by AGS Member Lark M. Robart
Did you know that RootsTech 2024 is just around the corner? The dates are February 29 through March 2, 2024.
In the event you are unfamiliar with RootsTech, here are a few frequently asked questions and answers I found on the website:
Question: What is RootsTech?
Answer: “RootsTech is a place to learn, to be inspired, and make connections through family history.”
What can you expect at RootsTech?: “A family history conference. An on-demand learning library. A way to grow closer to the people, places, and stories that matter most. RootsTech is all that and so much more. Join us as we celebrate the joy of connection together.”
Before I tell you more about this year’s event, I will share that I was very fortunate to have attended the live event in February of 2017. It was my first year of full retirement and Dear Myrtle, aka Pat Richley-Erickson of “Mondays with Myrt” fame, announced a contest for her listeners, offering a prize for creating “A Day In the Life of a Genealogist” video. And the winner of the contest would get a free ticket to RootsTech. Well, I got lucky, but only because no one else created a video . . . so she gave me the ticket!
The experience was amazing, and my favorite part (aside from the outstanding presentations, of course) was hanging out with fellow genealogists for a whole week. That’s my photo above, taken outside the Crystal Palace that year.
This year, the three-day in-person pass is $109, and a one-day pass is $69. But the good news is that you can also attend virtually and the cost for that is – FREE!
If you’re interested, click here to register for either the in-person or Virtual Conference. If you don’t already have a free FamilySearch account, you will need to create one before continuing with the registration process. In this blog post, I’ll cover a few of the ins-and-outs of the Virtual Conference.
Once you’re registered and signed up, you can begin creating your own schedule from a list of 151 online presentations. One particularly good feature is that you can choose your events by Skill Level and Speaker, and create your own schedule.
This made me curious to see if any of my favorite presenters would be speaking at RootsTech this year. It turns out that most will be presenting in person, but not online. So that was a bit disappointing. Nonetheless, I’ve managed to find several topics that interest me and have signed up for at least five so far. Among those are a class on DNA, one on U.S. Military Pension Files, and another on AI and genealogy. I will be selecting more over the next few days. And there’s some more good news – all online sessions are accessible after the event, all year long.
Here is a short list of a few other resources, just in case you’d like to read and learn more about RootsTech 2024:
Crista Cowan aka “The Barefoot Genealogist” > click here to watch a short video
Roberta Estes of the DNAeXplained blog > click here to read her blog post
Randy Seaver of the Genea-Musings blog > click here to read his post
RootsTech Facebook page > click here to follow and stay up to date
RootsTech on YouTube > click here to watch videos
So once again, if you’re interested in attending either in person or line, click below for more information and to register.
ROOTSTECH
