RootsTech 2025--Day 3

RootsTech Day 3

March 8th 2025

FamilyTree DNA recently announced a new updated MitoTree.  This means an updated haplogroup for those who have taken the mtDNA test and new reports via the mtDNA Discover tool.

Below is a list of the classes which I selected for Day 3.  There are many more sessions available.  For more in-depth information on the day's events check out any of the classes or online expo hall at RootsTech website

9:00 AM CST Online Advanced / Professional

Session:  Document Analysis: Digging into the Details

Speaker:  Angie Packer McGhie

10:30 PM CST  Online Intermediate

Session:  Navigating Sensitive Topics: Writing about Difficult Chapters of the Family’s History

Speaker:  Laura Hedgecock

2:30 PM CST Online Intermediate

Session:  Learning to Use AI Tools: Taking Your Prompting Skills to the Next Level

Speaker:  Steve Little 

These last 3 classes were unavailable to online attendees Live due to technical difficulties but were made available by late Saturday and Sunday.

2:30 PM CST Online Advanced / Professional

Session:  Why Did It Say That & Other Contextual Clues

Speaker:  Rebecca Whitman Koford

4:00 PM CST Online Intermediate

Session:  Extracting Evidence:  Strategies for Analyzing Genealogical Sources

Speaker:  Alice Childs

4:00 PM CST Online Advanced / Professional

Session:  Taming Same-Name Research

Speaker:  Jenny Hansen

RootsTech 2025--Day 2

RootsTech Day 2
March 7th 2025

MyHeritage has introduced a new feature called Cousin Finder™, which helps discover other MyHeritage members who share common ancestors with you. They launched Ancient Origins a few weeks ago for members with a Complete or Omni tier subscription. Their latest ethnicity update (v 2.5) was released earlier this year for those who have tested or uploaded their DNA.

Ancestry has several new features that use AI.  "Recognize Ancestors" helps to identify people in photos by using AI to compare them with other photos on the site.  Another feature uses AI to transcribe the handwriting in uploaded documents. A DNA match clustering tool is also in the works for release later this year. See the video for more on Matches by Cluster.

These were just the classes that I viewed.  There are many more available.  For more in-depth information on the day's events check out any of the classes or online expo hall at

RootsTech website 

Session:  The New FamilySearch Catalog

Speaker:  Robert Raymond

Session:  FamilySearch Full Text Search Is Even Better (a session I missed from Thursday)

Speaker:  Robert Raymond

9:00 AM CST Online Intermediate

Session:  Becoming Betsey: Find Female Ancestors with Cluster Research

Speaker:  Rebecca Whitman Koford

9:00 AM CST Online  Advanced / Professional

Session:  Analyzing Evidence:  A Research Game Changer

Speaker:  Mindy Taylor

10:30 AM CST  Online  All Levels

Session:  RootsTech Innovation and Tech Forum 2025

10:30 AM CST Online  Advanced / Professional

Session:  DNA and Endogamy:  Strategies to Analyze Your DNA Matches

Speaker:  Adina Newman

2:30 PM CST Online  Intermediate

Session:  The Story of Rachel -- Eventually This Enslaved Woman & Her Children Were Freed

Speaker:  Diane L. Richard

2:30 PM CST  Online Intermediate

Session:  How Just One Match Can Help You Find Missing Ancestors in 2025

Speaker:  Diahan Southard  

RootsTech 2025--Day 1

RootsTech Day 1
March 6th 2025

Ancestry announced the addition of Networks.  It is a tool that can be used to track an ancestor's FAN.  Right now it's only available to ProTools subscribers, but might be rolled out to other users at some point.  There are a few other promotions they are running right now here

FTDNA has discount codes available and includes some discounts on upgrades 

Legacy Family Tree Webinars has a great offer see the coupon code at

https://cms-z-assets.familysearch.org/b6/00/dacb99a94dd6037ce9e5111ebf69/webinars.pdf

These were just the classes that I viewed.  There are many more available.  For more in-depth information on the day's events check out any of the classes or online expo hall at

RootsTech website.

9:00 AM CST Online Advanced/Professional

Session:  Intersecting Lines: Pedigree Collapse Helps Identify an Ancestor’s Parents

Speaker:  Alice Childs

10:30 AM CST Online Intermediate

Session:  Women and Children Second: The Laws and Records of Citizenship
Speaker:  Alec Ferretti

1:15 PM CST Online Intermediate

Session:  Endogamy? Now what?

