My First Genealogy Conference

Sunday night I returned from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference, FGS 2013: Journey Through Generations. Wow! I'm still trying to absorb and organize all the great information I gleaned during the week, and all the literature I picked up at the Exhibit Hall.

Blogging during the conference sounded like a good idea before I got there, but once I was in the thick of it, I was too busy, too overwhelmed, and by the end of each day, too exhausted to make much sense. Even after a margarita. Instead I'm taking a retrospective approach, and discussing a few conference-related topics in the next few posts.

Should You Attend A Genealogy Conference?

My criteria for attending my first conference were:

1.     have I been working at genealogy long enough to gain from the conference?
2.     how far away is it?
3.     what will it cost me?

I began genealogy last February, and when the Ohio Genealogical Society had their annual meeting right here in Cincinnati in April, I decided #1 was a "No". I couldn't justify spending about $150 for a brand new hobby when there was so much free material online and in library books. However, I did spend 2 hours in the Exhibit Hall, which was free and open to the public. I got a discounted subscription to "Family Tree Magazine," asked techy questions about the RootsMagic software, saw a demo of the FlipPal personal scanner, and generally nosed around looking at literature, books, etc. Definitely worth the $4 parking fee!

Now after 6 months of reading and researching online, I spotted the FGS 2013 opportunity and felt I could learn a lot at a big conference. The venue was only a 3 hour drive north of Cincinnati, and driving is my preferred low cost mode of transport.

So then the hardest question: could I afford this? The conference fees were about $190 for 4 days. Hotel? Well, I'm a Motel 6 kind of person, and Fort Wayne's Motel 6 had a weekly rate of $27/day. I decided to make this my main vacation for the year, plus the business conference I used to attend in July was discontinued so I was saving money there. Yes, I registered!

For my future conferences, I would change the first criterion to "What can I gain from this conference?" Various types of conferences, meetings, and workshops are held all year long, lasting from one day to a week. The levels of education vary, too.

How long did you wait to attend a genealogy conference? Please chime in below in the comments!