Genealogy Conferences: NERGC 2017 Recap

We’re back from the New England Regional Genealogical Consortium 2017 conference in Springfield, Massachusetts. We had a great time meeting Geni users and introducing Geni to genealogists and family historians who were still unfamiliar with the World Family Tree. This year saw a record number of registrants, while the exhibit hall was also open and free to the public.

The Geni booth at NERGC 2017

The conference took place at the MassMutual Convention Center, where attendees were free to visit the exhibit hall without having to worry about missing classes. The Geni team was joined by curator Ashley Odell, who volunteered her time to help us out at the conference.

Everyone was eager to grab a hold of our popular Geni water bottles, which always come in handy during a long day at a conference.

A new user getting started on Geni

We had many people sign up for the first time who were excited to find their place in the World Family Tree. One attendee found his great grandfather right away. It turned out that a large portion of his family tree had already been created by a distant cousin, saving him the need to re-enter that portion of his tree.

Long-time Geni user Barbara Shepard shares with a friend why Geni is the best place to do your genealogy research

One of the best parts of every genealogy conference is getting the opportunity to meet Geni users. It was a joy to meet long-time Geni user Barbara Shepard, who was very excited to share with others why Geni’s collaborative family tree is the best place to do your genealogy research.

Many were happy to stop by to tell us some of their incredible Geni stories. One woman came to let us know that because of Geni, she was able to connect with a German cousin that had an entire branch of relatives she never knew about. Another user stopped by to let us know how much he enjoyed using Geni to connect with relatives and how much he appreciated the work of the curators for their hard work merging duplicate profiles and keeping the World Family Tree as accurate as possible.

We heard another amazing story from a woman who stumbled upon the family tree for her great uncle while doing a Google search. He had been a brick wall until she found his Geni profile and got in contact with his granddaughter.

We had a great time at NERGC 2017! The next NERGC conference will take place April 3-6, 2019 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Perhaps we will see you there!