Attention! That’s military talk for listen up! And that’s what we did during keynote speaker Michael Strauss’s presentations. Entertaining, energetic, informative — everything from the Colonial Wars through WWII. All three sessions kept us rapt with “attention!”

An always super fun activity at the conference is the “Dress Like Your Ancestor Day.” It was so fun to see attendees dressed as their Salem Witch ancestor (complete with noose), Colonial dame (watch out for that hoop skirt!), Norwegian (or German or New England or Irish or…other parts of the globe) ancestor. We all love to talk about our ancestors and today it was so fun to see them walking around the conference.

My two “extra” classes today were Sara Cochran’s “Irish Eyes Are Smiling: Finding Vital Records in the Land of Sain” and “Motive, Means and Opportunity: The Sad Saga of George Richards” with Jean Hibben. I’d never taken a workshop with their instructor, but will in the future. Great information and presentations!

Ahoy, maties! The evening closed with the annual banquet at the Gleneagle Golf Course. The always entertaining Daniel Earl kept us laughing all through his presentation on pirates. Yes, pirates! Who would have known how piracy affected our ancestors!

Tomorrow’s the last day of the conference, but a full one. Looking forward to hearing Thomas MacEntee — via video conference. Unfortunately, Thomas was unable to fly to the conference, but being the professional that he is, conference organizers arranged to have him live through the wonders of technology.