i wasn't able to find the ann. Please someone point me to it.
BitSharesX was announced in lot of the places, at BTT:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=485166.0Google "BitShares snapshot" you will find more sources.
But BitShares journey starts from here and was announced only at BTT :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325261.0"As well as being an altcoin, ProtoShares is a way to own BitShares before they are launched. When BitShares is launched, its genesis block will award one BitShare for every ProtoShare held."