Friday at the OGS conference in Toronto

So Friday turned out to be a bad day for Scotland, the nature of the defeat being more epic than I could ever have dreamed possible. 

No, I'm not talking about the 5-1 thrashing inflicted on us by Germany, I'm talking about my participation in the game of Genealogy Jeopardy at the OGS Conference in Toronto, Canada, where I showed that I was definitely in the same league as the national footie squad when it comes to competitive sport... 

We kicked of the quiz at 8.45pm, at which point, thanks to jetlag, I had been up for 18 hours (I awoke just before 3am local time, and I'm allowed to make excuses!), and it all went gloriously downhill from there! The worst moment was when I was asked to provide a question for an answer something along the lines of "A genealogy term represented by GPS, which does not stand for Global Positioning System", and I just froze, with audience members commenting "Oh come on!", as I dreamt of Scotland's single goal in Munich, and realising far too late that rather heroically I also had nothing left in the tank! (The answer was Genealogical Proof Standard, the failure to answer of which is a capital offence in the genealogical world, and in three other worlds in the known universe). The winner was genealogist Mags Gaulden, who also gave an entertaining plenary session earlier on the seven words you can never use in genealogy, who soundly thrashed myself and my fellow defeatee, athough not quite as defeated by me, local genie Janice Nickerson. Ah, sure, it was good craic, and it'll be grand next time....!

 

Earlier in the day I gave a two-hour workshop session, Sharing Your Family History Online, which was great fun with those in attendance, after which I visited the marketplace, where I managed to catch up with a few friends - not least the epic Mr Paul Milner, with whom I once sailed the high seas. I briefly touched base with the APG stand also, but will do a proper visit around all the stalls hopefully later today.

It's now early Saturday morning, and I'm shortly to give a plenary session after breakfast on Reimagining Genealogy, followed later by a talk on the newest developments in Scottish genealogy. 

At least on these I am fairly sure I won't have to worrry about goal difference...!

Chris

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