Ogden FamilySearch Center 2017 Conference Biography

This page is associated with the Biographical Sketches of the presenters at the 2017 Ogden FamilySearch Family History Conference For a link to the home Conference WIKI page click HERE

Amy Archibald
Amy Archibald is a family historian and reunion organizer with a passion for teaching others. She has researched her own family for more than 33 years and taught others for nearly 25 years. She lives in Clearfield, Utah with her husband and two children and blogs on family history topics at http://revealingrootsandbranches.blogspot.com/

Doris Bateman
Doris Bateman is a family historian who has been involved in researching and teaching family history since 1991. She has served on the staff of the Ogden FamilySearch Library, where she has taught many classes. She has served as the curriculum chair for this conference for several years. She is a graduate of Brigham Young University and is a retired Social Service Worker. She is married to Douglas Bateman and makes her home in North Ogden, where they raised 6 children, and now enjoy their 11 grandchildren.

Holly T. Hansen
President and Founder of Family History Expos, Inc. She has been instrumental in helping thousands understand the principles, strategies, and sources they can use to trace their roots in today's ever-changing technological environment.

She is the mastermind behind more than 50 Family History Expos, held across the United States, and numerous Retreats at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah and other repositories in diverse cities. She is dedicated to helping individuals and families, one-on-one, with their personal research needs. Currently, she is involved creating podcasts, webinars, and video presentations to help people move forward in their family history endeavors with the comforts of home.

Holly's titles include author, lecturer, editor, and publisher. She has produced more than 100 unique syllabus and class handout books for Family History Expos attendees. She is a former editor of Everton's Genealogical Helper magazine, and editor of the 10th and 11th editions of The Handybook for Genealogists, with more than one million copies sold. She has also authored The Directory of North American Railroads, Trekking for Ancestors, and co-authored a series of 16 family history interview books entitled Celebrating and Capturing the Memories and 20 in-depth Research Guides for many aspects of family history research.

Holly and her husband, Chris P. Hansen, have been married for 38 years and are the parents of five remarkable children. Holly received an Honors BA in History from Weber State University and continues to dedicate time to education on a daily basis.

Mindy Jacox
Mindy Jacox, BA is from Kaysville, Utah. She recently graduated from BYU with a degree in Family History/Genealogy with emphases in Germanic research and computer science. She currently works for FamilySearch on the Content Development team preparing training and testing data for machine automated processes. As the co-director of the myFamily History Youth Camp she has a special interest in helping youth get excited about family history research. Family history is her passion and she loves sharing it with others!

Rachel J. Trotter
Has worked as a writer and newspaper reporter since her college days over 20 years ago. She loves telling people's stories. She lives in Ogden, Utah and is busy raising six children and loves working on family history alongside her husband, Mat.

Gene Sessions Ph.D.
Gene A. Sessions is Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of History at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. A native of Ogden, he received his Ph.D. degree from Florida State University in 1974. He is the author and editor of numerous works, including Mormon Thunder: A Documentary History of Jedediah Morgan Grant (1982, 2008), Latter-day Patriots: Nine Mormon Families and Their Revolutionary War Heritage (1975), Prophesying upon the Bones: J. Reuben Clark and the Foreign Debt Crisis, 1933-39 (1992), Camp Floyd and the Mormons: The Utah War (with Donald R. Moorman, 1992, 2005), The Search for Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism (with Craig J. Oberg, 1993), Utah International: A Biography of a Business (with Sterling D. Sessions, 2002, 2005), and Mormon Democrat: The Religious and Political Memoirs of James Henry Moyle (1975, 1998), for which he received the Mormon History Association’s annual award for best edited work. He has also been a consultant on documentaries and committees exploring the Utah War and the Mountain Meadows Massacre and is past president of the Mountain Meadows Association. He and his wife Shantal have four children and seven grandsons.