Tag: genealogyconference

Last week marked the end of my epic genealogy road trip. What better way to see it out than by attending RootsTech London, the third and final genealogy conference of the trip?

RootsTech is normally held in Salt Lake City in Utah, USA and is organised by FamilySearch. RootsTech is the world’s largest family history technology conference, and in this, its 10th year, they decided to hold their first international conference in London, England.

The Venue

The venue was ExCeL, a massive exhibition centre in the Docklands area. It was so large in fact that ExCeL were also able to simultaneously hold a Comic-Con on the second and third day of RootsTech! This was possibly the most unusual combination of conferences to hold in one venue. At least we didn’t have to worry about accidentally going in the wrong door, the two groups of conference attendees could not have looked more different! Common ground was found, however. Family trees were posted outside the RootsTech hall for Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and The Simpsons which generated lots of interest from strangely dressed people!

Keynote Speakers

There were keynote speakers on each of the three days, each giving their own perspective on the importance of family history in their lives.

On Thursday, historian Dan Snow told an extraordinarily moving tale of an ancestor of whom he was not proud, and the part he played in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of soldiers in World War 1.

Friday’s keynote speaker was Kadeena Cox. She is a British Paralympian with a truly inspiring story of courage and perseverance. Although she had not really worked on her family tree as such, both her immediate and extended family played a huge part in her success. Her tales of her West Indian heritage were full of warmth and humour. She was genuinely thrilled when she was given the gift of some further generations of her family tree and some DNA kits!

On Saturday, Donny Osmond revealed that not only was he an entertainer, but also an avid family historian and keeper of the Osmond family genealogy. He spoke and sang to an enthusiastic crowd. Sadly the queues were so long to meet him afterwards that I missed out on being one of the lucky ones!

The Program

I was spoiled in the previous couple of conferences I’d been to. The first had three streams of concurrent sessions and the second was a single stream. At this conference, for every timeslot, there was a choice of about 10 talks to attend. I’d narrow it down to two or three then really struggle to decide which to attend! I ended up going with talks that covered topics that I’d not been exposed to so much in the previous conferences on this roadtrip.

On Thursday I attended several talks on Welsh genealogy. Given that I have Welsh ancestry on both sides of my family and there are unique challenges in researching the Welsh, these were very useful indeed. I also attended a class on online church court records by Colin Chapman because, well…Colin Chapman! What a legend, 70 years in the profession and he’s still as enthusiastic as ever.

Friday was a bit of a mixture of topics for me, but with a definite Irish flavour predominating. Same on Saturday – workhouse records, DNA, and a bit of fangurling again, this time Nick Barratt talking about legal sources.

Exhibition

It’s always good to spend plenty of time in the exhibition area. Firstly, as a refugee from the corporate sector I know what a huge investment companies make to support these conferences and how much that keeps the prices down for consumers. Also, it’s great to see what’s new or improved from companies whose products I use, and from companies I have not experienced before.

There was plenty to explore in the Exhibition hall, and I especially enjoyed looking at the latest tech offerings for analysis of DNA.

Sadly, I also came to the conclusion that my fondness for books is perhaps straying into the realms of addiction. I ended up purchasing six books from the excellent Pen & Sword range. This meant having to dispose of several items of clothing and footwear to get them in my suitcase. However the conference special price meant that I was getting six for what two would cost me back in Australia!

I also took advantage of conference specials to take out long-considered memberships of the Society of Genealogists and the Guild of One-Name Studies. I can’t get wait to start digging around in their online resources, and to register at least one of the One-Name Studies I’ve embarked on over the years!

Networking

Sounds so clinical doesn’t it? It’s such an integral part of every conference, meeting new people and catching up with old friends. In the last couple of months, I feel like I’ve forged several new and wonderful friendships which I hope to continue growing. The genealogical community is a warm, welcoming and friendly one. Ironically, you immediately feel like family. I believe there were around 5000 attendees at RootsTech London. I absolutely did not meet everyone, but those I did meet were lovely!

All in all, RootsTech London was excellent, and I do hope they continue to hold international RootsTech conferences!

