For 2011 we have now arranged for the DGS Annual Gathering to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA over the weekend of Fri/Sat/Sun 23rd/24th/25th September 2011.
This will be another very special event and we are very grateful to our North American Secretary, Karen Dalton Preston, for undertaking to be the gathering organiser. Karen and her team are now putting the more detailed plans in place and some further information will be found in her notes below.
Last update: January 2010.
Karen Dalton Preston, Secretary for North America
I am pleased to announce that we have selected a venue for the 2011 DGS Gathering! We will be meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah on the weekend of September 23-25, 2011. Salt Lake City is located on the edge of the beautiful Wasatch Ridge of the Rocky Mountains, and was home to the Winter Olympics in 2001.
In September 2009, David and I made a visit to Ogden, Utah, where we met with DGS members Rodney Dalton and his cousin Arthur Whittaker.
Rodney and Arthur will be working with me on the DGS 2011 Gathering in Salt Lake City. We spent a pleasant afternoon talking about the role the Daltons played in the settling of Utah, and how to incorporate this theme during the 2011 meeting. Arthur and Rodney's ancestors descend from the Daltons of Pembrey, Wales.
From Ogden, we travelled to Salt Lake City and spent a few days there selecting the hotel for the 2011 Gathering. The weather was perfect and it was very easy to get around the city using their free downtown tram system. Click here for a preview of typical temperatures in September and to view average weather, in both English/Fahrenheit and Metric/Centigrade.
Salt Lake City provides a unique location, since it is the home of the Family History Library, the largest genealogical library in the world. The Library's collection includes over 2.4 million rolls of microfilm, on 5 floors. We are planning to offer seminars on various aspects of family history research, conducted by specialists in their field. There will also be time to use the Library's wonderful facilities to further your own research, if you wish. All this will be in addition to the traditional program of presentations by DGS members.
The headquarters hotel for the event will be the Salt Lake City Plaza Hotel, which is next door to the Family History Library, and right on Temple Square. The hotel staff has been very helpful and willing to accommodate our needs for guest rooms and meeting space. Even at this early date, the hotel is offering DGS members a very special room rate of $89.00 USD per night.
For more info on the hotel, please visit their web site at http://www.plaza-hotel.com/. You can also view the Salt Lake City Visitor's Guide site at http://www.visitsaltlake.com/visit/.
I know that this event is still months away, but it is never too soon to start planning! To view a map of Salt Lake City, including the location of the Gathering, please go to http://www.tinyurl.com/DGSMeeting.
If you are thinking of attending, I would like to hear from you. I am trying to get a rough idea of how many members might be there, so that I can give hotels a preliminary "guess-timate" of the number of hotel rooms we might need. Please send me an email at karen@golden-hills.com.
Here are some photos of Salt Lake City to whet your appetite for travel! We hope that you will join us for what promises to be a very unique Gathering!
