealogists were able to utilize the libraries resources and expert knowledge through midnight. There were also a few showings of the newest “Who Do You Think You Are?” episode featuring Tim McGraw, but I skipped those to see what interesting documents I could dig up.

I started in the family history book section and looked for family surnames but didn’t come across any matches. Next, I moved to the computer and began searching through all the paid databases I normally don’t have access to. I wasn’t as prepared to do research as I should have been, so I basically performed a bunch of generic surname searches with focus on a few key ancestors. I managed to come across one concrete document – a death notice from the 1943 Chicago Tribune for my great grand aunt, Marie ‘Bibs’ Schick.

I also found a few leads on my great-great-great grandfather, Christ Pagels, which could very well pan out!

Vendors

Flip-Pal

Flip-Pal definitely stole the vendor show with there amazingly awesome portable scanner. This battery-powered mobile scanner will take 300-600dpi scans and comes with an SD card that’s pre-loaded with stitching software allowing you to take multiple scans of large documents that can be seamlessly pieced together later on. And just incase you don’t have an SD card reader in your computer, they even throw in a USB adapter (seriously, awesome bonus)!

Now when I say Flip-Pal stole the show, I wasn’t kidding – they sold out of their conference stock each day and had to get more shipped in every night. There were hordes of people around their booth in awe of the nifty little device. And while I didn’t buy one on the spot (simply because I didn’t want to carry it around with me, nor was there a conference discount), I promptly ordered one online when I got back to the hotel.

Check out this glowing review of the device for more info.

GeneTree

GeneTree was the other vendor I found to be of great interest. They provide a genome mapping service similar to that of 23andMe, which I’m already participating in. Talking with the folks here definitely helped to clear up some of the confusion I have with my 23andMe results and their vendor demo session provided a lot more background on how DNA moves from parent to child and how you can begin interpreting the results. I’ll likely give their service a try as it’s focused on the genealogical aspect, rather than both health and ancestry, and includes a lot more in terms of graphing and data interpretation.

To show my support and intent, I picked up one of their very sweet t-shirts:

Salt Lake City

While I didn’t have too much free time to tour around the city, I was able to visit the LDS temple and visitor center, a few local pubs, and the infamous Salt Lake. I saw some very cool things, and many, many strange / interesting things. Here’s a sampling:

The Cool

• The art
• The lake
• The mountains
• The old architecture
• A Star Wars theme song playing bagpiper

The Weird

• Mormon recruiters
• A Mormon rave
• Adjacent wedding & nude photo shoots on the lake
• Dead birds all over the lake bed
• The lack of cultural diversity

Conclusions

All in all – RootsTech was a pretty good time and I can’t wait to see what they pull off next year! There’s already been a ton of great feedback and the blogosphere still can’t stop talking about it.

I’ve posted all of my photos over on jarchiver, my personal photo archiving app, so check those out for even more good times.

Now it’s time for me to end this novel and get back to my research – I bought three pretty awesome books on Sweden, Chicago and Google from the book vendor! See the photo for book details and to see the awesome laptop bag I got as a participant of RootsTech!

Peace.