Today is the second last day of my genealogy cruise adventure around the Mediterranean. We are currently docked at Le Havre fairly unexpectedly though, as we outran Hurricane Lorenzo to get to safe harbour. As if genealogy wasn’t exciting enough!

Family History at Sea

So what did we learn about over the past two weeks? Well, the topics were many and varied but the themes were based mainly around research in the British Isles. We had some fantastic speakers including Paul Milner, Mia Bennett, Sue Swalwell, Janet Few, Michelle Patient, Rosemary Kopittke, Eric Kopittke and Chris Braund.

England

The English topics really plunged us headfirst into record sets beyond the usual births/baptisms, marriages, deaths/burials and censuses that we all head to as our first ports of call. We gained valuable insight into the history, context and where to find records such as:

• land and property
• probate
• chancery
• quarter sessions
• parish chest and poor law
• occupational, guild and freeman
• landed and titled people
• nonconformists and recusants
• newspapers
• maps and gazetteers
• directories and almanacs
• and some very handy sessions on some overlooked sources from the 17th century right through to the 20th!

Ireland

Ireland had some great sessions covering sources, maps and tools and how to break through brick walls.

Scotland

Sessions included both well known and more obscure sources to be found online as well as a lecture on Burghs, their records, and where to find them. Some gems here!

Other areas

Across the water on the European mainland, German immigration and locating the place of origin of a German ancestor provided useful insights, along with the use of Central European maps and gazetteers and a session on Danish genealogy.

Immigration patterns for Australia and New Zealand and how they can help you work out why people went where they did proved fascinating.

DNA as a genealogical tool was also well-covered, with an introductory session for beginners. For more advanced users there were also sessions on using AncestryDNA, Thrulines and Theories of Family Relativity as well as case studies.

There was a five part Writing Workshop to encourage us all to get our stories (or those of our ancestors) down on paper rather than leave them as a list of names and dates. Hopefully you will see a few books borne of this cruise!

Last but not least, there were research help zones for participants to pose questions about their own research to the speakers. There was also a fantastic research brick wall workshop, where we worked as a group to come up with ideas to help each other with long-standing research problems (including mine!)

Participants ranged from hobbyists through to professional genealogists, but everyone learned something new, including the speakers. Family history is one of those subjects where you will never know everything there is to know. It’s a constant learning curve!

Genealogy cruises are fantastic!

I thoroughly recommend that if you get an opportunity to do so, take genealogy cruises. They are intense, but lots of fun and a great chance to delve deeply into subjects and gain confidence in your research skills.

This week, I have been lucky enough to be cruising the Mediterranean! However, it has not been all about sitting by the pool with umbrella-decorated drinks. In fact, I am yet to do that, the schedule is packed! Yes, it’s another genealogy conference. No, really.

Genealogy cruises

Unlock The Past have been running genealogy cruises for several years now to various destinations and following different themes. This is the first time I have managed to take part. This cruise is around the Mediterranean for 14 days. The topics are quite varied, but the themes are broadly research in the British Isles and Europe, DNA and writing. All of these are very relevant to my research, so I have been looking forward to this conference hugely!

So how do genealogy cruises work?

The days you are at sea (including the evening of departure), lectures are held all day. We all dine together at the same time then return to lectures. This is no junket! It is concentrated doses of amazing information and discussion.

No lectures are held while the ship is docked in port – at those times we are free to explore and we emerge, blinking, into the sunshine! This is actually very helpful, I’m sure it gives our brains time to digest the previous presentations in the background as we walk the streets of the city we are in. We return to the ship, have dinner and back to lectures afterwards.

Week 1 highlights

We have had lots of fascinating presentations so far from some great speakers, and I’ve decided to give an overall summary next week of what was covered, especially since some of them are part of a series as yet not completed. But mostly because…drumroll…there has been some breaking news I’d like to share while it is hot off the press! This news had a roomful of genealogists at the end of a long day of lectures oohing and aahing in excitement. We were packing up to go to dinner when one of our speakers, Michelle Patient, rushed into the room after a teleconference with Ancestry to tell us about some new developments.

