Visiting the RootsTech Website

 

RootsTech Connect 2021 is hardly over. In fact, you might say it has just started. The website has links to over 1,200 videos and presentations. The intent is to have a huge online, library-like resource for the entire world. There is an interview with Elder Kevin S. Hamilton, a General Authority Seventy and executive director of the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Steve Rockwood, CEO of FamilySearch International. Jen Allen, the FamilySearch Representative in charge of the conference,  that was printed in the Deseret News for March 3, 2021, entitled, "How RootsTech Connect went from 130,000 to 1.1 million." About the impact of the conference, Elder Hamilton is quoted as saying,

The 1.1 million participants over the weekend was interesting. But to me, more interesting was the 242 countries that were represented. That just blew me away. I Googled it — there’s only 251 countries and territories officially recognized by the United Nations. We had 242 of the 251 with representatives at RootsTech. We had a large contingent from Oman. We had people from Greenland. So to me, that globalization across the globe was just really heartwarming.

Living here in Utah County, in my neighborhood where most of the people are members of the Church, it is interesting that very few of the people around me, except for the missionary volunteers at the Brigham Young University Family History Library, were even aware that RootsTech was happening and are completely unaware that the website with all that content will be online for the next year. It usually seems like they have been inoculated against hearing or learning about family history or genealogy. I am pretty sure that there are fewer than a dozen people in my neighborhood that even know or remember that I write a genealogy blog or that I am a volunteer/missionary at the BYU Family History Library. Sorry, I have to comment on this from time to time. 

Anyway, the RootsTech Connect 2021 website has now become a "go-to" place on the internet to get a lot more information about genealogy. If you do go to the RootsTech website, you might notice this statement.

It looks like to me that the RootsTech Website and the corresponding RootsTech Section of the FamilySearch YouTube channel may the first of a lot more video presentations.