The RootsTech 2025 Conference continued today live in Salt Lake City, Utah with thousands of persons in attendance, and thousands more watching some of the conference classes online for free. I chose to be an online viewer rather than an in-person attendee due to my physical restrictions.
Over the past week, I have selected online classes for "My Schedule" and have downloaded syllabus articles for many of the online and in-person classes. You can see the current list of RootsTech 2025 online and in-person speakers and presentation titles in https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/schedule/.
Here are the classes that I watched, either partially or completely:
- (from Friday) Guidelines for the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Genealogy panel with David Ouimette, Steve Little, Mark Thompson, Lynn Broderick, Kathy Behling. They discussed the guidelines for Accuracy, Disclosure, Privacy, Education and Compliance with user experiences and audience questions.
- Angela Packer McGhie’s class on Document Analysis: Digging into the Details. She covers the research and analysis process, works through the Genealogical Proof Standard, and then digs into analyzing documents.
- Nicole Dyer’s class on AI-Powered Transcription of Handwritten Documents: Tools and Techniques. There is a 12 page syllabus. She covered basic guidelines for transcribing handwritten documents, and then discussed Transkribus in detail with examples, large language models (LLMs, ChatGPT4o, Claude, Gemini) with examples.
- RootsTech 2025 | General Session 3 | Tara Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall keynote session. Storied was the platinum sponsor that was highlighted with Kendall Hulet, who discussed his father’s story, the Story Book Studio, followed by the celebrity Keynote speakers, Tara and Hunter Woodhall.
- Liv Birgit Christensen class on The Norwegian Farm - a description and how to learn more about where your ancestors lived. Fascinating details!
- Steve Little’s class on Learning to Use AI Tools: Taking Your Prompting Skills to the Next Level. He discussed the guiding principles for responsibly using AI for genealogy, the Jagged Frontier, using AI in routine genealogy work, and then use cases: transcribing audio and video files (Gemini); advanced voice assistant on the ChatGPT mobile app; custom prompts for ChatGPT4, Claude “Projects,” or Gemini “Gems;” Notebook LM; Interactive Environments (OpenAI “Canvas,” Anthropic “Artifacts”); Research Agents (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity).
- Rebecca Whitman Koford's class on Why Did It Say That & Other Contextual Clues. She discussed contextual clues, presentism, terminology, researching context, and informants.
- Robby Parker's class gn Tree Integrity: Protecting Your Research in Family Tree. He noted that the FamilySearch Family Tree thrives on collaboration, but unintentional or erroneous edits can sometimes disrupt your hard work. He discusses the latest tools designed to safeguard your contributions, prevent incorrect changes, and simplify repair of destructive edits. Learn how these features enhance tree accuracy and protect your genealogical legacy.
- Alice Childs' class on Extracting Evidence: Strategies for Analyzing Genealogical Sources. In this interactive session, participants learn how to determine the reliability of evidence and employ decision-making skills when encountering conflicting details in their research. Participants will practice principles of evidence analysis using in-session polls, then participate in a “choose your own adventure” style case study to see the value of evidence analysis in action.
I will add short descriptions to the three pending classes - they had technical problems this afternoon.
Over 77,000 joined the fun.
Disclosure: I am a RootsTech 2025 "Influencer" but will receive no remuneration for my support or posting of RootsTech information. I will be an online participant this year because of my health issues.
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Copyright (c) 2025, Randall J. Seaver
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