Family History Conference

 

See how easy this is?! 

This photo is part of my class at the NWA Family History Conference that I taught today called, "Publish Yourself."   I was really just sort of a fake teacher subbing for Valerie, who did all the prep work and made handouts and everything. My job was to just show up and inspire the crowd to switch to digital record keeping for family history. 

I took this photo and posted with my phone in minutes as part of the presentation. 

 

As someone who despises boxes of unused items, and is fascinated by the art of simplifying possessions to only things that I love or make me happy, I felt pretty qualified for the task of offering a persuasive argument that favors digital storage. I'm also consistent enough at documenting our life here that I seem legit enough to fit the role of "blogger". 

Isn't it fascinating that we will be the last generation contribute to the file boxes full of journals and Personal ancestry books that are carted around by our posterity?  So many inspiring words and stories of struggle and hardship and obedience and blessings and faith and overcoming adversity sit guiltily in basements and attic purgatory, or collecting dust on bookcases. What if the stories and photos and documents that tell our family history were as searchable as lds.org? What if you could "google" your family? 

With a personal family blog, that's exactly what I'm doing. My children will grow up with their history available at their fingertips.  I blog by cell phone nowadays and I've decided that's ok, since they will probably search and read it by cellphone as well. 

The class went fairly well. I needed to do this. This crowd was super knowledgeable in record keeping and teaching them was a humbling experience for me, but also rewarding as I received the joy of introducing a new approach to something many of them have been doing a different way, but very well, for a very long time.  I don't love change, especially when it comes to technology, so I think I spoke the same Luddite language of many in my class and really connected to a few in my company. 

A few things (that will only make sense to me, but are still important) to remember from this memorable afternoon: 

-the grand entrance  

-my lovely assistant, uber friend and literal Uber driver, Kristi 

-the heckling about copyrights

-"no one wants to read about your dead grandma anyway"

-the "No! get an Atlas" guy

-helping one sister upgrade her personal ministry from texts to a blog 

-the chatbooks commercial discussion 

-"you're not Valerie"

-running into a set of missionaries we remembered who were recently transferred out of our area

-"you owe me 30 minutes"

-stormy weather

-laughing so hard on the drive home that my face was sore later.

It was a good experience for me. My public speaking skills are natural but out of practice, especially with adults. I think I get more awkward every year.  Thanks to Carly, Becky, and Stephanie for your input about family blogging, and thanks to Kristi for helping me through the question and answer session. And of coursethsnks to Valerie for putting together a really amazing collection to display, a wonderful handout, and for confidence in me to fill her multi talented and knowledgeable shoes.