Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Making the most of your first genealogy conference

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RootsTech 2025 is almost here! If you’re attending in person and especially if it’s your first genealogy conference, you might benefit from this post, which I originally wrote in 2017. My number one RootsTech-specific suggestion is to try to scope out a quiet place where you can retreat if the large number of people starts to overwhelm you. It might be your hotel room. It might be a coffee shop or lobby of a nearby hotel (even if you’re not a guest there). Or it might be a quiet corner of the Expo.

I love going to genealogy conferences and have attended probably a dozen or so. Here are my big tips:

  • Bring your family tree or have access to it on a device. I frequently hear things at conferences that make me want to check my tree, to see whether I have ancestors in a locality, for example. Once, I was able to verify on my tree that the speaker, Joshua Taylor, and I were related! (I blogged about that exciting moment here.)
  • Bring some way to take notes, either a notebook or device. (I prefer to take notes into Evernote on my laptop.)
  • Eat a good breakfast, because you’re going to need a lot of brainpower. And bring along a bottle of water to stay hydrated. I always bring trail mix or something too.
  • Be prepared to keep a list of next steps, because the sessions you attend will surely spark ideas for things to look up or other actions.
  • Take a class that doesn’t necessarily interest you–you never know what new interests it might spark. (This tip came from reader Jan Rogge in a comment on my blog post about attending the Missouri State Genealogical Society conference in 2017.)
  • If it’s a large conference with an app (as RootsTech is), download the app and decide what sessions you’ll be taking in advance of your arrival at the conference.
  • Make conversation with the person next to you. You may be in a position to help him/her or vice versa. Or you could even meet a cousin that way!
  • Take time after the conference to read your notes and process the conference materials you bring home.

Basically, be prepared to write stuff down because you’ll probably learn so much you’ll never remember it. Most of all, enjoy yourself!

If you’re a veteran conference goer, please add your tips in the comments!

RootsTech 2025 is just around the corner!

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RootsTech 2025 starts a month from tomorrow! This year’s theme is “Discover.” It will be held 6 to 8 March 2025.

If you haven’t registered yet, you can register for the in-person conference ($129 registration fee for three days or $79 for one day) or the online conference (free). Whichever way you go, you can start building your schedule now. Here’s a detailed blog post from RootsTech on how to plan your schedule.

Looking at the schedule, I see that this year there are 151 online classes to choose from and 236 in-person classes to choose from. If you have the ability to attend in person, I doubt you’ll regret it. Not only do you get more options for classes, you get to meet presenters and fellow participants and explore the expo hall and, best of all, you can leave your non-genealogy cares behind and focus on your research interests while you’re there.

I’ve attended four RootsTech conferences in person (2015, 2017, 2018 and 2020) and thoroughly enjoyed each, despite my dislike of crowds.

If you’re serious about your genealogy research, I urge you to register for RootsTech and create your class schedule, whether you’re attending in-person or online. It’s an unparalleled learning opportunity!

 

January 30 x 30 challenge wrap up – how did it go?

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We had a nice turnout for this month’s 30 x 30 challenge, based on the number people who commented that they were interested in joining. Now’s the time to report in: How did it go? Were you able to spend 30 minutes a day for 30 days on your genealogy? (Or did you meet a different goal that you set?)

I have to admit I didn’t make progress in digitizing my paper genealogy files. My extra time this month was focused on managing my iPhone’s photos, which is no small project. But my box of genealogy papers is really getting on my nerves and I hope to get to it soon.

Please let us know in the comments how your month was. I’d love to hear whether the challenge was helpful, even if you didn’t manage to get in 15 hours!

30 x 30 challenge: mid-month check-in

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It’s the 15th of the month! How’s your 30 x 30 challenge going? I was so pleased with the challenge’s participation this month and hope that it’s going well for you. Please let us know in the comments whether you’ve been able to get some time in and whether the challenge has been beneficial.

I haven’t actually been putting much time in on my genealogy organizing but I have been getting some small organizing tasks done around my apartment, which feels very good. (I blogged about them on my organizing blog…you can check those posts out here, if you’d like.)

I look forward to reading about your progress!

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When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.