Ancestry.com 2nd Annual Bloggers Day

OK! OK! I confess. I was pulling your leg. I’ll only tell you, so don’t pass it on. (I do have my trouble-maker image to uphold.) I didn’t have to do anything illegal to attend; I was invited. Don’t worry though, I’m still a loose cannon.

Andrew Wait kicked off the event telling us that you can’t call the first of any event “annual,” but now in its second year he could welcome us to the Ancestry.com 2nd Annual Bloggers Day. Unless you remember the old Ancestry.com, that may not seem very significant. But it wasn’t very long ago that Ancestry.com would not have opened the kimono even once. Now they were implicitly committing to do so year after year!! Wow! How far we’ve come.

Attendees at this year’s event are pictured above:

• Front row, left to right: Craig Manson, GeneaBlogie
• Diane Haddad, Family Tree Magazine’s Genealogy Insider (We think we’re related, but we’re still trying to figure out how.)
• Lisa Louise Cooke, Genealogy Gems
• Dear Myrtle
• Kimberly Powell, About.com’s Genealogy Expert
• Back row: Dick Eastman, Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter
• Thomas MacEntee, GeneaBloggers
• Leland Meitzler, GenealogyBlog
• Ancestry Insider

We were treated to an agenda similar to last year:

• Tour of the data center, by Ron Hair.
• Tour of Document Preservation Services, Laryn Brown.
• Technology Presentation, by Mike Wolfgramm and Jonathan Young.
• Lunch with Tim Sullivan.
• Content Report by Gary Gibb.
• Virtual Tour of the Ancestry.com District of Columbia NARA scanning center.
• Tour of member services, by Tom Foster.
• Product Discussion by Eric Shoup.
• Newer Than New Search, the Not Yet Ready for Prime Time Search, by Tony Macklin.
• Pre-announcement by Andrew Wait.
• Saturday Evening Banquet.

Watch for more reports from myself, later this week, and from other attendees.