The full class schedule for this year’s RootsTech conference is now ready and open for your selections!
Online and in-person participants can use the RootsTech 2025 app to explore the classes and keynote addresses slated for March 6 to 8, and create their personal watchlist. Creating your watchlist doesn’t lock you into those classes – you can always change, but at least you will see the incredible lineup of speakers and events.
The online event is free and a fee is required for in person – and in-person means networking, vendor hall, shared meals, excitement and fun. Yes, ok, you have to get there, find a place to stay …. but oh, is it worth it! The cost? $129 for 3-days, $79 for one day for the excitement of in-person.
Everyone attending the in-person conference in Salt Lake City, Utah can use the RootsTech mobile app. And online participants can create their watch list at RootsTech.org.
To create your own watch list, also known as play list, you’ll need to set up a free account. There are more than 200 online presentations. Join me for one of mine? On Thursday, March 6th, I’m offering “Finding & Working With Genealogical Speakers for Your Society” – helping you to locate speakers of value and content that your genealogical or historical society would like. On Friday, March 7th, we will explore “Uncovering Transnational Ties: Genealogy of US and Canadian Migrations” and I’m hoping it will be interactive, as I will offer content, a handout and resources, but we will also hope to interact, you can offer your perspective and resources you’ve found, and we will share with each other! And on Saturday, March 8th, join me for “Ancestral Ties: Exploring First Nations – French Relationships Through Genealogy” – an exploration that resonates strongly with me, having people on both sides of those ethnic groups and both sides of the border.
Are you coming? Let’s meet – contact me on the RootsTech app and we could have lunch or meet in the vendor hall! See you there!
I have to say that the experience of the week at RootsTech 2024 was SOOOOO fun, exciting, energizing and busy, that it took until today to feel like I could even begin to think about how to summarize the wonderful experience!
I had to sleep – actually 9 hours last night, which is NOT my usual. I needed it! I had arrived on Sunday so that I could grocery shop at wonderful Harmon’s and stock my refrigerator. Monday through Wednesday mid-day were full of research for clients and myself. And I took a break on Wednesday afternoon to be ready for the evening.
What a fun evening Wednesday night was! TWO — yes, TWO — dinners. One for the Media and Speakers (I was part of both groups) and one from FamilySearch and greetings on behalf of those coordinating RootsTech. Marvelous time and great food and conversation – lots of laughter!
Glad that I had the break on Wednesday afternoon, because Thursday dawned fast, exciting and really moved! A breakfast with Storied got me excited for the day and off and running – first to the Media Center, where we could log in, write, catch up on any changes and updates. Then on to the Main Stage – to keep things short, EACH day, from late morning until about 1 p.m., there were announcements from the Sponsors about their innovations, updates and special offerings that were revealed at RootsTech first.
The Main Stage Keynotes were all special: Henry Cho had us laughing and excited, Steve Rockwood (I’m now a “Rocky” as I found out I’m his cousin – 8th cousin!) gave us the warm and emotional content of the special video for this year (have a tissue ready …. it’s lovely and will grab your heart). Lynn M. Jackson is the great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriett Scott and offered information about the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation in honor of her Ancestor’s pivotal role in American history in his 11-year battle for freedom. Important and history-changing! Nancy Borowick, an award-winning photographer, uses her craft to tell stories and uplift, through speaking engagements, writing and her photos, the stories of struggles, challenges and the lives of our world family. Kristin Chenoweth – Actress and singer, writer and producer, her work spans decades of awards, productions, voice-overs, movies, television and stage, and she wowed us with songs and her warm presence. So each day, needless to say, we were given a marvelous mid-day experience that lifted the morning and afternoon sessions to a new level of relevance.
On Thursday, I had two presentations – one pre-recorded for society leadership that focused on Volunteer Motivations – and a later one “Researching in Ontario: Your Trillium Connection” about how to find your ancestors in Canada. In webinar format, there were great questions from the audience and I’ve since received more via email! And Thursday was full of attending other sessions, writing and taking pictures to share (please check out my Facebook pages – my personal one https://www.facebook.com/judy.muhn/ and Lineage Journeys – https://www.facebook.com/LineageJourneys/ for pictures from all of the days!
Friday was another busy day, with another webinar presentation – “Je Me Souviens: Researching in Quebec” where I was excited to meet French-Canadian and Acadian cousins! Some were sending texts and others emailed – so fun. Helping in the Association of Genealogical Professionals’ booth in the Expo Hall gave me an opportunity to catch up with an organization that I joined to learn and grow as a speaker and professional, with friendships that span many organizations. That night, the National Genealogical Society hosted a reception for anyone from our many genealogical societies and delegates, as well as our Board. Exhaustion was setting in so heading off to the hotel at about 9 pm meant that it was an over 15 hour day!
