Day 3 - RootsTech - Friday March 6

 

(1) Miss today's keynote session?

Watch replay at: https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/session/rootstech-2026-general-session-2-tara-roberts

Or, check Tara Robert's book website at: https://www.tararoberts.me/written-in-the-waters

(2) Trying to focus on which webinars to watch?

Go to RootsTech Schedule and filter by topics such as Breaking Through Brickwalls, Census, and Compiled Sources. You also can filter by Speaker and by Skill Level.

(3) Wishing you could see "In Person" only sessions as a virtual attendee?  

Click on those sessions and download handouts and/or slides.  Related Content may also provide previous videos to watch.

Day 2 - RootsTech - Thur March 5 - Online Expo is open!

 

Browse the multitude of offers now live on:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/expohall/

(1) Search by Company or Category (such as Charts, DNA, Storytelling, Records, Preservation, Technology, Association, Society, Library).

(2) You also can browse "All Offers". This is an excellent time of year for a discounted price for something new (or perhaps lower a rate if close to a renewal). 

(3) Try this vendor as an example - FamilyTreeDNA

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/expohall/familytreedna

Here you'll find that you can upload DNA data for free (along with other promotions).

Plus, this link takes you to:

CLASSES

PRODUCT DEMOS

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES (downloadable)

(4) Don't forget to check the Sponsors links since they usually announce "What's News?"

e.g., https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/expohall/familysearch

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/expohall/ancestry

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/expohall/myheritage

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/expohall/findmypast

Day 1 - RootsTech - Wed. March 4 (online)

 

RootsTech in person  is Thurs/Fri/Sat (March 5-7), but videos can be watched now.

Tips:

(1) Once you have registered for RootsTech (see previous post), create "My Schedule". 

When logged in, you can see your schedule in one place, so it's easy to play the videos.

(2) Look at your "Watch History" to see what you already viewed.

(3) For sessions with handouts, download them - helps with note-taking and for future reference.

(4) Don't forget to contact "Relatives at RootsTech" (see previous post). You might have a better likelihood of a response with many people online this week.

(5) Do you have favorite professional genealogists that you follow via social media or emails? Watch for their RootsTech insider tips and any special offers.  Some are in Salt Lake City in person, but many are online.

March 21 (Saturday Seminar) "Be A Super Sleuth: Accessing Images and Full-Text Search in Family Search"

 

"Be A Super Sleuth: Accessing Images and Full-Text Search in Family Search" by Jill Morelli, CG, CGL

 Did you know that Family Search is placing their recently digitized material online in less than 24 hours after it is scanned? 

Did you know that they were placing them, not in the Catalog, but in Images? 

Did you know that using "Full Text Search," you can conduct an all word search in certain documents?

 What is a Super Sleuth to do? 

We will learn how to access these two features of FS to find your ancestors. Treasures await!

Relatives at RootsTech?

Are you participating in RootsTech this year, either in person or virtually? If so, you might enjoy this blog post by Roberta Estes - Relatives at RootsTech Reveals Cousins and Provides DNA Candidates. She shares how to find out if any of your relatives have also registered for RootsTech. There are several ways to sort through your list of participating relatives such as location, by ancestor, and family line. Roberta mentions to check back often because more people will be registering. The final day Relatives at RootsTech will be available is April 12th. 

I found out that Roberta and I are 10th cousins. These connections do need to be verified. For example, I have documented 6-7 generations back on that line but need to confirm beyond that. It's interesting to see the connections that pop up to other attendees, but it's even more exciting to be given a list of clues to follow that will hopefully lead to more confirmed ancestors.

 Genealogy News

Celebrate 18 years of Fold3 with a 40% discount! Buy now. Offer ends 27 January 2025.

The Names & Stories project at MyHeritage has been completed, adding 11.6 billion new records! These records were extracted from historical newspapers spanning all 50 U.S. states, as well as Canada, Australia, and the U.K. Read more about this historic achievement at the MyHeritage Blog.

The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook, by Thomas MacEntee, is available for free with Kindle Unlimited. Amazon link here.

Registration for Applied Genealogy Institute's Spring 2025 Session will open from January 15th - January 22nd, 2025! There will be five exciting classes held this session. You can review the dates, cost, and class outlines on the website: https://appliedgen.institute/spring-2025-classes/

American Ancestors is hosting a Virtual Open House Webinar on Wednesday, January 29th, from 3:00-4:00pm. During the open house you will learn how the databases, genealogists, and millions of unique collections at American Ancestors can help! This discussion will highlight the many benefits and services available to members. This will be a great way to find out if American Ancestors would be useful to your research. Learn More and Register.

Registration is open for the Mastering Genealogical Proof Study Group with Cyndi Ingle. Saturdays, 4pm, Feb 15-March 29, 2025. $95. These Zoom sessions will be a beginner/low-intermediate level class to study the book “Mastering Genealogical Proof” by Thomas W. Jones. Click here for more information.