Speaker:  Kelli Bergheimer

4:00 PM CST Online Advanced/Professional

Session:  Finding Migrating Families: How to Trace Elusive Ancestors Using Cluster Research

Speaker:  Nancy A. Peters

5:30 PM CST Online Intermediate
Session:  Using Indirect Evidence to Identify Enslaved Parents
Speaker:  LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson

RootsTech 2024 --Day 1 Online

Day 1 Highlights:  

FamilySearch Tech Forum

100 Million Records Searchable with Full Text Search

This is so exciting for me.  I had the opportunity to use the AI search prototype they had available in 2023.  In the few days I had it, it was mind-blowing how many new records I found.

US Land & Probate Records and Mexico Notary Records are currently the only available collections to browse.

Plantation Records records were also mentioned 

See Family Search Labs page for 

https://www.familysearch.org/labs/

Early Release of Family Group Trees

Check FamilySearch Labs for new products under development

MyHeritage has redesigned their profile page.  See their blog post about it at the following link.

https://blog.myheritage.com/2024/02/introducing-all-new-profile-pages-with-hints/

Also don't forget they are offering Access to All DNA Features with DNA uploaded thru March 4th, 2024.  This is the perfect time for those who have tested at AncestryDNA or other sites to upload and get tools for dna analysis for free.

My Virtual Attendee Session Schedule

• 9:00 AM Fixing Sticky Problems in FamilySearch Family Tree--Kathryn Grant  

            This was a great presentation and was very helpful in simplifying the process of making corrections that are due to bad merges and  incorrect relationships.  

Fixing Process

1. Fix Incorrect Merges
2. Fix Incorrect relationships
3. Fix incorrect info and sources.

Half the battle for me has always been trying to figure out the best procedure for correcting.  I've about got my pedigree corrected thru my 2nd Great Grandparents.

Check out the templates that Kathryn has on her website.  

Timeline Grid Information and Templates

Other Templates

• 10:30 AM Who is My Ancestor? Tracing Individuals with Similar Names--D. Joshua Taylor

Joshua's discussion of the 5 step strategy for identifying & tracing individuals with similar names is one we all as family history researchers can use.  

"The best way to know who your ancestor IS, is to know who your ancestor ISN'T"

He talked about using Timelines ,which is one of my favorite strategies for same name research.  The importance of writing and sharing your findings about those same named ancestors can not be stressed enough.

• 1:15 PM Genetic Genealogy Turns 25: DNA Experts Tell Their Stories--Diahan Southard

Happy Birthday, Genetic Genealogy!!  It was great to hear all the experts talk about their start in genetic genealogy research.

• 2:30 PM What’s New at Ancestry® in 2024 Crista Cowan
• Family Groups
• Memories--upload stories, audio, photos(you can organize in albums)
• Life and Times in the US Stories & Events --Newspapers.com   https://www.ancestry.com/c/newspapers
• Sideview Traits and Communities by parent
• DNA--Communities Updated.  We should expect an update about every 3-4 months for the communities although you can be added to a community at any time if there are enough testers with DNA in common showing they all belong to that specific community
• Pro Tools

• 4:00 PM Innovation and Tech Forum 2024 RootsTech

There were presentations by each of the following companies
about their latest projects and how they are harnessing the power of AI to use
in order to bring family history to life.

• Microsoft Copilot
• LivingHistory.AI 
• Storied
• EmulateMe

To be honest, this afterlife and dead relative talk kind of creeped me out.  I love AI as it pertains to indexing and gathering information.

These were just the classes that I viewed.  There are many more available.  For more in depth information on the days events check out any of the classes or online expo hall at

RootsTech website

Taking advantage of Webtember at Legacy Family Tree Webinars

 

My paternal grandfather, Thomas D. Cooke was born in the area which was Fruit Valley, TN.  I've written about that several times in blog posts here and how that Post Office no longer exist.  This is the announcement of that in the Post Office Daily Bulletin.  I went looking for this after attending a presentation entitled "Delivering the Mail: Records of the United States Post Office" by Michael L. Strauss, AG.  This webinar was part of the Legacy Family Tree Webinars that are being offered as part of  "Webtember,"  If you aren't catching these live, you still have an opportunity to view them.  See Webtember:  All Genealogy.  All September Long!  I also really enjoyed the webinar "What’s Next When You Are Told Those Records Were 'Burnt up' ” by  J. Mark Lowe. FUGA.

Source:
“Post Offices Discontinued,” Daily Bulletin of Orders Affecting The Post Office, 10 Aug 1905, Vol 26 Issue 7756. Sheet 1, col 2; digital images, THE DIGITIZED US POSTAL BULLETINS and PL&Rs 1880 - 2013 (http://www.uspostalbulletins.com/PDF/Vol26_Issue7756_19050810.pdf accessed: 9 Aug 2022).