Kim Wolterman: The Family Tree

Last week I attended the National Genealogical Society's (NGS) annual conference in Cincinnati. I was quite excited that it was taking place there as that is where I was born. For once many of the conference topics would be on point for my research. The only other NGS conference I have attended took place in St. Louis many years ago. As a member of the host organization, the St. Louis Genealogical Society, I had volunteered to take care of publicity for the event. Wow - what a job that was! Any way, my sister drove over with me on Tuesday and we both spent the night at my cousin's house. Kathy then drove me to the hotel the next morning, and I checked into one of the conference hotels for three nights. Kathy stayed out at my cousins, but I wanted to be downtown so I could easily get to the meetings. Since they ran from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., I didn't want to have to deal with the long drive each way every day.

The conference was good, and I picked up some new tips and tricks. But for me the best part came on Thursday evening when they kept the library open just for conference attendees. We had the library to ourselves (all 400 of us!) from 6:30 until 11:30 p.m. It was great! I lasted until 11:00 before I headed back to my hotel. That probably wasn't one of my better decisions, since I walked back all by myself. Luckily I did not end up as a statistic in the Friday morning issue of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

I was able to have dinner and drinks one evening with my cousin, Gina, and that was quite fun. Then on Thursday for lunch I met one of my third cousins for the first time. We had exchanged emails about our common Metz ancestor years ago. More recently we have been friends on Facebook. But to be able to meet him in person was wonderful. It was as if we had always been friends. We went to a place called Tom + Chee (because all they serve is tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches). The restaurant was featured on the show Man v. Food, and as a fan of the show I was excited to eat there. Since it was Cincinnati, of course I had to get the sandwich with goetta on it. Yum!

Unfortunately early in the morning on Saturday I began to feel really sick. At 8:00 I called my sister and asked her to come and pick me up. So I missed the entire last day of the conference but it could not be helped. I think I got sick from the Chinese food I had eaten Friday night. The worst part was that I did not get to go out to eat with my aunts and cousins Saturday night, which is something I was very much looking forward to doing. But I did feel well enough by Sunday that I was able to drive us back home. Happy Mother's Day to me.

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