Saturday was another long but also productive day! In addition to posting on Facebook, writing blog posts (still in draft form as I was interrupted …) and helping to staff the NGS booth all day, meant that I got to meet and see even more people! Fun and networking dominated on Saturday as we reached out to vendors about the NGS Family History virtual conference in May. The exhibit hall was amazing with creative and fun set ups that facilitated learning and discovery!
This booth picture of the Storied company was taken during the set up on Wednesday night but you can see how fun it looked – learned a lot from them about their innovations and new products!
My fourth presentation, pre-recorded and released on Saturday, was another for society leaders: The Four Buckets of Society Management. I’m hoping to hear from those who watch the society presentations – to offer them help and support as we all are struggling to figure out how to keep going, growing and helping to educate new genealogists and family historians.
While RootsTech 2024 is over physically, the emails keep coming in and I’m thrilled to be connected to so many who came. We’re waiting to hear what the final numbers were – people in person and people online. Thank you to the RootsTech and FamilySearch teams who made so much look so easy – from my role in the Media team to being a Speaker, and helping with vendors and networking, what a marvelous experience. If you are reading this and have never attended, STRONGLY consider coming out next year: March 6 – 8, 2025!!!
Thursday began early with a nice breakfast with the Storied company promotion – we all received lovely “encouragement” to become engaged with writing our family stories, and learned about the services and support that they offer.
It wasn’t long after, that we had to scurry over to the Main Stage for the opening event. An emotional movie (check out my Facebook post for it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSfNA86DIUM … tissues are necessary. Important and helped me to again focus on the importance of EVERY person – Your Story is More Important Than You Think. Watch it … if it doesn’t change you …. well, I can’t imagine that it won’t.
And I became a “Rocky” – when you become a fan of Steve Rockwood ….. I found out that he’s my 8th Cousin, through a …. wait for it …. yes, a French-Canadian family! I found out use the really fun “Relatives at RootsTech” feature on the RootsTech app. Check it out …. you must have a tree on FamilySearch in order to use it.
Then the fun of the Main Stage – where we heard:
MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT here at #RootsTech2024 FamilySearch launches full-text search that gives us the ability to search images that HAVE NOT YET BEEN INDEXED! 100 million records available via full-text search with more to come.. makes records accessible that would have taken decades to index manually. Records include land & probate records, Mexican notarial records, plantation records. Makes finding underrepresented populations easier. Other major updates and tools coming too!! Thank you, FamilySearch! Amazing
Ancestry announced Family Groups (I’m an early adopter!) with an announcement by Crista Cowan
And then Henry Cho who made us laugh so much! What an entertaining time!
Then heading off to classes …. SO many to chose from. But I wanted to see what the National Genealogical Society’s new AI Expert and Educator, Steve Little, did with the FIRST session. He was awesome!
And then it was my turn to get into the special room for the Webinars and get my own presentation going – Researching in Ontario: Your Trillium Connection
The Family Search Library was the beginning of the week – focused on client research for two days and then my own family work on Wednesday, with lots of fun in this time!
Certainly, with long hours of opening and the entrance first floor – a lot of inspiration, information and content for me to see! I spent most of the first three days of the week on the third floor where the books are – books that you can only use here in Salt Lake City! So that was the first priority and then the client research that required some materials also only available while in SLC.
Then some fun ….
GEN FRIENDS – a live podcast with some of our friends online – the screen in the front of the room helped! And we all crammed into the space – recognize some of these folks?
Then it was time to meet a new cousin! Overhearing some of what I was sharing with someone else, my new cousin (of COURSE in our mutual French-Canadian families!!!) and I’m told we look like cousins (she’s at least 4th Cousin or further back – but ok, is there a family resemblance? What do you think?).
And then there was the busy Wednesday night – with TWO dinners: The Media/Speakers dinner and the FamilySearch/RootsTech dinner (couldn’t eat THAT Much!)
An early tour of the Expo Hall – still laying carpet and putting up booths!!
And then rest – anticipating that Thursday through Saturday would be busy and fast paced!
Gads, did I drop the ball! The winners were announced back in October, and I’m just now getting this out – you would have received an email if you were a winner, so please let me know!
AND for the rest of you – have you registered? It’s time to do that and get ready for some of the coming big news about what’s happening this year. Be sure to go to the website: online is FREE and the cost for coming in person is SOOOO great AND you get so many topics to choose from. Check out the information today!!
RootsTech CONNECT – RootsTech 2021 is all VIRTUAL!!!!
THE BIGGEST genealogy event in the WORLD! Yeah, really!! AND in 2021 it is FREE!!! Yes!!! Is that amazing or what???
You can get registration information here: www.rootstech.org. There are hundreds of classes, a VIRTUAL exhibit hall, talk with professional genealogists, get tips and techniques to help you, contests, games, activities for families and SO much more! Can you tell that I’m excited?!
YES, I get to be an Ambassador again – my FOURTH year, and this year is the 11th Anniversary of RootsTech, so you can bet that there will be lots of special announcements, people and things going on. So you will want to be there.
