Whether next year will be your first NGS conference or your tenth, there will be many new lectures and programs to increase your family history research skills. A four page pre- conference flyer is available as a PDF at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/conference_info and includes contact information for the area hotels as well as a listing of research facilities in Charleston. The flyer also briefly describes the evening social activities.
Program highlights will include tracks on military records, ethnic research, church records, immigration and migration, methodology and an emphasis on research in the southeast. The Board for Certification of Genealogists will again sponsor the Skillbuilding Track presented by nationally known experts in the field of genealogy. Each day will include two tracks about technological advances in genealogy covering subscription databases, software, Internet resources and more. This year we are also offering a Family History & Genealogy Track which will help you flesh out and record the stories about your ancestors. Once again, the conference will also have an Exhibit Area with more than 100 vendors including FamilySearch and Ancestry.
The Military Track will begin with a lecture on Revolutionary War records and continue into the twentieth century, with an emphasis on both Union and Confederate records. Our ethnic track will include a series of lectures on both African American and Native American research as well as Irish, Scot-Irish and German research.
If this is your first conference, we will have a Family History Skills Track with a focus on the essential record groups and how to use them. You can attend any of the lectures that interest you and move from track to track throughout the day.
The NGS 2011 Family History Conference will be held at the Charleston Area Convention Center, 5001 Coliseum Drive, North Charleston, South Carolina, which is located near the Charleston Airport. The convention center is surrounding by a several hotels in a campus environment. The Embassy Suites hotel is the main conference hotel and is connected to the convention center. However, the Embassy Suites is a smaller hotel, so many of the attendees will be staying at the other nearby hotels including the Hilton Garden Inn, Holiday Inn, Residence Inn, Hampton Inn and newly renovated Crowne Plaza. The Charleston Visitors and Convention Bureau will be providing trolley service between the hotels mentioned above and the convention center. We encourage you to make your hotel reservations early, because we are expecting a large attendance due to the recent television shows and the increased interest in family history. Some of the hotel facilities are suites hotels and most of the facilities include a microwave and refrigerator. Please check the conference website for the details: http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/conference_info.
The conference registration brochure will be available online about 1 December 2010 at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/conference_info. Several of the social events have limited space, so to ensure a space we encourage you to register early. After that date you will be able to register online at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/attendee_registration or print the registration brochure and fax or mail in your registration and payment. If you need help registering for the conference, e-mail registration@ngsgenealogy.org. The conference registration brochure will be printed and mailed to NGS members with the NGS Quarterly early in January. The early bird registration will be available until 22 March 2011.
We hope to see you in Charleston.
-Janet A. Alpert
