Was A Success!

We had an estimated 900 genealogists at Ancestry Day on Saturday, which deems the day a success. I can't say enough good things about the people I worked with on making this day such a wonderful experience. More than 300 people attended the reception on Friday night. Then our wonderful volunteers were up bright and early, arriving before 6:30 am, to prepare for the day of the event. Between supervising the volunteers, fielding questions about the day, playing reference librarian at the registration table, being a photographer, finalizing the librarian lunch, and at the end of the day, participating in the Ask the Experts panel (image), it was a busy day. Honestly, my brain has yet to process everything that happened, but I can say it was a wonderful success.

Now on a more personal note, I had some "me" moments. No offense to genealogists in the field, but my customer base in Florida consisted of some of the top in the field, so it takes a lot to impress me when meeting another genealogist. So when I was introduced to Lou Szucs at the reception, I was the consumate professional, yet had the fangirl feeling going on under the facade. What was even better was she commented on the wonderful things she'd been hearing about me, in which my boss responded that the comments were all true. It's always nice to hear that you're appreciated and doing a good job. Then later, Kim commented to me that George and Drew would be proud if they could see me, which of course, caused me to tear up. It's always nice to hear that your mentors would be proud of your accomplishments. And after the Experts panel, one of the Ancestry panelists thanked me for saving them on some of the questions, which reinforced the fact I held my own on a panel of experts, who I respect.

There you have it! My first co-coordinating of a large one-track conference.