A Genealogy Thanksgiving

By now you all know that I follow Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings blog. Last weekend his "Saturday night genealogy fun" topic was Thanksgiving. You can read his post here.
As usual, Randy's challenge got me thinking.
What genealogy resources am I most thankful for? ....people, published works, digital databases....?
My answers to Randy's challenge are:
(1) my maternal grandmother, who helped write a history of the Boone family and got me interested in helping her with Pennsylvania resources;
(2) any collections of "minor" or previously "hidden" records for my geographical areas of interest;
(3) FamilySearch for the zillions of records they make available for FREE, especially those that can be accessed digitally.
Expanding this train of thought a bit, what am I most thankful for about SGS?
(1) our wonderful dedicated volunteers who continually amaze me by their willingness to take on hard tasks and keep SGS rolling;
(2) the support of our landlady, Verla Kwiram, who has graciously kept our rent stable for the last 4+ years;
(3) members who attend our programs and share their stories, allowing us all to keep on learning.
Thanks to all of you who keep SGS running and keep us all learning.
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and have lots to be thankful for.

RootsTech 2012 Opportunities

In case you haven't noticed, each of the "official" RootsTech 2012 bloggers have been given one free RootsTech registration to give away for free.
Most of them seem to have pretty much the same rules--check out the RootsTech schedule at http://www.rootstech.org/schedule and then email the blogger about a session you'd like to attend.
RootsTech 2012 will be held in Salt Lake City on February 2-4. I know a couple of SGS members attended last year's inaugural RootsTech conference and were quite impressed with the speakers and sessions.
Act fast and you may be able to win free registration to this year's conference at:
http://www.luxegen.ca/genealogy/rootstech-2012-win-free-registration [ends tonight]
http://www.geneamusings.com/2011/11/win-free-registration-to-rootstech-2-4.html  [ends tonight]
http://geniaus.blogspot.com/2011/11/rootstech-2012-official-blogger.html [ends Nov 16]
Several of the official bloggers' contests have already ended. Sorry. I missed them, too.

How do you learn?

SGS tries to offer a wide range of educational programs for our members, but only a small fraction of you ever attend any of these offerings. There seems to be a core group of members who attend our classes and presentations, but the vast majority of you stay home.
My question to you is--Why? Is it because we're not offering programs of interest to you? Is the timing or location inconvenient? Do you prefer learning from books or online rather than in a lecture setting?
While we are in a transition period (our Director of Education, Cary Bright, has resigned and we are searching for a replacement), I would like to know more about why more members don't attend our educational offerings. Please take a moment to answer the brief survey in the upper righthand corner of this page, leave a comment below, or email me directly at sgspresident@gmail.com.
Oh, and BTW, this Thursday's technology presentation focuses on webinars and podcasts. You'll be amazed at the number of FREE online offerings available.