The Federation of Genealogical Societies wrapped up their annual
conference on 15 September. Last week I wrote, "I will be traveling this
week to the annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies."
I also planned to give one talk while there. Unfortunately, that never happened.
I had planned to fly to Iowa early in the morning of 12 September. However,
all air traffic in the United States was grounded on 11 September, shortly after
the terrorist attacks. The airports in my area did not re-open until the morning
of 15 September, the last day of the conference. Even then, only a limited number
of flights left on time. I stayed at home.
The conference organizers elected to go ahead with the FGS conference.
I am sure that must have been a difficult decision under the circumstances.
The following was written by Paula & Jim Warren, Co-Chairs, FGS/Quad Cities
Conference 2001:
The spirit at this conference was moving. The RiverCenter strategically
placed a television near Registration and many people huddled around it throughout
the week. These genealogists needed to be together with friends, both old
and new. The togetherness, the groups singing patriotic songs, the tears,
the laughter, the prayers, the hugs -- all told us that the right decision
was made to continue the conference. There were already about six hundred
folks here on Tuesday who couldn't get home. There was much extra work to
do in order to replace speakers, prepare new talks, get out a daily newsletter
update, coordinate alternative travel and arrivals, juggle hotel reservations,
change room signage, etc. So many wonderful people pitched in. It seemed to
give them something to do this past week.
The local volunteers with assistance from many others helped
to pull this all together and it went off quite close to the plan.
Our final figure looks to be about one thousand four hundred
and fifty people on site plus vendor helpers and some other volunteers. Still
a bit of accounting to do, though. We thank all of our supporters, those here,
and those who tried so hard to join us. You WERE and are still a very important
part of this conference, and we hope that the prayers and spirit that went
out from Quad Cities to you throughout the week is still with you.
I cannot report personally on the results, but a number of conference
attendees sent e-mails to me from the conference. They reported that most of
the sessions went on as planned. A number of the speakers, including myself,
were unable to make new travel arrangements and became "no shows."
A few sessions were canceled, a few others had substitute presenters, and at
least a couple of scheduled presentations were converted into roundtable discussions.
The attendees who wrote to me this week said that they felt the
conference was successful. The Federation of Genealogical Societies, the Blackhawk
Genealogical Society of Rock Island & Mercer Counties, Illinois, and the
Scott County, Iowa Genealogical Society are all to be congratulated for pulling
off a very good conference under difficult conditions.
Dick Eastman Online
