Behind the Scenes at SLIG 2018: Patti Gillespie

Another member of the SLIG 2018 committee, Patti Todd Gillespie lives in Decatur, Texas. She brings 30 years of experience researching her family, 5 years of researching for friends, and 5 years researching for clients with the last 3.5 years under the umbrella of her own company, Family Lines and Stories. Yup, she’s old…er, mature—at least on the outside.

As the interviewer for the Behind the Scenes blogs, I have the unique opportunity of "interviewing" myself. This does present some moments for humor.

Patti shares marketing responsibilities with J. Paul Hawthorne; they do whatever is needed for media focus. While asking myself what I like best about SLIG, “I can state sincerely that it has been a great learning opportunity to work on the SLIG committee with all the wonderful people here.

Being impacted by alcoholic parents, Patti’s social skills are not always on point, and, in fact, she has more opinions than any living person should wisely hold, but she brings to SLIG enthusiasm, a heart that “sees” people and their complexities and, of course, hard work and diligence for her assignments. These characteristics coupled with her desire to assist the invisible, past and present, impact Patti’s genealogical work and indefatigable research ethic (she's so humble, eh?).

Patti loooooves learning! Education, as one would expect from a former high school teacher of English and French, is very important to Patti in all that she does. She is less than 2 months shy of finishing ProGen32 (and she still has most of her sanity), she is an official fangirl of free webinars and Dallas-Fort Worth area speakers. She looks forward to taking an intensive citation course after finishing ProGen (yes, she said this!). Patti also enjoys attending at least one or two conferences a year.

With SLIG committee and ProGen as a priority in 2017, Patti experienced an an amazingly intensive, professional year. She was recruited to assist Kelvin Meyers with the inaugural Texas Institute of Genealogy (TIGR) last May. During this time, Patti was speaking frequently, researching for clients, managing the local genealogy group (Wise County Genealogy Society) she founded, while contributing to the APG Lonestar Chapter. She was recently elected in October to the TxSGS (Texas State Genealogical Society) board as secretary. 

With major health issues discovered 10 years ago, Patti finds joy in the health progress that she has made. She enjoys being active, so was thrilled to start CrossFit last year. If you happen to catch her looking sweaty before morning classes, she will likely be returning from a local Crossfit gym she ferreted out.

Until the next Behind the Scenes with the SLIG Director herself, Peg Ivanyo!