09 February 2012
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The brightsolid stand
At Family Tree we were hugely disappointed to miss the excitement of RootsTech 2012 - the family history and technology conferenc
At Family Tree we were hugely disappointed to miss the excitement of RootsTech 2012 - the family history and technology conference that uncovers emerging technologies that can improve your research experience. But just because we couldn't attend, we didn't think you should miss out on hearing what it was like from someone who was actually at the event. In our first ever guest blog, we introduce genealogist and writer Caroline Pointer, author of For Your Family Story blog and Family Stories blog. Caroline shares her summary of RootsTech 2012...
Collaboration is the key to the future
With well over 4,200 genealogists and technology developers in attendance at the RootsTech 2012 conference, the word of the 3-day gathering seemed to be 'collaboration'. Held 2-4 February attendees from different backgrounds converged in Salt Lake City, Utah at this unique event with the express purpose of forging new technological paths to further the genealogy industry.
FamilySearch, a major sponsor of RootsTech, shared its vision for genealogy as making access to one’s family history a seamless process. From the daily keynote addresses to the user and developer sessions, it was made apparent this goal could be achieved by researcher collaboration aided by technology.
With this theme came many new developments, such as brightsolid’s announcement of its intention to enter the US market with its newly launched Censusrecords.com followed by its findmypast.com brand introduction planned for later in the year (read more about this here).
Likewise, of note was FamilySearch’s unveling of its new app, FamilySearch Indexing, which is available for both Apple devices and Android devices.
Jimmy Zimmerman was the winner of the Developer Challenge with his Chrome browser extension, NoteFuser, which is an extension that links genealogical notes kept in Evernote with the new FamilySearch site as well as Geni.com.
Next year RootsTech will be held 21-23 March in Salt Lake City, Utah.