Now that I’ve had some time to catch up on my sleep, here’s part 2 about RootsTech.

As usual, I had a great time. I have a lot of friends who come to town for RootsTech and I enjoy seeing them, talking, eating together, and playing games.

Even though I had a full attendee pass, I barely made it to any lectures. I made it to my own (just barely, keep reading), and went to most of one after that. I intended to go to a few that were in person only, but other things came up. For one, my schedule has been upside-down for a while and I couldn’t spin it around. I sleep during the day and I’m awake all night. That caused some problems with getting to daytime lectures. I missed another as my best friend was leaving in the middle of it; then he asked me to drive him to the airport at the last minute, and how can I refuse that?

As for my own lecture, I left my house on time to get there plenty early, but got slowed by an accident on the highway. We all had to exit to another highway, where we caused another traffic jam at the next exit. I had about a 15 minute detour, removing all manner of being early to my lecture. I went to the nearest parking lot and was surprised at how packed the place was. I’d never seen it like that before. Then I speed walked to my lecture, entering the room just about the time I was supposed to start. While stripping off my jacket and other things, I loaded my slides, told everyone why I was late, and ended up beginning only two minutes late.

I must have done a lot of rambling in the first stories because I had two left to go with 15 minutes remaining, and that was the question and answer 15 minutes. I sped up a bit, skipped over details I meant to include, and finished just short of the hour. I wish I’d recorded it, but didn’t need everyone watching me fuss with my phone when I was already late, and the recording app wasn’t handy enough since I rarely use it.

But in the end, I think it went well. I got some laughs. I still remember some things I meant to say and missed them. Several people spoke to me after and all suggested it went well. I really like giving this lecture. It’s not scheduled again yet. Anyone want a good lecture about researching your family stories? It’s called “David Rosenthal Was An Only Child… Or Was He? (Dis)Proving Family Stories”.

Alas, besides that, I spent most of my time during the day in the Expo Hall, like I have for the past 13 years. At night, I had dinner with a few different people, and made it to game night twice. I would have made it a third, but I was falling asleep at dinner, so I went home. I wonder if we can make game night happen at IAJGS? I can think of a few people to pull into it.

There are a lot of recorded and pre-recorded lectures from RootsTech. I intend to watch some of them. I don’t know if I’ll write another post about them; maybe if something really stands out. If you’re interested, the virtual conference was free. I bet there’s still a way to sign up and watch, if you hadn’t already signed up.

And it’s time for RootsTech 2025!

The festivities began last night with the Speaker and Media dinner. They decided to try to not invite people to two events at the same time this year, but I also went to the Influencer social after, which overlapped by a bit.

This is the 15th year of RootsTech. I have been to every year. The first two years, I attended normally. And the year I was in the Innovator Showdown, even though I spent the week in the expo hall at my own booth. Other years, I didn’t always have a registration as I spent my time in the expo hall, some years volunteering, others just visiting. But I’ve been here every year.

This year is different. I’m a speaker. It took submitting a lecture with “stories” in the title. I think that helped. And I really like giving this lecture. It was at FEEFHS last year too. My lecture is on Friday, at the same time as three others I would have otherwise attended. So there’s that.

So hello again to my readers. I know I haven’t been here for a while again. I started writing last summer about FEEFHS and IAJGS, but those never got finished and posted. There was a week in between them where I took a road trip with my best friend, who also attended both. That was my first in-person FEEFHS. This year, I have another lecture at FEEFHS, which is virtual, and I just got notice today of two lectures accepted for IAJGS.

But first, today begins RootsTech.

So I guess this is my annual rant about RootsTech.

The Fun

I had a great time last week. I spent a lot of time in the IAJGS booth with the IAJGS folks. Mark was always there, Marlis, Garri, Michael, Barbara, and Emily were around a lot. I finally met Debbie in person. Schelly and Pamela came over many times. And I shudder to think I’m missing someone who I saw a lot of. Of course Daniel was in his own booth, but I saw him quite a bit too. I went out to eat with some of them and many others not listed here, sometimes in large groups, every day. I really enjoy the company of these people, who I usually only see once a year, and RootsTech gives me a second opportunity now to see a bunch of them.

I enjoy saying hello and chatting a bit with some of the other bloggers and Twitterers as I see them. The media center was on the opposite side of the expo hall from my booth, so it was a trek to get over there. I talk to random people who I just happen to be sitting next to sometimes, and obviously the ones who come to the booth.

Some of my local Utah JGS folks came around, some more than others, like Beth, Marelynn, Rochelle, Gary, and Barry.

It was fun.

The Conference

But then there’s the conference. It’s not supposed to be just a social event. It’s supposed to be educational, and as it started but has since left behind, all about genealogy and technology. That’s not genealogy or technology, but genealogy and technology. It’s a big difference. And ironically, RootsTech has forgotten it’s roots.

How Many Sessions?

When signing up, I noticed that RootsTech claimed to include 200+ sessions. The web site listed 128. I was told later that there were more sessions not listed on the web site. Why not? Are they not technologically capable of including all the sessions in the schedule? They included FGS on their site. How would I know that there are more session and how do I review them to choose what I want to do? I went very carefully through the web site listings to look at the skill levels, but the book received at registration nor the app had those levels listed. So I ended up adding a few sessions after registering only to walk out within minutes because of their simplicity level.

I happened to pop into one session, that was a late addition to my schedule, just as the presenter got to the “who this session is for” part. The options were things like, and I paraphrase, non-coders who are curious about the topic, code-dabblers, programmers who want to know how to explain this to non-techies, etc. And back to the exhibit hall I went in under a minute.

Where’s The Non-Beginner Tech?

Again, the Innovator’s Summit segregated the programmers from the genealogists. It’s a separate ticket that costs more in order to go to sessions focused on creating technology. And very few of those even appealed to me this year. Only three of all the sessions were marked as advanced skill level, two at the Innovator’s Summit and one at RootsTech. What kind of programmers did they attract this year if nothing was advanced? And what is there for genealogy tech users who aren’t total beginners at using computers?

The one session I went to on Wednesday had no tech in it at all. It was supposed to be about what was needed in genealogy technology. I recall something similar last year or the previous one too. I admit that I didn’t stay for the whole thing, but while I was there, it was droning about… work flows? I don’t even know. So I still don’t know what other people think needs to be programmed. I guess they won’t be getting it from me.

There are plenty of beginner level tech courses in genealogy in webinars, at society meetings, at other conferences. Why do we need them at RootsTech now? So many sessions had titles that sounded interesting and only got rejected by me for their beginner level tech skill listing.

Where Is The Tech?

And then there were the sessions that had absolutely nothing to do with technology, save for the fact that it is the 21st century and we all use computers to do things. RootsTech included two sessions on Jewish genealogy, both presented by friends of mine. Even those friends admitted there was nothing tech about their lectures. So what were they doing at RootsTech? They should have been at FGS. And there were a plethora of other sessions about genealogy that had nothing to do with tech. French, Irish, and Italian were included, as I recall, among others. The only tech in any of those sessions was when they admitted they were simply teaching how to use a single web site.

Where’s The Streaming?

For the first time in RootsTech history, one of the keynotes was not live streamed. Did they tell us this in advance to give people like me a chance to try to get there early enough to see it in person?

No.

The schedule clearly showed they would live stream from 8:30-10am, but they cut off the feed at 8:50 after the initial speaker. And it wasn’t a technical glitch, it was deliberate.

So what did the Bushes have to do with genealogy and technology? Who knows? Not me. I was livid.

Fifteen minutes after cutting off the stream, the conference Twitter account finally announced the stream would return at 10:30. Nice timing. At least they were on the ball that night, being very clear that the next day’s keynote would be streamed in full, but only after I asked. I guess everyone’s angry tweets wasn’t enough for them to volunteer that information.

Sessions I Stayed For

I did go to a few sessions where I didn’t leave immediately. I listened to one person with OCD tell me how to organize my files and some other things… the way I already do because I have OCD. So that didn’t help me. The RPAC session just informed me that everyone else in the room was on the same page as me. It was interesting, but not educational. Another session posed a question in its description but never answered it. I waited it out and didn’t learn anything except the thought processes that one company used to develop their own product, without sharing the actual solutions.

Non-Innovation In The Challenge

I’m not entirely sure what the Innovator’s Challenge is for anymore. They’ve reversed the original rules, which was to program something new. Now they want something that is ready to launch. So instead of programmers beginning a new project, they have to be finishing it.

So third place was GenMarketplace. How is that innovative? There are several genealogy marketplaces now, including one that’s been around since 2008 that I use regularly. The intro video on their site begins with presenting a listing of what documents are missing from your genealogy, but I could find nothing on their site that analyzes your database to find what’s missing. It’s just a rent-a-genealogist site and it devalues the skill or even just the time needed to do anything by starting the jobs at 10 cents.

Second place was ArgusSearch. Their site gets very technical with the description and skimming the content doesn’t explain it. Are they indexing and searching handwritten records? And that wasn’t the winner?

No, the winner was StoryWorth, a site that emails a question then either receives an email answer or records a phone call. Seriously. This is what FamilySearch thought was the most innovative entry. Recording a phone call. As someone else was tweeting, I don’t think innovation means what they think it means.

Next Year

I’m sure I’ll be in the IAJGS booth again next year. I see no reason why we would stop having the booth. I’m sure I’ll enjoy my time and socializing with the folks who come to town. I doubt I’ll register for RootsTech though. I almost didn’t this year and should not have bothered.

I will probably enter the Innovator’s Challenge with something I started working on last month. It won’t win because it’s not mainstream enough for everyone to use it, but it’s for genealogy and it will be more polished after I’ve worked on it for a year. I may even submit some papers again, but not expect to be accepted, as usual. I’ll probably send in something that’s too techie for them.

Conclusion

I go to IAJGS conferences to socialize, sometimes learn new things, attend SIG and BOF meetings to meet other people in the field and with the same interests, present my own sessions, and to network myself to promote my business. IAJGS stays on topic and everything is related to Jewish genealogy.

So thank you FamilySearch for bringing this conference year after year, which brings some of my non-Utah friends to Utah so I can see them just a little more often. But you’re not giving me any new knowledge about genealogy or technology. There are no meetings of like-minded people, outside of the dinners I attend outside of the schedule. You have so far rejected all of my papers to speak. I promote my society rather than my business. And you definitely don’t stay on topic of technology in genealogy.

RootsTech is just a social gathering for me. And a week when the FHL is too busy to get any work done. If it wasn’t local, I wouldn’t bother at all.

RootsTech just finished it’s fourth year. I’ve gone to the conference every year. This year, I had a different perspective. So here are my critiques.

1. I went over to the media center a few times to pick up my blogger beads and chat with a few bloggers. I didn’t see RootsTech doing anything different with their official bloggers than any other year, nor was there a noticeable change in who was chosen.

2. Security was kind of iffy. I went to a session on the first day before registering and nobody cared about my lack of a badge. (Apparently, registration wasn’t even open for most hours of that day anyway, so maybe they knew that and thus didn’t care.) I was only registered for the Expo Hall, but nobody checked my badge other days either. I only went to one or two sessions a day, but I shouldn’t have been allowed. The only time someone checked was when I was going back to the Expo Hall the first evening to continue setting up the booth, with bags of supplies in hand.

3. The app went downhill. RootsTech used another vendor. Now, that in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But now, it required a login to add items to the schedule, so I couldn’t even speculate, via the app, what sessions I might go to. That sure discouraged me from upgrading my registration. I don’t know what else changed, since I didn’t bother much with it after that.

4. RootsTech’s theme has definitely switched to storytelling. How to use technology to tell stories, rather than technology’s use in genealogy. But I knew that last year. Maybe they should change the name. StoryRoots?

5. IAJGS had a table in the Expo Hall. This was a first. I was there to help set it up and man the booth during the conference. I was not impressed with RootsTech’s inability to spell “genealogical” on our sign. Good thing we had a banner to replace it. But it was an interesting experience overall, talking to so many people who came by to tell us there was a Jew somewhere in their family. We gave out an awful lot of flyers about our UJGS meeting the next week. I was pretty disappointed at the turn-out; only two new people attended. (I was glad to have them, but we gave out about 150 flyers…)

And thus concludes another year of RootsTech. Back to working on this year’s IAJGS conference.

And to conclude my nitpicking of RootsTech 2013, I have some things to say about the official bloggers.

What’s an Official Blogger?

According to RootsTech, “In addition to providing updates prior to the conference the Official Bloggers will give you all the inside happenings onsite during the conference.” (RootsTech Official Bloggers)

I also caught a great quote from James Tanner, where he says that the bloggers “are an institution and the main method of reporting the events of the Conference.” (Assessment of RootsTech 2013)

So their job is to advertise the conference beforehand and to report more during the conference. I tried not to spend too long analyzing all the official bloggers, so I did not verify that they all advertised leading up the conference, but I did notice that some of them did. The minimal postings were usually one to announce they were official bloggers, one to give away a free registration, and possibly a press release or two. Several of them blogged the press release about the keynote speakers that were first announced, the first three who all spoke on the first day. And there were several blog posts about the official conference app.

Now, as I analyze these bloggers, let it be known that I consider some of them to be my genea-friends. I converse with many of them of Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, and I usually spend some time with them at conferences when I see them. With this analysis, I’m not knocking the bloggers. Everyone blogs what they want, when they want. This is about the choices made by RootsTech to make them the official bloggers.

What was missing?

Once again, there were no Jewish bloggers. And no developers. RootsTech doesn’t seem to find the developers to be very important anymore, limiting the sessions available, not making the Developer’s Challenge more well known, and of course, never having a  developer as an official blogger.

What did I learn?

One thing that became clear was that the search function on Blogger blogs is terrible. Each search only gave four results per page, and was listed above other content. Interestingly enough, sometimes that content fit my search result and didn’t show up in the results. So, for the Blogger blogs, I may have missed some posts. Many blogs did not have a search function at all. Some had categories where I could find RootsTech listed. But some had no categories and no search. Kind of defeats some of the purpose of the blog, if no one will ever find an older entry; might as well just delete them.

And just in case anything here isn’t true anymore, I did all of my blog searching the week before completing this blog post. So if anyone wrote any more about the conference, or I mention a “most recent” post and it isn’t, that would be why. I also didn’t read every post by these bloggers, but I read some of them.

Who made the cut?

Comparing over the three years of RootsTech, the official bloggers list is virtually the same every year with additional names added, and a few removed when they don’t attend. This year, they went especially crazy with adding new people, many of whom are not genealogy bloggers at all, but are just locals.

The usual suspects

Several bloggers do a good job every year. Unless mentioned, everyone in this group has been an official blogger every year. They are all very visible geneablogs.

Jill Ball, Geniaus, uses her media center access for lots of interviews, posting them slowly every couple of days during and following the conference, but admits that she barely went to any sessions. She also had at least one blog post mentioning RootsTech every month in advance of the conference, usually more than one.

Amy Coffin, We Tree, did a little less conference blogging this year. She had a “Day 1, Part 1” post, and no others like it. A tour of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir followed, and then a wrap-up post.

Dear Myrtle only showed RootsTech in four blog posts in 2013 when I searched. I was sure she had done more than that. However, looking at the all-important 25 March posting, I find that she spent her “blogging” doing video interviews.

The Ancestry Insider, well, he always writes about Ancestry and FamilySearch, so this was common ground for him. His latest post mentions RootsTech in the title, but it doesn’t show up in the search. He’s still kicking out articles derived from and about RootsTech.

Sue Maxwell, Granite Genealogy, just posted a great article about her “pendulum ride” just before and during RootsTech. But besides that post, she only posted pictures from the conference. She did post quite a bit in the months before RootsTech, including a list of tips from other blogs, to prepare for a visit to SLC, the FHL, and RootsTech. She also admitted to barely going to any sessions.

Randy Seaver, Genea-Musings, has a blog I don’t even have to check. He blogs the heck out of everything genealogy. He also admitted to not attending many sessions. A search didn’t show a lot of results, but I know they’re in there somewhere. Not only am I sure he blogged more than is showing, he also read other blogs about RootsTech and posted links to them.

