Thoughts on RootsTech 2025

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. RootsTech. 7 Mar 2025.

It's been a week since RootsTech 2025, and I thought I'd share another post of observations. I'm really glad I attended in person. While I've been able to fully enjoy the online lectures via the RootsTech website, experiencing the event on the ground is different. I only had two days there, and I used the opportunity to attend as many in person lectures as possible and chat with people from the platforms I use most in the family history space. 

I really liked some of the short talks in the exhibit hall by FamilyTreeDNA, Ancestry and MyHeritage. I want to thank again the kind expert from FindMyPast who spent some time assisting me with my complicated research challenge on my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget, giving me ideas for other documents to try to locate in Illinois and Ireland that might provide a path forward.

MyHeritage introduced their Cousin Finder and spoke about Ancient Origins. Ancestry introduced Networks and a facial recognition tool for uploaded photos, along with a ton of new record collections. FTDNA had several talks on the new MitoTree of Humankind. I had several chats with the team at YourDNAGuide, and I'm really excited about the new platform for DNA Study Group.

Several sessions touched on advancements in AI, the future of genealogy and storytelling. There's a lot of food for thought on these subjects that carry over to my regular work on the Internet. 

I'm feeling inspired to submit a talk for RootsTech next year, if I can make the timing work before I need to be India in early March.

While the event is huge, the numbers didn't really feel overwhelming (although the opening session in the main hall was super packed). There's a large number of helpful volunteers. The quality of the talks was very good, and I have a lot of ideas and suggestions to follow on my various research questions going forward.