The Roundtable Recap - Land Records blog post in November shares information and links we discussed during the November Roundtable meeting. If you are interested in an additional live presentation concerning land records, The Mesquite Historical and Genealogical Society is hosting a seminar on the subject January 9, 2025. Genealogist Sara Cochran will be speaking about the value of State and Federal land records and the many ways they can be helpful in research. Click here to register for this Zoom meeting.

Find the Generation of Connection with Your Mystery DNA Matches is a free webinar being presented by YourDNAGuide on January 16, 2025. Register here to learn these helpful steps.

The National Genealogical Society is offering its Foundations in Family History course. Details can be found here. Also, if you purchase a new NGS gift membership through January 31, 2025, you will be entered into a drawing to win one of five valuable prizes to be given away on February 3, 2025. More information is available in the Upfront with NGS blog.

Registration is now open for more than 170 upcoming live webinars in 2025 at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Many of these are free to view live and for the following 7 days.

FamilySearch celebrated its 130^th anniversary as an organization in 2024 along with the 25^th anniversary of their popular website, FamilySearch.org. Highlights of their year can be found in the FamilySearch Year in Review 2024 blog post.

MyHeritage celebrated their 20^th anniversary in 2024. The blog post, Wrapping Up 2024: MyHeritage Year in Review, has a month by month recap of their year and also includes interesting statistics such as 13 billion historical records added.

RootsTech will be held March 6^th – 8^th. Information about speakers, registration, in-person and online classes, and more can be found here.

Just in case you missed the holiday sale at Ancestry, they are currently offering 50% off 6-month memberships. The sales ends January 16^th.

Genealogy News

The Texas Czech Genealogical Society (TCGS) invites you to attend the January 25, 2025 in person event “From the Czech Lands to Texas” at the Caldwell Civic and Visitor Center. You do not have to be a TCGS member or of Czech heritage to attend. Everyone is welcome. Detailed information and registration forms are on the TCGS website https://www.txczgs.org under “Events”  https://txczgs.org/eventListings.php?nm=38. 

NARA has announced some new features in the Advanced Search. Researchers can now search the Catalog for all contributions: Tags, Comments, Extracted Text, and Transcriptions, and the page where the contribution is found is highlighted with a green box around the thumbnail and a link to the page. These improvements should make it easier to search the NARA catalog.

FamilySearch recently added 49.8 million new records from 49 countries including over 22 million additions to the United States City and Business Directories. This FamilySearch Blog article has more information and links.

Save up to 50% through December 2024 with the RootsMagic Holiday Special! Check out their sale here. Be sure to use the code HOLIDAY2024.

UPDATE - RootsMagic issued an update today, December 9th, to fix the Relationship Chart issue. For RootsMagic 10 users -  According to a reply from the @rootsmagician to a post in the RootsMagic Users Facebook Group, do not run the Relationship Chart report or else you will lose data you subsequently add or edit in that session. An update with a fix will be released soon.

My Heritage announces the publication of four huge new collections of names and stories extracted from newspaper pages on OldNews.com. The new collections, containing more than 3.4 billion records, are searchable on MyHeritage, with the full images of the newspaper pages available on OldNews.com via direct links from MyHeritage. Additional collections still to be published in December 2024 will collectively add more than 10 billion records to MyHeritage’s historical database, expanding it by 50%!

Registration is now open for the Research Like A Pro With DNA Study Group facilitated by Diana Elder and Nicole Dyer with Family Locket Genealogists. Click here for more information and early bird registration. The Spring 2025 sessions start February 5th.

Sale extended through Dec 7th! American Ancestors Cyber Monday Sale ends December 2, 2024. Enjoy $30 off a new membership.

Sale extended through Dec 8th! Get 50% off a full year’s webinar membership (new memberships only) at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Learn more here. Offer expires December 6, 2024.

Newspaper.com is offering 40% off new Publisher Extra subscriptions now through December 8, 2024. Click here for details.

Fold3 Cyber Week Sale – 40% off now through December 8^th for new memberships. View offer here.

Learn new skills with virtual on-demand Encore sessions from the 2024 TxSGS Family History Conference! Conference access is available for purchase through December 31, 2024 for access through February 2, 2025. Click here for details and to register.

FreeBMD is an ongoing project, the aim of which is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales, and to provide free Internet access to the transcribed records at https://www.freebmd.org.uk/. The database was last updated on Wed 27 Nov 2024 and currently contains 295,385,672 distinct records (397,999,729 total records). On Tue 26 Nov 2024 FreeBMD users did 206,777 searches. (More information)

The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA: Y-DA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA by Roberta Estes is now available in full color. More information is available at the FamilyTreeDNA Blog.