Following Rootstech Remotely

Last year I was able to attend Rootstech in person (at least for 1 day). Unfortunately other commitments prevent me from joining thousands at the Salt Palace for what should be a great event. If you're like me and interested in following Rootstech remotely, the organizers have posted an online broadcast schedule for streaming sessions. There is a free mobile app on iOS and Android, and the official hashtag to follow the conference on Twitter and Flipboard is #rootstech.

The first major announcement of the week comes from host FamilySearch, on efforts to put the world's historical records online in one generation. FamilySearch uses a good infographic to show how this effort will build family trees and bring billions of records online for research.

I think the bigger message is how the effort performed through cross-community collaboration is helping to preserve the world's historical records. This enables the sharing of knowledge and experiences for future generations. It involves a huge amount of data, identifying linkages and connections between cultures and people that may have been lost. This work is preserving important digital heritage and bringing stories to light. Congrats to FamilySearch on this initiative and hopefully a range of public sector entities and governments will participate to enable these records to be shared.