I'm not at RootsTech 2024 in Salt Lake City (due to my health issues), but I had a partial day watching virtually from 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time.
I woke up at 3:30 a.m., got up, and read everything, had my banana, watched TV news, DXed a bit, studied my Bible study, got dressed, and off at 7:30 a.m. to the diner for the Men's Bible Study about Matthew 24:36 to 25:13. Had a ham and cheese omelet, then off to see Linda at 10 a.m. at her facility. We played Uno and she didn't indicate she'd missed me for 8 days while I had my cold. Home by 11:30 to have lunch and take a nap. Then online to catch up to RootsTech 2024:
1) Here are the scheduled classes that I watched live online:
* 12:30 p.m.: Unexpected Treasures: Family History in the American State Papers, by Judy G. Russell
* 2 p.m.: What’s in a name? DNA, surnames and one-name studies, by Debbie Kennett
2) Then I watched several on-demand classes from earlier in the day (some "speed-watched"):
* FamilySearch Tech Forum, by Craig Miller, FamilySearch, Michelle Barber, Sarah Hammon, Todd Powell, Bill Mangum. This covered:
- FamilySearch Helper (uses AI to answer research questions from FS wiki, FS blog, articles);
- Full Text Search – full text transcription of unindexed records, true power is the content, limited collections now(US land and probate, Mexico Notarials, Plantation records), there is a search strategy to filter results;
- Family Group Trees – family can use FamilySearch FamilyTree, share information, stories, photos, audio, new mobile app “Together” developed to do it;
- FamilySearch Labs – www.familysearch.org/labs/. 5 experiments, including the above.
* You Can DO the DNA #4–See What DNA Success Looks Like: Real Case Studies, by Diahan Southard
* RootsTech 2024 | General Session 3 | Kristin Chenoweth
- Findmypast - Rebecca Miskin: highlighted offerings, including new British Home Children collection.
- Storied - Kendall Hulet: highlighted offerings, including family tree using FSFT, creating stories, StoryAssist, newspaper records, etc.
- Kristen Chenoweth: a dynamic presentation, 4 songs and chats with Kirby.
* FamilySearch + Storied: A Dynamic Duo for Family History Enthusiasts, by Brandon Camp and Heather Haunert.
* Finding Your Common Name Ancestor, by Shaunese Luthy. A case study.
* What's New at FamilySearch for Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 2024, by Todd Powell
- FamilySearch Family Tree: 1.56 billion profiles, 125 million added in last year, 275,000 contributors/week, largest single tree is 825 million,
- website in 41 languages, adding 4 more in 2024
- FamilySearch records have 18.36 billion searchable names, added 600 million in 2023
- 2024 plans: new records for Peru and Portugal, advances to computer assisted indexing in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English
- 100 slides for What's New for LDS members: Family Name Assist; Ordinance Ready Update; My Family Reservation Group; FamilySearch Centers
- FamilySearch Labs: Full Text Search; FamilySearch Helper; Family Group Trees - share information and memories with private family group; new pedigree view - show siblings; Tree person quality - about data; Guided Tree; Updated Source Linker; Your contributions;
3) Observations:
- RootsTech goes by very quickly. I did three days worth of watching and not much researching or blogging on those three days. It helped to have advance information about the MyHeritage highlights. I was surprised that there weren't more press releases.
- I cannot watch everything, so I will watch the things I missed On-Demand over the next few weeks.
- I should watch, or at least review, every presentation by FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage and Findmypast as soon as possible. I missed the FamilySearch Labs announcements and finally saw them today.
- Participated in several Chats this afternoon - bah.
- Some online presentations had technical problems but solved eventually.
- I loved seeing all of the photographs on Facebook from my Facebook Friends. I hope there are more. I was so "homesick" some of the time wanting to experience the personal interaction with my friends and colleagues. I look forward to YouTube videos from the usual suspects (see my Genealogy Education Bytes for starters) - I love them all.
- I currently have 49.600 Relatives At RootsTech. The top four didn't change.
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