The conference itself seemed to be a success although attendance wasn't as high as in some past years. About 1,500 genealogists gathered at the Midwest Express Center in downtown Milwaukee, a very modern conference facility. The Midwest Express Center proved to be an excellent facility for a genealogy conference; it had lots of room and excellent acoustics and was easy to navigate. It was located downtown, within easy walking distance of the conference hotels as well as numerous restaurants.

The conference ran nine simultaneous tracks of presentations plus additional computer labs all day long for each of the four days. Subjects ranged from elementary "how to get started in genealogy" topics to more advanced topics dealing with detailed research techniques. The list of speakers seemed to be a "Who’s Who in Genealogy" as most of the well-known genealogy speakers were there. Many of this year's lectures covered technology topics.

The vendors' area was first-class this year with a large and well-illuminated hall. At first I thought that the number of vendors present was smaller than some previous years. However, as I wandered around the exhibits hall, I found that this was a false impression, apparently caused by two things: (1.) it was a larger hall than usual, so the 100+ vendors did not fill the room, and (2.) some of the corporate vendors who have used large display booths in past years have now scaled down the size of their booths. This apparently is in response to the current business recession, which is being felt in the genealogy business world as well as elsewhere. A snack area filled the far end of the exhibitors’ hall, and that area had plenty of seats for those with aching feet.

I was particularly pleased to see the GENTECH banner prominently displayed at the NGS booth, visible as I entered the hall. The NGS and GENTECH merger still has not been completed since the lawyers are still working on the details. The signing of papers is now planned for early summer. However, NGS obviously has already "adopted" this new child in actions without waiting for the paperwork to clear.

I always look for new products and services to be announced at the NGS conference. In fact, there were a number of such announcements this year. However, there seemed to be fewer announcements than usual for new software products. Instead, there were many, many new announcements concerning sources of genealogy data. Most of these announcements concern data distributed online or on CD-ROM or even DVD-ROM. I think this reflects a maturity of genealogy technology. For the past decade or so many people have been predicting that almost all genealogists would use computers as a tool in their research efforts. We predicted that the genealogy community would soon take computers for granted; that computers would become the norm. This year’s NGS conference seemed to confirm that these predictions have now come true. Most of this year’s announcements were about new sources of data, not about new software functionality. I will describe some of the things I saw at the NGS conference in the following articles.

All in all, the vendors’ area of the 2002 National Genealogical Society Conference was a great place to learn about new products of interest to genealogists. The vendors’ area was an excellent complement to the 150+ presentations that provided excellent instruction to genealogists of all experience levels. To the National Genealogical Society and to the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, I can only say, "Well done!"

My personal highlight occurred Saturday evening after the conference closed. About forty readers of this newsletter gathered for an informal dinner at a local restaurant. The restaurant had been a German athletic and social club in the late 1800s and well into the 1900s. It was converted to a restaurant some years ago. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The entrance even had a map of Wisconsin, showing the areas where many different ethnic groups settled. It seemed a fitting place for genealogists.

The Historic Turner Restaurant menu used to be primarily German food, but many other dishes have since been added. We dined on an eclectic variety of bratwurst, sausages, nachos, pasta and baby back ribs. We had a noisy evening, and I think everyone enjoyed himself or herself. I know that I did.

Next year’s NGS conference will be held 28-31 May 2003 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I suspect that the Pittsburgh organizers’ goal is to make the 2003 event at least as successful as this year’s event, if not more so. You might want to mark your calendar now.

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