Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Not at RootsTech? Watch the live stream!

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RootsTech 2019 started yesterday. I’m not there and in fact I don’t have much time at computer to participate live, but tomorrow I plan to spend some time at my computer watching live (and perhaps recorded) sessions.

If you’d like to watch from home (or your mobile device), you can find the Livestream schedule here and see which sessions are being streamed.

If you want to just turn it on and have it running in the background, here is the YouTube links to Friday’s program (8 am to 7 pm Mountain time). Saturday’s live stream is from 8 am to 4 pm Mountain.

Here’s some good news: If you weren’t able to watch the live stream on Wednesday or Thursday, you can watch the recordings!  Here are the links for Wednesday and Thursday.

In addition to the live stream, if you’re on Twitter, follow the hashtag #rootstech or #notatrootstech to read about people’s experiences and get hints for things to pay attention to. I’m enjoying seeing photos from some of the Expo booths, though it does make me sad I’m not there! Perhaps next year.

Who’s going to NGS this year?

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This week, in Salt Lake City, RootsTech gets under way. I’ve gone to that conference four times but elected not to attend this year. (I’ll be following the hashtag #notatrootstech on Twitter in my spare time to see what my fellow non-attendees are up to.)

Instead of RootsTech, this year I’ll be attending the National Genealogical Society 2019 Family History Conference, which will be held May 8-11 in St. Charles, Missouri. It’s just a half hour from my home, so I can avoid the expense and inconvenience of travel. I registered last week!

By attending NGS over Rootstech, I’m not sacrificing education for convenience. NGS is a terrific conference, chock full of educational opportunities. I attended in 2015 and had some great takeaways. It was there, for instance, that I was inspired to order my three union Civil War ancestors’ pension files, which were game changers. And I learned how to process them. That was huge.

So I’m very excited for the conference. I can’t wait to find out what my big takeaways are.

Will you be attending? If you are, and you’d like to meet, please leave a comment and we’ll figure out how to meet. One thing I love about going to conferences is meeting readers, who often become friends!

Going to RootsTech? Here’s your survival guide

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RootsTech 2019–the giant genealogy conference in Salt Lake City sponsored by Family Search–is just around the corner, February 27 to March 2. Alas, I’m not attending this year. I’ve decided to spend those dollars on a research trip instead.

I’ve attended four RootsTech conferences (2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018) and even spoke at the 2017 conference. I really enjoy RootsTech because of the great keynote speeches and classes 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.

So, yes, I really like RootsTech, but I admit that it is exhausting. Last year there were some 17,000 attendees and there were some really long lines. I’m not much for crowds, so I have to be sure and schedule down time during the conference.

The folks who organize RootsTech have created a Survival Guide to RootsTech 2019. If you’re going, I encourage you to check it out. Here are a few things you can do now to make the conference easier once you’re there:

  • 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
  • Watch the Road to RootsTech video series, which shows behind-the-scenes peek at the planning for the event. I admire their transparency. In episode 1 they addressed the complaints about lines at the 2018 conference and how they’re addressing that problem in 2019. (No more badge scanning!)

I’m sure I’ll have serious FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) this year as I look at social media during the conference, but some of the conference will be available to those of us who aren’t there.

  • Free Live Stream. Each day of the conference five or six sessions will be streamed live, free of charge.  You can view the Streaming Schedule in advance and then on the day just go to rootstech.org to watch.
  • This year, they’re offering a Virtual Pass for $129 that gives you access to 18 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.)

If you’re going, I hope you have an amazing time. It sounds like the organizers are working hard to make the conference less overwhelming and less exhausting, which is fantastic.

I’m sorry I won’t get a chance to meet any readers of this blog at RootsTech, but I will be attending the NGS conference May 8 to 11 in St. Charles, Missouri. So perhaps we can meet there!

Florida State Genealogical Society announces its free webinars

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Here’s another great resource for genealogists. The Florida State Genealogical Society has announced the lineup for its upcoming “Poolside Chat” monthly webinar series. The webinars are available live free of charge to non-members. FSGS members are able to download the handouts as well as view archived webinars. An individual membership to FSGS costs just $25 a year. I think FSGS is making an amazing contribution to the genealogy community through this series, which they’ve been presenting for some years.

I was excited when I saw the line up to see that Julie Potter Miller is speaking on the Anatomy of a Civil War Pension File. I took her class at the 2015 NGS conference and it inspired me to immediately order my three Union veteran ancestors’ pension files from the National Archives and it helped me figure out what the heck to do with them. Julie’s webinar will be on July 18.

Other topics and presenters include J. Mark Lowe on early census records, Bob Inhoff on organizing genealogy records using OneNote, and Victor Dunn on scrutinizing evidence. Go to this page to see the line up. They still have a few webinars to schedule.

I’m not sure I have the availability required for live viewing, so I think I might pop for the $25 membership to allow me to watch on my schedule (and get the handouts).

I’m very excited by this learning opportunity. Thank you FSGS!