Sunday, February 14, 2010

"Who Do You Think You Are?" coming to NBC

I'm sure you've all heard the hype about the new NBC show "Who Do You Think You Are?" NBC has partnered with Ancestry.com to develop and market this show, which is modeled after a similar, highly popular show that's been running in Great Britain. The US version will feature the family histories of Lisa Kudrow [who also serves as the show's executive producer], Sarah Jessica Parker, Spike Lee, Matthew Broderick, Susan Sarandon, Emmitt Smith and Brooke Shields. All just regular people, right?
Ancestry has been emailing all of its members, asking them to invite family and friends to watch the program...and sign up for a free trial Ancestry membership, of course. Ancestry writes...

Many of the reasons we partnered with NBC are the same reasons the genealogy community will be interested in the show – because "Who Do You Think You Are?" brings family history to the general public and presents new opportunities for the entire genealogy community. This means:
  • More people may want to join a local genealogical society
  • More people asking for help finding their stories
  • Increased media exposure for the family history community
  • More funding and resources for organizations focused on family history
What is wonderful about the show is that it will help people everywhere understand what they could discover about their own family stories.

Who Do You Think You Are? could very well be the next biggest family history phenomenon since Roots. America will see a renewed interest in family history.

This all sounds well and good, but what I'm not seeing is any support from Ancestry to local genealogical societies to help them leverage the interest in genealogy generated by the program into new members and program participants. Several SGS Board members have been bantering around ideas. What do you think? Anybody got ideas for ways that SGS can benefit from the new-found interest in family history generated by  "Who Do You Think You Are?" If so, please comment below or email me directly at sgspresident@gmail.com. The first show airs March 5th.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

SGS is Growing!

I'm happy to report that January 2010 was probably one of SGS's best months ever in terms of membership growth. Thanks to our 5-month special offer, we added almost 30 members this month. Compare this to the 22 members added in ALL of calendar year 2008 or the 71 added in 2009.
My question to you now is....what can we do to insure that these new members and all of our "old" members renew in May? We've been focusing on new programs and classes. Please check out our February through May offerings and let me know what we're missing. If you have ideas for speakers or topics, please tell me.
We added 5 new members on January 30th at the DNA Genealogy talk given by Larry Jones. Were you there? Did you enjoy it? I certainly learned a lot and was thrilled at the turnout. Several of you expressed interest in forming a Special Interest Group [SIG] on DNA Genealogy, but we haven't reached the 10 interested members needed for the Board to approve the establishment of a new SIG. If you're interested in exploring DNA Genealogy topics, please call SGS [206-522-8658] and have you name added to the list of interested members.