arcalife at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree 2009

I just spent the past weekend at the Jamboree 09 in California - Reconnected wtih some folks, met some new great people as well. I'm getting the hang of this genealogy community!

The venue for the event was smaller compared with the NGS we attended a few months ago, but there was much more traffic, and I spent a lot more time at the booth speaking with attendees about who we are and what we do. For the most part, they were enthusiastic about our services and take those handy fliers with them to learn more about the website and the company - a good sign :)
 
As for the companies represented, most have also participated at the NGS event so I used the opportunity to follow up with them regarding conversations we’ve had since then.

It was great to chat with and meet Leland K. Meitzler (thanks for the post!), Susan Kitchens, Thomas J Kemp, Allison Stacy at Family Tree Mag, Dick again of course, Michael Oddenino and Drew Smith, Co-Host of The Genealogy Guys Podcast - Paul should be on your show!

I've come to understand that attending these events is such an important part of the process: you can talk in email until you're blue in the face, and connect online through networks and blogs, but being able to meet in person and have that "offline" connection is essential.

One of the best things about our UK launch was actually meeting many of the people who support and lead the genealogy space. We have been following them over the last few months, but there is no substitute for actually meeting people face to face. We had many nice compliments from fellow members of the competitive community. This, coupled with a warm reception from many well established and well known Genealogists, made the “Who Do You Think You Are Live" show a very pleasurable experience for myself and the arcalife team. The best thing of all was the recognition that arcalife is genuinely bringing something new to people. Now that I have watched it back, my interview with Dick Eastman and Megan Smolenyak for Roots TV reminded me how nice the welcome was. Watch the full Roots TV interview here

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The UK genealogy show “Who Do You Think You Are” is over for another year. Talking to Dick Eastman and Megan Smolenyak I was surprised to hear that there is nothing like this In North America. Perhaps it’s the geography that prevents hundreds of thousands or even millions of Family historians from getting together to share their passion for the ‘artform’. Attendance at the UK show was probably around 10 thousand this year, although official figures aren’t out yet. The next largest shows in the US, are less than a fifth of this size: Genealogy Jamboree, FGS in Little Rock and NGS in North Carolina. How is it that when family history is so important to so many people that the world's biggest market does not have any major celebration for this? Clearly one answer is cost; the other seems to be that there are quite a few people thinking about putting on a show, but no one has quite got there yet. My hope is that the airing of the TV show “Who Do You Think You Are” in the US, with celebs like Sarah Jessica Parker and others, will provide the platform for the live show to be spun into action in the same way that it did in the UK. With arcalife attending the show for the first time for its UK launch, we definitely took away the feeling that we had joined a community of companies (albeit competitive). Thank-you to those who made us feel welcome, especially Megan Smolenyak, Dick Eastman, Nick Barratt, Olivier Van Calster, Charlotte Campion, Charlotte Wiberg and Chris Paton. In all the show was highly successful and enjoyable for us. Here are some of our favourite moments: check out our YouTube Channel - you might just find yourself in there... We snapped a few photos as well. Would be great to reconnect with those we met and meet more of you out there - post a comment and let us know what you think!

It’s been a great if a little tiring day at “Who do you think you are live 09”. The day started well … with a few technical issues. Luckily, my brother AKA super Dave, was able to run the 3 miles to the store to buy the new cable we needed. It’s kind of hard to show your website with no demonstration screen! The reception to our site has been extremely positive and it has been a good validation of our vision. We have probably had a couple of hundred people through the stand today and we are hoping for more tomorrow. Even with the hardcore genealogist set, there is a strong understanding of our messages – that their memories, as well as their research needs to live on. We are the only site out there that is doing this, I hope that they take the opportunity to take their research to new place and turn it into a true Digital Estate. The show itself looks great. No tanks this year, but plenty of other great stuff to see and do. I have been really impressed with the organization of the event, although not sure exactly how many people have attended today, but the educated guess seems to be around the 3 thousand mark. Tomorrow is another day, as they say. I am looking forward to hearing more great stories and memories from our guests on stand. If you are in the neighborhood please drop by and see us at stand 701. If you happen to be on twitter, follow my random thoughts of the day. And I've created a YouTube Channel as well and posting the event for you to get an intimate sense of all that's happening...the man with a plan: