Resources from RootsTech 2025!
RootsTech 2025 had a lot of good sessions, even for someone with minimal previous family history experience like me! Below are some highlights I found noteworthy:
Sessions
Mike's Summary: Strategies for figuring out where you can contribute to your family tree even if you have no idea what you are doing, using only your smartphone.
Mike's Summary: This session highlights the difference between working on your family tree in isolation and working on the global family tree in FamilySearch and how to navigate frustrations which may arise from working in a shared environment.
Mike's Summary: Learning about your ancestors, rather than simply filling out names and dates on a pedigree chart, can lead to family healing and give us all strength. Also, how to deal with less than inspiring stories you may encounter or feel compelled to document.
Technical Announcements at RootsTech
Full-Text Search, At last years' RootsTech FamilySearch unveiled an effort to use AI to transcribe books, magazines, and even some written materials. This was to enable everyone to find mentions within materials which previously had to be manually searched through in the hopes of finding desired information. Since RootsTech 2024 over 1 billion records have been made available through Full-Text Search.
Ancestry Networks - Ancestry.com, which members of the Church have free access to, now has a way to indicate non-familial relationships, enabling you to keep track of those people who are "like one of the family" who may be able to provide insight into your ancestor's life. This new kind of linking is called "Ancestry Networks".
New App - FamilySearch has released a new app called "Together by FamilySearch" which is focused on helping families record their memories and stories. It's kind of like a social network in that you share pictures and text with groups of people you're connected to, but soon you'll be able to easily add the articles and pictures as Memories in FamilySearch's Family Tree!
This app also has activities built in like prompts for what to write about (example: "What are some of the personality traits that run in your family - quiet, loud, adventurous, ... etc."
Generative A.I. - FamilySearch Labs, which is the testing ground for new FamilySearch features, has added a generative AI research assistant which will:
- Search your tree to find people to add.
- Find sources about a person in your tree from the web.
- Provide answers to genealogical questions.
- Suggest additional resources where you might find more information.