I won’t lie. I LOVE the creative side of scrapbooking. I love making beautiful things. But, the reason why I have remained so loyal to this hobby for over 17 years is because of the story telling. I am passionate about recording my story and my family’s story. I believe there is great power and strength in knowing who we are, where we’ve been, and in having a vision of where we want to go. Preserving family stories is key in accomplishing that. I’m strengthened by my parents’ and grandparents’ family stories, and I hope my children and grandchildren are strengthened by our family stories as well.
This weekend my family and I had the pleasure of attending the final day of the RootsTech conference in nearby Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the largest family history/genealogy conference in the world and is all about the importance of telling family stories, of knowing where we come from, and of preserving that for future generations. We had an awesome time!
We learned from keynote speakers about discovering and being true to who you are;about focusing on the past, the present, and the future and how that helps us to be successful; about including children and grandchildren in telling and documenting family stories. We used computer programs from familysearch.org to find out which famous people we are related to. We found out we are very distant cousins with the likes of Samuel Adams, Elvis Presley, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Disney to name a few. Our 11th great grandfather is pilgrim William Brewster. We also discovered that our ancestry is almost 50% from the United Kingdom. Our kids played games from various generations in history, including marbles, jacks, shuffle board, yo-yo’s, pinball, arcade games, and pool. And to cap things off we were treated to an awesome closing session from a favorite local family friendly comedy troupe (Studio C) and singer David Archuleta (runner up in American Idol season 7). Man, that boy can SING!
The rest of the conference this year included keynote speakers Laura Bush and Jenna Bush Hager, Donny Osmond, A.J. Jacobs and others. Although I didn’t get to enjoy their addresses, I heard they were amazing. I’m sharing this with you today because I know many of you are scrapbookers and are as passionate about telling stories as I am. I invite you to learn more about the RootsTech conference and consider attending next year. You’ll be so glad you did! For info about this year’s conference CLICK HERE.