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First Day at WDYTYA? Live in London

General Genealogy

Tim Firkowski

Saturday, 25 February 2012

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Who Do You Think You Are? Live begins! Don't you just love the pink carpeting! :)

The doors opened and visitors began flooding in. The large venue is holding 160 society and vendor booths.

When I was not wandering around the hall to absorb everything that was there, I was helping out at the APG booth. The APG Booth had lots of visitors and a number of new members signed up. I had the opportunity to assist some people who had questions on their Polish ancestors.

This event is a lot different than the conference that are held in the US. At this conference, people attend for 1 day rather than attending for the duration of the event. Basically each day is its own event.

Being a weekday I was not surprised to see older people attending today. I will be very curious if the age demographic will change for this weekend. I have been told by other genealogists here that in general it is the older generation that is more interested in researching thier ancestry as opposed to the US, where there seems to be more middle age people involved in their ancestral research.

They do have talks during the show, but they are not done in closed rooms and are open to all the noise of the exhibit hall. I do not know how either the speakers or the audience can not keep from being distracted by all the background noise.

After the event ended for the day, Bright Solid hosted a dinner for all the exhibitors including APG. I must say that I was very impressed with the wonderful meal we had. The meal was buffet style with a large variety of food. Chris van der Kuyl gave a wonderful talk about the future of Bright Solid and teased us with things to come in their organization.

I have many more photos I took at this event. Go to my personal website here to see all my photos.

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About the author

Tim Firkowski

I have been doing genealogy research since 2002 & have worked full time as a Professional Genealogist since 2008. I specialize in Polish and American-Canadian Genealogy. As a member of APG, I was the 2010/2011 President of the New England Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists (NEAPG). I have Certificates of Completion for studies in "Foundations of Forensic Genealogy" and "Advanced Forensic Genealogy Techniques". I have been a volunteer librarian at the local Family History Center, and a genealogy research consultant at “Ask the Expert” Ancestry Road Shows. I have traveled to Poland numerous times & researched in churches and archives. At conferences and special events, you may find me dressed up in my Sherlock Holmes outfit, or my Kujawy (the folk costume from the region in Poland where my ancestors came from).