#RootsTech 2016 Day One -- BYU Family History Technology Workshop

Day one for me is Tuesday at the Brigham Young University (BYU) Family History Technology Workshop on the University campus. We have a full lineup of presentations known as Lightning Talks on a huge variety of subjects. The keynote is from Any Harris, a professor at BYU. Here is a description of her background.

Amy Harris is an associate professor of history at BYU and an accredited genealogist. Her research interests focus on families, women, and gender in early modern Britain. She is particularly interested in the way family and social relationships inform one another. Her first book, Siblinghood and Social Relations in Georgian England: Share and Share Alike (2012) used both historical and genealogical methods to explore sibling relationships and their connections to political and social ideas of equality. Her most recent publication, Family Life in England and America, 1690-1820, a four-volume, co-edited collection of transcribed and annotated primary sources, was published in August 2015. All of her work combines historical and genealogical methodologies. Prof. Harris teaches European history, beginner and advanced genealogy courses, and women’s studies. She currently serves as the director of the Family History Program at BYU.

I cannot overstate the amazing pool of family history resources here at BYU. From the Family History Library where I serve to the classes and the Family History Technology Lab involved in the development of family history software.

The first news of the day is the BYU Family History Portal. This is a major step in making all of the substantial resources available at BYU more accessible. Here for the first time we have all the different BYU programs on the same page and the same time.

I will be posting more on the Workshop and other activities during the week as my computer battery holds up and as I have time between presentations and demos.