{"id":90025,"date":"2023-03-14T10:05:14","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T14:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=90025"},"modified":"2023-03-14T10:05:55","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T14:05:55","slug":"rootstech-after-the-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/rootstech-after-the-party.html","title":{"rendered":"RootsTech: After the Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega wraps up her experience at RootsTech by presenting some of her key take-aways from this year\u2019s conference. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Did you attend RootsTech 2023? Did you experience the largest genealogy event of the year in person or virtually? The benefit of this year\u2019s conference was a hybrid, allowing everyone the opportunity to access education they needed in the format that worked best for them.<\/p>\n

I chose to attend virtually this year, which gave me the opportunity to set my own schedule. In this article, I want to share some overall take-aways from my experience that will help me as I plan and continue working on my research projects for this year.<\/p>\n

What Were Your Take-Aways?<\/strong><\/p>\n

RootsTech is about technology \u2013 obviously, it\u2019s in the name \u2013 and there were plenty of talks that focused on technology and genealogy, but one of the underlying themes I took away from the conference was the importance of stories in family history.<\/p>\n

One example of this was the Q+A session with actor Sean Astin. Best known for roles in movies such as Goonies<\/em> and the Lord of the Rings<\/em> trilogy, he emphasized stories in his comments on day three of RootsTech. One way he connected genealogy and storytelling was in his description of author J.R.R. Tolkien as a \u201cpassionate faux genealogist\u201d who spent time on species genealogies in his Lord of the Rings<\/em> trilogy.<\/p>\n

Astin also talked about his family, and spent time talking about his personal history \u2013 including his middle school bid for class president (he lost). While it was a funny story about his non-celebrity status with his peers, I thought it was a good reminder that we need to not only trace our ancestors but we also need to document our stories, even the stories that we think are trivial. These stories need to be passed down to our descendants before they are lost.<\/p>\n

He also talked about his daughter Allie\u2019s interest in genealogy and their support of her as she traveled to interview family members and learn more about their shared family history. On stage, he read a text from Allie in response to his question \u201cwhy do you love genealogy?\u201d Her answer is one that many of us can relate to:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the way to learn about the ancestors that live on through me. We are the key to our ancestors\u2019 eternal life and through my children, in a way, I\u2019ll live forever. So, it\u2019s important to honor that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We need to avail ourselves of the technology to help us achieve our family history goals, to document the stories of our ancestors.<\/p>\n

Uniting<\/strong><\/p>\n

This year\u2019s conference theme was \u201cUniting.\u201d For me that word describes how we are all united by our mutual passion for genealogy, no matter how we approach it. Let\u2019s face it: RootsTech highlights technology, but there were plenty of talks and activities that stressed other aspects of genealogy including storytelling. Genealogy is a comprehensive pursuit that involves multiple approaches to better understanding and sharing our family histories.<\/p>\n

My goal watching the presentations during the conference was to view presentations that I normally wouldn\u2019t get the chance to see or hear. I decided to first focus on DNA. I\u2019ve been reading a number of DNA books lately, and having access to experts in the field talking about how to use DNA and DNA technology was helpful to me. This is a difficult topic to absorb, so having access to presentations after the conference is over helps. I\u2019m also glad that I can still catch those presentations I didn\u2019t watch live, by perusing the OnDemand link on the RootsTech website.<\/p>\n

What Will You Learn Next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can still benefit from presentations at RootsTech 2023. See the RootsTech<\/a> website. Click the OnDemand link at the top right to browse or search the library of presentations. If you curated a playlist, you can still access that by clicking on Menu at the top right side and in the drop-down choose MyPlaylist.<\/p>\n

What did you learn from RootsTech? I\u2019d love to hear about your favorite presentations and take-aways in the comments below.<\/p>\n

Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! Start a 7-Day Free Trial<\/a><\/p>\n

Note on the header image:<\/em><\/strong> RootsTech genealogy conference. Credit: mormonnewsroom.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega wraps up her experience at RootsTech by presenting some of her key take-aways from this year\u2019s conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":89711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12717],"tags":[2009,1655,58379],"class_list":["post-90025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-conferences-activities","tag-genealogy-conferences","tag-rootstech","tag-rootstech-2023"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/photo-0202-2016-featured-graphic-genealogy-conferences.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90025"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90031,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90025\/revisions\/90031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}