Making the most of your first genealogy conference

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!