Back to blogging again!

I'm sitting in the airport, waiting for my flight back home, and working on an extensive list of postings. I hope you'll check back in the next few days to read them.

My exhausting trip took me to Houston, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Eugene and Portland.

You've already seen some of my DNA conference postings; Coming up are postings from my interesting visit to MyFamily.com in Provo, Utah, and an interview with Roots Television on the Third Conference on Genetic Genealogy (for surname group administrators) by Family Tree DNA.

In Salt Lake City, the conference committee gathered to go over exciting plans for the 27th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, which will take place there from July 15-20, 2007. For online registration and all information, click here.

In Seattle, there were numerous representatives of the Sephardic community, including my cousins.

It was a delightful experience to be hosted in Seattle by Lyn Blyden and in Eugene by Reeva Kimble. The Stroum JCC on Mercer Island is a great venue.

I was especially impressed by the Eugene audience, which hung in there even though my train was nearly three hours late! It was interesting to meet Eleazar Frohlich of Corvallis, whose family was one of Oregon's pioneer Jewish families. There is a strong book on the Jews of Oregon by Steven Lowenstein.

And in Portland, there was a nice turnout at Ahavath Achim despite a terrible rainstorm.

Congratulations to these three societies for forming a consortium to bring genealogy speakers to the Northwest. While not every speaker will be speaking at all three venues plus Vancouver, there are some great upcoming talks. Michael Goldstein of Jerusalem will be the guest in December. Bennett Greenspan of Family Tree DNA will be visiting in February and, in March, a session on forensic genealogy is planned.