The Next Big (Family History) Thing

 

Image Credit: FamilySearch

This week’s blog post is my fun news that I will be giving two presentations at RootsTech Connect in February. 

For those not familiar with RootsTech events, these are three-day conferences hosted by international genealogical organisation FamilySearch and have usually been held in the United States.  However, last year RootsTech London, the first of these events to take place outside America, attracted a serious crowd of family historians keen to develop their skills.

Now, like many other events, RootsTech has chosen to switch to being a virtual show, but unlike previous years, there will be no charge to access it.  It will be completely free, totally online, and accessible to everyone.  The only requirement is for you to register your interest in participating, which you can do very easily at the RootsTech Connect website, where you can also check out the archive of previous years’ presentations.  This will give you an idea of the flavour and variety of talks that have been given at past conferences, as well as some of the keynote speakers who have put in an appearance.

My contributions will be about Scottish family history: one presentation on how to use ScotlandsPeople, and another on the riches of the records of the kirk session (of the Church of Scotland).  There will be dozens of presentations to choose from, shorter than usual and pre-recorded, but with Q&A sessions during which the speakers will be available to answer attendees’ questions on their topics.  It promises to be an exciting experience!