2018 Year in Review

What a year it has been for The NextGen Genealogy Network! 2018 has been our most successful year yet and we have made great strides in connecting young genealogists around the world.  Here is a round up of the years best bits!

Faces of NextGen LIVE!

Faces of NextGen LIVE! is a popular feature hosted by our Social Media Coordinator Melanie McComb and Education Coordinator Eric Wells. They have had many fascinating guests this year including George G Morgan, Blaine Bettinger and Steve Fulton UE, but our most watched interview was with Scott Fisher of Extreme Genes:

Partnerships

We were very excited to enter into our first partnership with the Ontario Genealogical Society this year.  OGS is Canada’s largest member supported genealogical organization and is dedicated to cooperating with, offering support to and sharing experience and technical support to other genealogical organizations.   

OGS has provided NextGen with financial support, as well as promotional support in the OGS weekly online newsletter and an information page on the OGS website.

Meetups

Here at NextGen, we aim to organize as many meetups as we can at conferences around the country.  This year was no exception. Our most popular meetup was at RootsTech – we had a great turn out and it was a lot of fun!

RootsTech 2018 NextGen Meetup

In The Press

NextGen was featured several times in the press this year.

Our Content Coordinator Becky Zoglmann wrote a piece for the OGS blog detailing the efforts of NextGen and the use of technology in genealogy.

Eric Wells, our Education Coordinator, was featured on The Genealogy Connection podcast where he discussed his first experiences in genealogy, the work of NextGen and some family anecdotes.  You can listen to the interview here. 

Leadership Team

Our volunteer Leadership Team added several new faces this year.   We welcomed Emily Philips as our graphic designer, Theresina Lloyd as our Treasurer, Eric Schubert as our Volunteer Coordinator and Kathleen Kaldis as our Hereditary Society Outreach Coordinator.

Donations

For the second year,  we participated in #GivingTuesday with much success – we received many donations from our supporters.  As NextGen is a volunteer run organization, we rely solely on donations and support from the community.

There is still a little time left before the end of the year and we would love if you would consider a year end donation to our organization.  Donations can be made through our Facebook Page and via Paypal. 

We also have our NextGen merchandise store at Zazzle – we do get a percentage from the sale of any merchandise so go ahead and show your NextGen pride!

We have big plans for the new year with a continued presence at national conferences, partnerships with Genealogical Societies and The NextGen Scholarship.  2019 will be our biggest and best year yet!