ROOTS & BRANCHES

After two years of virtual-only events, this year’s mammoth RootsTech conference will be hybrid, with a variety of online offerings as well as three days of sessions and exhibits at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah, from March 2–4.

RootsTech is produced by FamilySearch.org, the genealogy mega-website owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Mormon organization had sponsored RootsTech as an in-person wintertime conference for a decade with celebrity keynote speakers, hundreds of live genealogy presenters, and a vibrant exhibit hall, attracting tens of thousands to Salt Lake City.

The last in-person conference right before COVID pandemic became known in 2020—it turned out to be the last in-person genealogy event of any scale for about two years!—gave way to virtual “gatherings” the last two years that drew more than a million registrants from around the world.

This year, I’ll be representing Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, one of RootsTech’s Society Sponsor exhibitors, at the in-person event, along with GSP Board member Tim Bingaman, who for years was the “Pennsylvania answer man” at the Family History Library (which was recently rechristened the FamilySearch.org Library to clean up the branding of the Mormon-owned entity). We’ll be at Booth No. 1225 in the expo hall.

The society is finalizing its plans for activities both in the expo center and online. To receive the society’s eblasts with up-to-date information, go to the website and click on “Subscribe to the GSP newsletter” at the URL, https://genpa.org/public-collections/gsp-digital-newsletters/

There will be opportunities to virtually chat with representatives of the society both through the conference portal as well as “on the sidelines” in speaker- and society-organized Zoom rooms.

Also in attendance at RootsTech will be Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s Director of Genealogical Services and Programs Katy Bodenhorn Barnes and the two societies will be looking to have a meet up with attendees who have Pennsylvania ancestry.

In addition, I’ll be presenting a class onsite called “Beyond Their Lifetimes: German Church Records” at 4:30 p.m. MST on Friday, March 3.

Registration for the virtual RootsTech is free; the in-person option costs just $98 for three days and has many exclusive offerings. To register for either, go to the URL,  https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/

In the last decade, FamilySearch has been able to digitize millions of microfilms containing records from around the world that were previously only accessible in some cases at its FamilySearch.org Library in Salt Lake or affiliate libraries. Now many of these records (or indexed abstracts of them) are available on computer desktops.

Supplementing these many records is the FamilySearch Wiki, a genealogy encyclopedia with articles, maps and other research aids that also spans the globe of family history information.

 FamilySearch.org’s website, www.familysearch.org, is the gateway to the records, wiki and webinars. Creating a free login in required to access some of the information available.