A few months ago I posted about my reason for attending a National Genealogy Conference, this is a follow-up to that post.

In May I had the opportunity to attend the NGS 2017 Family History Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. Now, I am even more excited about the 2018 Family History Conference which will be held in Grand Rapids.

I have attended a couple of regional conferences and really enjoyed meeting new people and picking up lots of useful information from the speakers. The National Conference was even better.

We, myself and my two roommates, got to Raleigh a few days before the conference. Sue and Maureen needed to help set things up before the event. While they were doing that on Monday, I had a chance to explore the city and do a little shopping. I got lost a couple of times, but by the end of the week I knew my way around. We stayed at a hotel outside of downtown, it was a little cheaper and it had a kitchen. Tuesday, I went to the conference center with Sue and Maureen and helped set up the WMGS booth in the exhibition hall. The conference started on Wednesday. There were hundreds of sessions to choose from, but I managed to find a few that I was interested in attending. The nationally known speakers were fantastic.

My favorite part of the conference was hanging out in the exhibit hall. There I met and talked with people about coming to Grand Rapids for the 2018 conference. The space was filled with everything you could imagine related to genealogy. Many of the booths offered free classes. The exhibit hall at the conference is also free. If you can’t attend the sessions because of cost, just come to the hall and look around.

Hope to see you at NGS 2018 in Grand Rapids.

Denise Haviland Fedko

The Vendor Hall – photo by Roger Moffat

The Exhibit Hall at NGS 2017 Family History Conference