I'm going virtual at NGS 2020 On Demand!

This summer I had plans to attend and speak at three genealogy conferences. Instead, I will be attending and presenting at all of them virtually.

The first one up is the National Genealogical Society (NGS), the premiere general genealogical society in the United States. Its planned conference was to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah. Instead the May 2020 conference is going online. For those of you who have not attended an NGS conference or were not planning to attend this one because of cost in time, flights and/or hotel, this is a great opportunity to access some terrific presentations for a fraction of the usual cost of attending the conference.

Among the speakers will be several well-known to the Jewish genealogical community, including: Janette Silverman, Daniel Horowitz, Crista Cowan, Judy G. Russell, Suzanne Kelting Myers and (yours truly) Emily H. Garber. Please join us for the NGS Virtual Conference.

I will be giving two talks through NGS 2020 On-Demand! 

• "When It Takes a Village: Applying Cluster and Collateral Research Techniques"
• "Conflict Management: Evaluating Evidence of Identity" 

To see synopses of these talks go to the Presentations and Handouts tab, above or to https://extrayad.blogspot.com/p/iajgs.html.

NGS will be offering three packages for the virtual conference with over 85 lectures from which to choose. In addition, conference sponsors are offering more than 10 lectures as a bonus addition to every registration package purchased. You may review the current list of lecture sessions and bonus sponsored lectures at the NGS Conference website.

NGS’s Virtual Family History Conference features two components included with registration: NGS 2020 Live! and NGS 2020 On-Demand! Registrants will have their choice of selecting from over 85 lecture sessions in the package they purchase. All sessions are available for repeat viewings until 15 May 2021. If you have any concerns about the tech part of joining the virtual event or on-demand lectures, a member of the NGS or Playback Now staff will be available to assist you.

To participate in NGS 2020 Live! register by 15 May 2020.

NGS 2020 Live! on Wednesday, 20 May, 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. (EDT), kicks off the virtual conference. It features the following lectures by five genealogy rock stars: 

• “Validating Unsourced Online Information,” Thomas Wright Jones, PhD, CG®, FASG, FUGA, FNGS
• “Echoes of the Women Who have Gone Before—Celebrating Women’s Suffrage,” Steffani Raff  
• “Breaker Boys and Spinner Girls: Child Labor Laws and Their Records,” Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL^SM
• “Turning Witnesses into Evidence,” Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG, FNGS, FUGA
• “What If? Learning About DNA Through Case Studies,” Blaine Bettinger, PhD, JD

NGS 2020 On-Demand! offers you access to more than 85 lecture topics to build your chosen lecture package. Access begins 1 July and includes repeat viewing for your selected sessions until 15 May 2021, as well as for the five-featured lectures from NGS Live! and additional sponsored bonus lectures.
You may register for a number of options.

• The “Full” Package includes registration for the NGS 2020 Live! virtual conference on 20 May; streaming access to your choice of twenty NGS 2020 On-Demand! sessions from 1 July 2020 through 15 May 2021; an electronic copy of the virtual conference syllabus, and sponsored bonus lectures.

• The “Works” Package includes everything in the Full Package with an additional twenty-five NGS 2020 On-Demand! sessions you select, a USB with audio recordings of ALL the recorded sessions (more than 100 hours of audio content). Plus the sponsored bonus lectures.

• NGS 2020 “Light” Package includes registration for the NGS 2020 Live! virtual conference on 20 May; an electronic copy of the virtual conference syllabus; and ten NGS 2020 On-Demand! sessions of your choice.  You also will receive access to the full list of sponsored bonus lectures.

Any package you register for includes repeat viewing of the five-featured lectures from the NGS Live! event at your convenience after 1 July.

For more information about NGS 2020 Live! and NGS 2020 On-Demand! or to register, visit the conference website.