Prize: 4-Day Pass to RootsTech 2020 in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 26th to 29th, 2020 This is a $299 full price value! CONTEST ENDS December 28th!!!! Enter now!
Pass includes the following: Over 300 Classes, the Keynote / General sessions, the huge Expo Hall, any evening events, Power Hour sessions and thousands of your cousins and networking opportunities!!
No purchase is required to enter. If you have already purchased a 4-Day registration for a RootsTech SLC 2020, you will get a refund.
Increase your chances of winning by “liking” my “Lineage Journeys” Facebook Page, my Twitter Page, and subscribing to my blog. Each one that you do will give you another chance to win.
The prize is a RootsTech 2020 4-day Pass only. It is not transferable as cash. The prize DOES NOT include any RootsTech paid lunches, paid labs or cover other costs such as accommodation and tra.nsportation costs. The winner will be announced on the blog, FB and Twitter. If the selected winner does not reply within a week of being announced, there will be another drawing.
So join in now!!! Enter TODAY!!! CONTEST ENDS DECEMBER 28th!
2020 is the 10th anniversary of RootsTech and promises to be another amazing experience! Here are some of the things I learned in 2019 that may help you in preparing for the RootsTech 2020 ….
Learned a lot this year! Returning for RootsTech for a second year gave the advantage that I knew more of what to expect, knew my way around the building and locations where I could prepare as a speaker and take time to blog, but also to network, meet other professionals and hook up with cousins. SOOOOO fun!
Lessons learned – participants sometimes don’t fully read the descriptions for presentations, so please read the descriptions and don’t mark a speaker down just because you misunderstood what they were going to be sharing. Participants want to take pictures or record our presentations to share with others, and there’s an internal struggle to be honest about how we are working hard to make a living while also being transparent with how that works/doesn’t work when others share our content. This is hard for all speakers but we put in hours of unpaid time to customize content for our lectures – please don’t photograph or record them. And finally, by far the biggest learning is that there are thousands of truly dedicated family historians that want to get it right – to document their families through records, stories, photos and more so that present and future generations can appreciate the blessing of lives well-lived. And some great stories along the way! I learned A LOT from the cousins I met, other attendees that offered me their perspectives.
So, if you haven’t attended RootsTech, DO!! Stay tuned ….. FREE pass for registration will be offered next month … watch for it!
There is SO much to do at RootsTech, I thought I’d give you some ideas from my perspective of attending for the last two years! So here we go!
First, if you are “into” DNA, there is no other place to be than RootsTech! Why? Because all of the vendors of the kits will be there AND they give really awesome discounts for buying at the conference. Yes, really great discounts! AND there are free, exhibit hall “classes” that are offered by all of the vendors – in their booths, with experts and company leaders, who give you the latest and greatest of what they have developed and new tools for your to use to find that elusive ancestor.
Second, cousins! Yes, you can find many of your cousins from among the THOUSANDS (yes, you read that – there are more than 15,000 that attend this conference!) of people attending. The key is that you need to post your family tree on FamilySearch …. and the mobile app at RootsTech that you can use to track what classes you want to take, etc. ALSO can help you to find those who connect with your tree! YES! It’s so cool – that each day, as everyone is attending classes, walking around the exhibit hall, eating lunch, whatever … the app (you have to set it up, allow it to show you and your tree) will scan those thousands of people and let you know who is there. Then you can send them a message and meet. I’ve done it and met gobs of cousins (I descend from lots of French Canadian and Acadian people so most of my connections are with them!).
Third, the classes. Internationally known speakers who have interesting topics, give you the benefit of their many years of study, and are offering you the opportunity to gain insight into how best to find your people. There are hundreds of classes! DNA, migration, ethnic groups, records and how to find them, geographically-focused, lineage societies, techniques, tools, technology and so much more! Yea, your brain is going to explode! Really ….
Fourth, people. Lots of really nice people! You will meet genealogists from all over the world who don’t roll their eyes when you start talking about how your great-great-great grandmother survived a horrible flood and got all of the kids into a boat and …. well, you get the idea! You get to talk about genealogy and your family for DAYS and everyone will get it, and you will have SO much fun!
THE BIGGEST genealogy event in the WORLD! Yeah, really!! Hotels are selling out fast, you can get registration information here: http://www.rootstech.org. There are hundreds of classes, a HUGE exhibit hall where you can buy DNA kits, talk with professional genealogists, get tips and techniques to help you, jewelry and t-shirts with family history themes, book publishers for those of you who have created your family story and need to share it, contests, games, activities for families and SO much more! Can you tell that I’m excited?!
YES, I get to be an Ambassador again – my THIRD year, and this year is the 10th Anniversary of RootsTech, so you can bet that there will be lots of special announcements, people and things going on. So you will want to be there.
Lineage Journeys 