What is Ancestry up to?

Firstly, the search page will now contain the ‘What’s New’ section in the top right corner to make new additions and updates to record sets more visible and transparent.

Secondly, search results will be able to be filtered by date and place to make it easier to find the right ones amongst the huge numbers of results generated. This is in beta, so will only apply initially to births, marriages and deaths.

Thirdly, the positively clunky mobile app is getting a long overdue makeover to make it, well, useable! I think I actually squealed at this announcement!

And last but not least, there will be further tweaks to Thrulines. You will now be able to see if new matches have been added – ‘updated’ will appear in the top right corner of the ancestor tile. If a new Thruline is generated for an ancestor, ‘new’ will appear in the top right corner. You will also be able to see how many Thrulines an ancestor has by hovering over their tile.

These changes will be rolled out during October, so look out for them. I think they will definitely improve our user experience. These changes have come from feedback provided to Ancestry, who have been actively working with genealogists around the world to make the site more user friendly. Kudos to them for this, I think these improvements are a very positive step in the right direction!

During this past week, I attended the MyHeritage Live user conference in Amsterdam. Indeed this is the reason I flew all the way over here to the Netherlands from Australia! This was only the second genealogy conference MyHeritage has held. Their inaugural one was in Oslo, Norway last year. Sadly due to health issues at the time I was unable to attend. However this year I was determined to be there. I’d seen several of the presentations from Oslo which were available online and had been very impressed by the professionalism and content.

As you are probably aware, MyHeritage is one of the ‘big three’ genealogy megasites, along with Ancestry and FindMyPast, and it has been in a rapid growth phase over the past couple of years. They have celebrated multiple acquisitions and the commencement of their DNA service. They are the first of the three however to branch into live events for their users such as a genealogy conference. I think this is a brilliant innovation – how many big companies really want this level of input from their core customers? The CEO, Gilad Japhet was present and approachable throughout the entire conference.

The Program

You may think that the conference would be solely unashamed plugging of their product. This was not the case, however. There were three streams: Genealogy, DNA, and Hands-On Workshops, to choose from. Sure, there was quite a bit of content on how to use the tools and features available through the MyHeritage subscription to get the best value from it. Not to include information on this would have been somewhat remiss though, so I was very grateful for it.

For those who would like to see the program contents free of charge, MyHeritage live-streamed during the conference. These presentations are available now here for anyone to watch.

Personal Highlights

First and foremost, as with any conference, it was fabulous to catch up with fellow genealogists from all around the world. There were 450 attendees from 30 countries. Many of them I was familiar with from their blogs, books or professional reputations. Some I had previously struck up virtual friendships with from afar. This weekend was a great opportunity to meet people and forge friendships and networks with them.

Next it was brilliant to hear the announcements of what MyHeritage are now or soon releasing, and there was some exciting stuff!

• The MyHeritage Education Center was launched – all free, multilingual, how to’s, everything you need to know about tools and techniques, downloadable resources etc.
• The acquisition of Promethease and SNPedia was announced, as they continue to expand their DNA presence. Promethease has been made free until the end of the year (usually $12 to access the health information). Existing Promethease uploads will be added to the MyHeritage DNA database. The donors will receive free matching and ethnicity results from November 1st (European users will need to opt in for this due to GDPR regulations). This will increase the database size by around 10%.
• Theories of Family Relativity is apparently close to being automated rather than having periodic updates.
• Ethnicity estimates will be updated soon and will be incredibly detailed, which is great to hear. I for one have found their ethnicity estimates the least accurate for my known tree of all the current providers. Having now seen a sneak preview of the work they are doing, I am confident we’ll be seeing some really good estimates coming out.
• A huge pipeline of genealogy content with a strong focus on Europe, including more exclusive French records.
• Free text matching technology will help match family trees to newspaper and book records more easily.

In conclusion, this conference was well worth attending. In 2020 it will be held in Israel, though dates and other details have not been announced yet. I heartily recommend attending, especially if you have an active subscription with MyHeritage or have had your DNA tested with them.