Every year in February or March thousands of genealogists from all over the world travel to Salt Lake City to attend the RootsTech Conference. We took part in this amazing family history event in 2019 and 2020.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic all genealogical gatherings have been cancelled, like many other events. RootsTech 2020 was the last time we could meet and enjoy in-person talks and conversations. This year RootsTech is completely different.
Faced with the complications of the pandemic, FamilySearch and RootsTech decided to work on a whole new concept. The result: RootsTech Connect, a virtual event with classes in English and 36 other languages, including American Sign Language! Attendees can watch live presentations on the main stage, choose from recorded classes and take part in all kinds of fun cultural activities. And, in my opinion, the best part is… attendees can really connect, with speakers in chat rooms and with other attendees through direct messages.
Session categories 
Personalized playlist
Classes
If you are interested in (English) classes about genealogy in the Netherlands, we can tell you there are two! One (in two parts) about the main record sets for research in the 19th and 20th century: civil records and population registers. And one about the main records for research in the 17th and 18th century: parish registers. Besides these two classes in English, there are also 16 other presentations about Dutch genealogy, but these are all in Dutch.
That is not all, there are so many classes… hundreds of them. About how to do research in different countries, how to use specific record sets, how to interpret DNA results, how to solve brick walls, how to organize research projects, and more. So much more. Every attendee should be able to find multiple classes.
Good to know: all classes will stay online for the next few months, no need to rush!
Register
The (new) RootsTech Connect website will go live in Sydney, Australia on February 25, 3.00pm. This means attendees in Amsterdam can start using the website that same day at 4.00am. At that time it is 9.00pm (the evening before!) in Salt Lake City. Quite complicated, but it is a global event and all attendees live in different time zones.
Please register for this amazing event. It is a lot of genealogy fun, all for free! Go the RootsTech website and fill in the online form. Did you know that more than 315,000 people have already preceded you? That many!
We are looking forward to attend, to speak but above all… to CONNECT!
