Salt Lake City—The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) announced today that its conference, historically held during the second week of January, will be moving the 2012 seminar to January 23-27 at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City, the week before RootsTech 2012 (February 2-4).
“It just made sense for us to connect ourselves to RootsTech in this way,” said Adele Marcum, Director of Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. “We hope this union of scheduling will offer genealogists the best educational experience: first at Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy and then at RootsTech.”
Although not affiliated with RootsTech or any of its sponsoring organizations, Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy sees the importance of collaborating with RootsTech to provide varied and valuable educational opportunities to genealogists.
“We applaud what RootsTech has done in their inaugural year; we want to share what they’ve done with our attendees at SLIG—and now that the schedules for SLIG and RootsTech align, we can begin discussions with RootsTech on how our two conferences can provide greater value to our attendees. Working together, I think we will see some magnificent synergy,” Marcum said.
The courses for the 2012 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy were announced at the Friday banquet of SLIG 2011.
- American Research and Records: Focus on Families with Paula Stuart-Warren, CG, FUGA
- Welsh Research with Darris Williams, AG
- Scandinavian Research with Geoffrey Morris, AG
- Genealogy Software and Research Tools with George Morgan
- Advanced Research Tools: Land Records with Rick Sayre, CG and Pam Sayre CG, CGL
- Principles of Effective Genealogy Librarianship with Drew Smith MLS
- Beyond the Library: Using Original Source Repositories with John Philip Colletta Ph.D., FUGA
- Advanced Methodology with Thomas Jones Ph.D., CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA
- NEHGS: Advanced New England Research with D. Joshua Taylor
- Problem Solving with Judith Hansen, AG, MLS
Registration for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy 2012 opens June 4, 2011 atwww.ugagenealogy.org.
About Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG)
The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) is one of the premiere genealogy seminars in the United States and is sponsored by the Utah Genealogy Association (UGA). Each January hundreds of genealogists converge on Salt Lake City to participate one of the many week-long courses SLIG offers, taught by some of the best genealogy instructors in the industry.
About the Utah Genealogical Association (UGA)
Since 1971, the Utah Genealogical Association has been a non-profit educational organization whose interests are worldwide. It is not affiliated with any religious or political organization. UGA provides genealogical information, sources, and education through personal instruction and published media on state, national, and international family history topics, while promoting high standards and ethical practices.
The filming and record acquisitions done by the LDS (Mormon) Church is through the Genealogical Society of Utah, which started in 1894 and is not connected with the Utah Genealogical Association.
Thanks for sharing this information, Sue. I'm just curious why major genealogy conferences are held in the dead of winter when potential bad weather conditions can interfere with attendees ability to travel to and from the conference. Spring, summer or fall would be a much wiser choice. Can someone comment on the reasoning behind holding a major conference in the winter?
ReplyDeleteSusan, I certainly understand how you feel because I don't like to travel in bad weather either. I can't speak for all the conference planners, however, when you look at all the major conferences around the country there is very little overlap. Conference planners try to schedule into a time frame that does not interfere with other major conferences. Doing so may diminish attendance for all of them.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of SLIG and RootsTech we received comments from presenters and attendees that three weeks in between these two events made it financially difficult to attend both. So UGA made the decision to piggyback on RootsTech for 2012. This will allow SLIG trainers and attendees to have only a few days between events. They can enjoy a break, research at the Family History Library and then be ready for RootsTech. In this case RootsTech personnel suggested we also try this.
Some conference planners are also trying to consolidate their activities. RootsTech, for instance, is a combination of two former conferences previously held here in Utah. I personally feel this was a brilliant idea and proved very successful.
I believe it also depends on the access and availability of local facilities, ease of access to airports, normal climate and also the possibility of extra activities in the host city. The Salt Lake Area has quick access to numerous winter sports activities. We have a better opportunity to host Family History Library events for attendees during off-peak times. And some people really prefer to attend conferences at a time that least affects their family summer activities.