Last year, I dragged my husband along with me to Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE at the Olympia in London and it was well worth it...It is to be held on the last weekend of February again this year, the 22nd to 24th February 2013, at the same venue, the Olympia exhibition centre in London.
We live in Bradford, West Yorkshire so it was quite an expense for us to go down to London just for the exhibition so we made a weekend of it. We booked ourselves onto an early Saturday morning train to London. Once in London we visited Madame Tussards where we met Boris Johnson and told him that we loved the Oyster card.
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| Boris Johnson and Luke, my husband |
On the Saturday evening we enjoyed a very lovely Italian at Covent Garden, where we dined outside (yes, in February!) whilst watching the beautiful, acrobatic street entertainers.
We had pre-booked a little travel lodge very near the Olympia for the Saturday night, which was basic but all we needed for a night's kip to prepare us for the next day.
SUNDAY was the day that we descended on the exhibition and it was much better than expected. Even my husband who is not a family historian enjoyed it.
This is what we did during our visit last year:
- Visited a seminar on how to write my family history by pre-booking a place on the Writing Your Family History workshop. This gave me ideas about starting this blog and tips for writing up my research, the fruit of which is this blog and especially...The Davidson Story. There are lots of other workshops to book yourself onto, to aid you pick up tips for your research.
- Bought a huge A1 family tree, which I could fill all my ancestors details onto, perfect for taking with me when I visit family members, as they can see who I'm talking about.
- Visited all the stands and talked to people from the companies, charities and organisations, finding out what they do, how they can help me and offer me support in furthering my own research.
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| A family photo they scanned for me at WDYTYA Live last year |
- Got a discount on my subscription renewal with Ancestry.co.uk but the other big subscription sites were also offering discounts to their subscriptions.
- Booked a session with "Ask the Experts" to ask the experts about a brick wall or two I was facing in my research, they gave some expert advise and more tips for helping me push further back in my family history.
- Picked up lots of freebies and had access to buy discounted magazine subscriptions, books, CDs, family history resources etc.
- Had my old photos viewed to help establish when or where the photos were taken and even who the people in the photos may have been.
- Learnt a bit more about the Local Family History Societies and how to become a member.
- Visited the military experts who helped me establish a bit more information about my own grandfather's World War Two adventures and what medals he had received.
- Had some of my old documents and photos digitally scanned with hi-tech equipment to a high quality digital image by the professionals and put onto memory sticks so that I could upload them to my family tree and computer at home.
- Picked up loads of ideas and tips on where to take my research.
The things we did not have time to do:
- Take a heirloom to show the Heirloom Detective, Eric Knowles from the Antiques Roadshow.
- Visit the Celebrity Theatre to meet some of the Celebrities who appeared in the latest series of Who Do You Think You Are? TV programmes.
- Visit more than one workshop.
- Meet and share with other family historians.
- Eat!
- And probably much more....
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