Wednesday, March 28, 2012

First National Conference- Come Along With Me

My bucket list is quite varied, covering everything from traveling spots to meeting favorite celebrities, and attaining goals with my beloved ancestors, and I have been quite blessed in actually checking off many of them, even the ones that seemed impossible years ago.

Last year I was more than a bit blue as The National Genealogical Society's Annual Conference was conducted in Charleston, South Carolina. I had wanted to go desperately, and was so disappointed when circumstances prevented the opportunity.

When I learned that the National Genealogical Society was holding the 2012 conference in Cincinnati, Ohio I knew that I would not be denied. I researched the three hotels that were originally recommended by the Society, and actually made our hotel reservations over six months ago to ensure that I was in the hotel I wanted, which is across the street from the Duke Energy Convention Center and attached by the downtown Cincinnati sky walk system.

I talked highly of this conference within my family, so my favorite sidekick in genealogy pursuits, my mother, decided to attend with me. As of this moment we are electing not to sign up for any of the luncheons, even though I am a member of a few of the organizations, but will seek some guidance on this one in the next few weeks. The conference blog states that any meal tickets must be purchased in advance.

We did decide to splurge for the Wednesday evening tour and dinner at the Cincinnati History Museum, especially since the Union Terminal is there and the railroad plays such a large role in our lives. I was happy to find out, that even though my father will not be part of the actual conference, I could register him for this event. We also plan on going to the evening at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center , as well as a bus tour they are doing when we first get into town. We decided to take advantage of these opportunities and enjoy them as much as we can while we are there.

Since I am a newcomer to attending a conference at this level, I thought I would start posting on our process as we prepare for this trip, what the experience is like once we arrive, and what we learn during and once we get home.

Next time I will let you know what some of our preparations are for this trip.

1 comment:

Michelle Goodrum said...

Since I can't attend cincinnati conference I will be following you with great interest.