The Family Roots Convention in sunny St. George, Utah concluded this weekend. I hosted a booth for The Family History Guide Association there, and there were plenty of opportunities to show The Family History Guide website and discuss it with the conference attendees. More and more people are saying they are using the site for individual learning or for training others, and there were lots of positive responses.

Here are a few samples of interesting conversations at the booth for The Family History Guide …

• Spontaneous commercial: I had just begun a demo for a youth leader and about 8 youth, and another woman stepped forward and began a pretty convincing speech to the group for The Family History Guide. This woman had used the website to train others in family history, and she was a huge fan.
• St. George Family History Library: This FamilySearch Library is using The Family History Guide to train its new family history missionaries. The Director is doing an outreach to local senior centers, with 20 youth volunteers recording interviews with seniors and promoting The Family History Guide.
• “I doubt I would need this …” A guest had been doing research for over 20 years and was skeptical as to whether The Family History Guide would be of any use. After a quick demo of Country page resources and QUIKLinks, she was excited to go home and see how she could accelerate her research efforts.
• “What can we do to help?” A retired couple from Las Vegas saw a demo and remarked, “What can we do to help with this effort?” They will be volunteering soon as Content Specialists for The Family History Guide Association.
• Teaching classes using The Family History Guide: Several visitors to the booth mentioned that they were teaching classes on The Family History Guide in October, including the St. George Family History Library and the Hurricane family history center. Also, a number of visitors were delighted to find out that they teach their upcoming classes right from The Family History Guide, without having to prepare additional slide decks, etc.
• “They were announcing this site in the classes” A man who watched a demo said the reason he came by the booth is that it was being recommended in some of the classes that were going on. This was a nice surprise. The man was especially interested in the Scotland country pages.
• “This site is a godsend!” I met a retired criminal investigator who now teaches classes in DNA and Genealogy at Dixie State College in St. George. We had a great conversation about the DNA website features used by Ancestry and MyHeritage. He said he would be recommending the DNA Projects in The Family History Guide to all his students at the college.
• “Finding out about this website was worth the cost of the whole convention!” Enough said.

The Family History Guide Association booth at the Family Roots Convention, St. George

Stan Ellsworth, host of BYU-TV’s “American Ride” history program, gets ready for a Harley ride with his friends, outside the Dixie Convention Center.