Quebec – Lineage Journeys

March 5, 2024March 5, 2024

RootsTech 2024 – How Do You Summarize???

First you sleep …….

I have to say that the experience of the week at RootsTech 2024 was SOOOOO fun, exciting, energizing and busy, that it took until today to feel like I could even begin to think about how to summarize the wonderful experience!

I had to sleep – actually 9 hours last night, which is NOT my usual. I needed it! I had arrived on Sunday so that I could grocery shop at wonderful Harmon’s and stock my refrigerator. Monday through Wednesday mid-day were full of research for clients and myself. And I took a break on Wednesday afternoon to be ready for the evening.

What a fun evening Wednesday night was! TWO — yes, TWO — dinners. One for the Media and Speakers (I was part of both groups) and one from FamilySearch and greetings on behalf of those coordinating RootsTech. Marvelous time and great food and conversation – lots of laughter!

Glad that I had the break on Wednesday afternoon, because Thursday dawned fast, exciting and really moved! A breakfast with Storied got me excited for the day and off and running – first to the Media Center, where we could log in, write, catch up on any changes and updates. Then on to the Main Stage – to keep things short, EACH day, from late morning until about 1 p.m., there were announcements from the Sponsors about their innovations, updates and special offerings that were revealed at RootsTech first.

The Main Stage Keynotes were all special: Henry Cho had us laughing and excited, Steve Rockwood (I’m now a “Rocky” as I found out I’m his cousin – 8th cousin!) gave us the warm and emotional content of the special video for this year (have a tissue ready …. it’s lovely and will grab your heart). Lynn M. Jackson is the great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriett Scott and offered information about the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation in honor of her Ancestor’s pivotal role in American history in his 11-year battle for freedom. Important and history-changing! Nancy Borowick, an award-winning photographer, uses her craft to tell stories and uplift, through speaking engagements, writing and her photos, the stories of struggles, challenges and the lives of our world family. Kristin Chenoweth – Actress and singer, writer and producer, her work spans decades of awards, productions, voice-overs, movies, television and stage, and she wowed us with songs and her warm presence. So each day, needless to say, we were given a marvelous mid-day experience that lifted the morning and afternoon sessions to a new level of relevance.

On Thursday, I had two presentations – one pre-recorded for society leadership that focused on Volunteer Motivations – and a later one “Researching in Ontario: Your Trillium Connection” about how to find your ancestors in Canada. In webinar format, there were great questions from the audience and I’ve since received more via email! And Thursday was full of attending other sessions, writing and taking pictures to share (please check out my Facebook pages – my personal one https://www.facebook.com/judy.muhn/ and Lineage Journeys – https://www.facebook.com/LineageJourneys/ for pictures from all of the days!

Friday was another busy day, with another webinar presentation – “Je Me Souviens: Researching in Quebec” where I was excited to meet French-Canadian and Acadian cousins! Some were sending texts and others emailed – so fun. Helping in the Association of Genealogical Professionals’ booth in the Expo Hall gave me an opportunity to catch up with an organization that I joined to learn and grow as a speaker and professional, with friendships that span many organizations. That night, the National Genealogical Society hosted a reception for anyone from our many genealogical societies and delegates, as well as our Board. Exhaustion was setting in so heading off to the hotel at about 9 pm meant that it was an over 15 hour day!

Saturday was another long but also productive day! In addition to posting on Facebook, writing blog posts (still in draft form as I was interrupted …) and helping to staff the NGS booth all day, meant that I got to meet and see even more people! Fun and networking dominated on Saturday as we reached out to vendors about the NGS Family History virtual conference in May. The exhibit hall was amazing with creative and fun set ups that facilitated learning and discovery!

This booth picture of the Storied company was taken during the set up on Wednesday night but you can see how fun it looked – learned a lot from them about their innovations and new products!

My fourth presentation, pre-recorded and released on Saturday, was another for society leaders: The Four Buckets of Society Management. I’m hoping to hear from those who watch the society presentations – to offer them help and support as we all are struggling to figure out how to keep going, growing and helping to educate new genealogists and family historians.

While RootsTech 2024 is over physically, the emails keep coming in and I’m thrilled to be connected to so many who came. We’re waiting to hear what the final numbers were – people in person and people online. Thank you to the RootsTech and FamilySearch teams who made so much look so easy – from my role in the Media team to being a Speaker, and helping with vendors and networking, what a marvelous experience. If you are reading this and have never attended, STRONGLY consider coming out next year: March 6 – 8, 2025!!!

October 26, 2018

The Sandhills Are Alive With Music!

“The hills are alive with the sound” of Sandhill cranes!! It’s obviously fall … and I did the best that I could on the pictures as I had to grab my cell phone FAST to rush outside. Wow … the sound was deafening and there were HUNDREDS of Sandhill cranes, all squawking at once, getting into formation. There were multiple “V” patterns, and birds flying to catch up. As I stood on the porch snapping what I could, I could hear more coming and more in a farm field nearby …. VERY loud but eerie, surreal, primordial …. special.

When I hear, see such wonderful creatures, I think about the migratory journey they have ahead as they eat up what corn, grains they can from the surrounding farm fields. I’ve always loved these beautiful and large birds and wanted to study them when we realized that they were so numerous here in our new home.

Wondering what to write about today, as I wanted to keep Lineage Journeys readers up on more than just the upcoming conferences and events that I’m doing, the sandhills provided a great way to break from writing, researching and keeping up with the business end of the work. I wanted therefore to share a great book I found that has tremendously beautiful photographs AND tells the story of the struggles that sandhill cranes have with habitat encroachment, pesticides, and more. On Ancient Wings: The Sandhill Cranes of North America by Michael Forsberg is the book that gave me a perspective that increased my joy of them all the more, as I’d like to see what I can do locally to help them. The book is linked here and in the title above as I found the book on Amazon (there are other great field guide-type of books too!) if you might be interested in learning.

The reason that I am thinking about this, writing about this? Maybe because I’m a genealogist or because I’m such a nature-lover, these birds are a fascination to me. As a genealogist, I wonder whether my ancestors had the opportunity to witness such a spectacle, if their farms had these graceful birds feeding there before setting off for the south. My Québec ancestors were farmers almost entirely (some were woodworkers) so I think about what I just saw and how ancient these birds are (I think I read somewhere they they are millions of years old, from fossil evidence!), wondering if they were part of the lives of my people in Québec. With the St. Lawrence and other waterways in the region that my families’ farms were located (most recently, my ancestors are from Maskinongé, Québec and around both Québec City, Montréal and back into Acadia), it is certainly likely. What did they think? Did they stop from their farming just as I stopped from my work to look UP?

As I think about and work to write the stories of my ancestors, I want to include content about their day-to-day lives like the sounds of the sandhill cranes or the weather patterns (like the very severe rains that we’ve been having this year!) that impacted their survival. It’s not about the dates for me – births, marriages, deaths – but it’s about what they DID, who they were friends with, the music and foods that were important, and the struggles and joys they experienced.

I hope they experienced the sound I heard this morning – the sandhills’ music of life.

January 23, 2018

Thank you, GeneaBloggers!

THANK YOU to GeneaBloggers for accepting my blog into your great list of fellow genealogy bloggers!! I was featured TODAY – January 23, 2018 – and this will go down in my history with Lineage Journeys as another NEW OPPORTUNITY to share with so many in a new way!

Future posts here will include information, resources and links to content that I’m creating for Acadian, French-Canadian, Native/First Nations/Indian or Indigenous research, and locality information for Michigan, Ontario, Quebec and more! Lineage Journeys provides the unique perspective of the ancient spiritual traditions of North America and Europe along with research-based documentation of lineages, family histories and immigration pathways that define the heritage of the customer’s family.

So STAY TUNED for more!!! And thank you, again, GeneaBloggers!!!