Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Free daily webinars on Legacy Family Tree this month

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Ready for some genealogy learning? Legacy Family Tree Webinars has provided another great opportunity to expand our knowledge while our time at home is expanded. Every day in April, they’ll be offering a different free webinar. To access it, go to the Legacy Family Tree Webinars homepage and look for the yellow bar at the top of the screen that says Click here to watch today’s free webinar. (Every day in April – a free webinar!). Just click there and you’ll be able to watch the webinar of the day; no login required.

Each day of the week has as theme this month:

  • Sundays – Methodology
  • Mondays – DNA
  • Tuesdays – Ethnic Genealogy
  • Wednesdays – Technology
  • Thursdays – Around the Globe
  • Fridays – Beginners
  • Saturdays – TechZone

Visit this page on Legacy Family Tree to see a complete list of the free offerings and the day each is offered. Then mark your calendar!

More time for genealogy?

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If you’re staying home 24/7 right now, all this time at home might be a boon for your genealogy research. But I have to admit it hasn’t really benefited mine, not yet anyway. I’m feeling a little untethered without work appointments providing structure to my day. I’m trying to make the best of the situation by accomplishing some of the tasks and projects for my organizing business that I felt I didn’t have time for in the past. As a result, I’m feeling disconnected from my genealogy research. I hate that feeling.

But what I’m trying to do to regain the spark and connection to my research is spend some of my free time on the many learning opportunities available to me from my computer. There’s a lot from which to choose, some free and some paid. In case it’s helpful to you, I’ll list some of the resources I’m choosing among:

I’m easily overwhelmed by choices, so I’m not even considering the many learning resources I’ve downloaded over the years that are waiting to be read or viewed.

How about you? Are you using your extra home time to do more research or learn more about researching?

Making the most of RootsTech

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RootsTech 2020–the giant genealogy conference in Salt Lake City sponsored by Family Search–starts this morning! I’m attending this year and I learned at a reception for speakers last night that 14,000 people have registered and on Saturday (Family Discovery Day) they’re expecting 24,000!

This is my fifth RootsTech conference. I also attended in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018 and this is my second as a presenter. (I spoke at the 2017 conference.) I really enjoy RootsTech because of the great keynote speeches, the over 300 classes offered and the opportunity to learn about new services and products in the Expo. I also like meeting up with blog readers and doing research at the Family History Library while I’m in Salt Lake.

As much as I love RootsTech, I have to admit that it is exhausting. I’m not much for crowds, so I have to be sure and schedule down time during the conference. I went to bed really early last night–self care is especially important here. I’m giving my session, “The Imperfect Genealogist” at 3 pm on Friday, so naturally I’m a little keyed up about that. So good self care for me will be daily rehearsals in my hotel room to keep me confident.

The folks who organize RootsTech have created RootsTech 2020 Survival Guide. If you’re going, I encourage you to check it out. Here are a few things to do right away if you haven’t already:

  • Download the RootsTech app (or update it if it’s already on your phone from a previous year)
  • Select the classes you think you’ll want to take
  • You might enjoy watching the Road to RootsTech video series, which shows behind-the-scenes peek at the planning for the event.
  • If you’re a paper person, you might appreciate the printed RootsTech Conference Guide you can pick up at the conference. You can peek at an online version here.

Some of the conference will be available online to people who can’t attend in person (as well as those who can).

  • Free Live Stream. Each day of the conference five or six sessions will be streamed live, free of charge. Just go to www.rootstech.org to watch. Note that the livestreams from previous years are also available!
  • This year, they’re offering a Virtual Pass for $129 that gives you access to 30 classes for a full year after the conference, starting 10-15 days after it ends. (If you’re attending RootsTech in person, you can buy the Virtual Pass as an add on to your conference registration for $79.) I’m really excited to have the Virtual Pass because it helps me narrow down which class to attend each session. (I’ll skip the ones I can catch online.)

If you’re going, I hope you have an amazing time. This conference is an organizational marvel and the way the organizers have handled the speakers has been top notch. Feel free to reach out to me via the Contact form if you’re at RootsTech and would like to meet up.

RootsTech 2020 Livestream schedule

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RootsTech 2020 is just around the corner. (My talk, The Imperfect Genealogist, is two weeks from today. Gulp.) If you can’t attend RootsTech in person, you can still watch some of the sessions online. In addition to the (paid) Virtual Pass option, you can watch livestreams of certain RootsTech sessions free of charge. Here’s this year’s schedule. (All times are Mountain Standard Time.)

Visit the Livestream page on the RootsTech website for descriptions of each of these sessions.

Wednesday, February 26

8:00 a.m. | Photos Capture the Story
Speaker: Jens Nielsen

9:30 a.m | What’s New at Ancestry
Speaker: Crista Cowan

11:00 a.m. | The Story of You on FamilySearch

1:30 p.m. | Adding Branches to Your Family Tree Using DNA
Speaker: Angie Bush

3:00 p.m. | Finding Your Elusive Female Ancestors
Speaker: Julie Stoddard

4:30 p.m. | Wednesday General Session – 10-year Celebration and Keynote
Speaker: Steve Rockwood, CEO of FamilySearch International

Thursday, February 27

8:00 a.m. | Unlocking the Power of the FamilySearch Wiki
Speakers: Danielle Batson, Jenny Hansen, Jeff Svare

9:30 a.m. | German Research for the Everyday American
Speaker: Karynne Moses

11:00 a.m.. | Thursday General Session
Speaker: Leigh Anne Tuohy

1:30 p.m. | DNA, Genealogy, and Law Enforcement: All the Facts
Speaker: Blaine Bettinger

3:00 p.m. | Tackling Difficult Chapters of our Family History
Speaker: Cheri Daniels

Friday, February 28

8:00 a.m. | Discover Your Family with Interviews and Sources
Speakers: Mat and Rachel Trotter

9:30 a.m. | 2019: Year of the Copyright
Speaker: Judy Russell

11:00 a.m. | Friday General Session
Speaker: David Kennerly

1:30 p.m | City Directories and Other New Collections on MyHeritage
Speaker: Mike Mansfield

3:00 p.m. | Preserving the Fabric of our Families
Speaker: Jennifer Hadley

Saturday, February 29

8:00 | Ancestry On the Go: Ancestry App Suite
Speakers: Peter Drinkwater, Kenric Russell, Victoria Smith

9:30 a.m. | FamilySearch App for Intermediate/Advanced Users
Speaker: Todd Powell

11:00 a.m | Saturday General Session
Speaker: Emmitt Smith

1:30 p.m. | Healing and Family History-The Emotional Side of DNA
Speaker: Robin Wirthlin

3:00 p.m. | Introduction to What Are the Odds? (WATO)
Speaker: Leah Larkin

That’s a lot of free information available to you! I heartily encourage to attend as many of these talks as you can, from the comfort of your computer, tablet or phone. In my experience, RootsTech presentations are top notch.

P.S. It’s not too late to register if you’d like to go in person!