James Tanner, Genealogy’s Star. The search on this site searches Google, and not just his own site. He has a lot of blog posts, and it took searching many pages to get to the bulk of his RootsTech entries. His most recent post from RootsTech is a 22 minute interview with Yuval Ben-Galim of MyHeritage; seems appropriate given that he did most of their keynote.

Renee Zamora, Renee’s Genealogy Blog, has a pretty useless search. It didn’t find me any RootsTech articles in 2013 and I know she’s written some. Using her labels, I found three blog posts since the conference began. Before the conference, I think she blogged every press release they sent out.

Nancy Shively, Gathering Stories, is a second year official blogger. I didn’t even have to search her blog. Every blog post in March is about RootsTech.

More usual suspects

Some other bloggers have been official for either two or three years, but I don’t think they did as well as the first group. I think that some are invited to be official bloggers by some kind of obligation.

Lisa Louise Cooke had a couple of lead-up blog posts, and basically just one about the conference itself. I don’t know how much she may have mentioned RootsTech in her podcast, but the search didn’t show anything.

Dick Eastman, EOGN, did a bit of pre-blogging, but not so much about the conference itself. He basically did one video interview and a long wrap-up blog post. When did MyHeritage start sponsoring his newsletter? I guess he didn’t publicize that very much either. If he put more in his paid newsletter, only his paying subscribers see that, which kind of defeats the purpose of the free advertising the official bloggers are supposed to do.

Holly Hansen, Family History Expos, has been an official blogger for two years. As many others did, one pre-conference post was about the keynote speakers for the first day. Another early post includes a partial list of family history fairs held at LDS Stake Centers in conjunction with RootsTech. I only knew about something in Kansas City. Her one after-conference post begins with being grateful she could attend classes. So was this the only official blogger who made it to more than one session? Of course, this is the blog for another genealogy conference, so making it an official blog seems kind of weird to me anyway.

Thomas MacEntee, head cat herder of the Geneabloggers, was naturally an official blogger. He only has two blog posts that mention RootsTech since the conference, and one is just mentioning a vendor. The other post mentions RootsTech but isn’t about the conference. I expected better from this one. Did I miss something?

[Added note: The following bloggers did not belong in this category, which I only discovered after publishing this blog post.]

Lorine McGinnis Schulze, Olive Tree Genealogy. All of her posts in March are about the live streaming sessions. Wait, was Lorine even at the conference? I don’t remember seeing her, but I didn’t really hang out with the bloggers this year. If she wasn’t there, then she did incredibly well at blogging for the conference. [Note: Lorine clarified that she was not able to attend in person, so she really belongs somewhere else in this blog post. Her own category maybe.]

Julie Cahill Tarr, GenBlog, uses a different search on her Blogger blog, but if it’s to be trusted, she hasn’t mentioned RootsTech since posting tips for attending before the conference and listings about the streaming sessions. [Note: I was wrong about this blog as well. Julie did have a recap post, which did not appear in my previous search of her site, in which she mentioned not attending the conference due to her health. She also had many posts before the conference, but her search results were not sorted by date and I did not realize.]

New additions

A couple new people joined on as official bloggers this year. This group, I think did pretty well. I’m sure, in part, some of these were added for variety.

Sonia Meza, Red de Antepasados, is a new official blogger, from Spain, blogging in Spanish. Her latest blog post is about Day 1. Day 0 was posted after the conference, so maybe there’s more to come from her.

Rosemary Morgan, London Roots Research, is the new London representative. She posted highlights from each day with pictures. Her RootsTech entries basically begin in February when she was chosen as an official blogger.

Drew Smith, half of The Genealogy Guys Podcast, podcasted about RootsTech in most of the latest entries. He also did some interviews, which were included. [Note: Drew notes that he has been an official blogger for all three years, and that he podcasted a lot about RootsTech leading up to it. I must not have seen the “final” list of official bloggers each year when I was researching.]

Dirk Weissleder, Forum FamilienGeschichte, was a late addition official blogger, from what I remember. He writes in German and has five posts that mention RootsTech since the conference began.

And the outliers

They tried something new at RootsTech this year with official bloggers. They found local bloggers who don’t usually write about genealogy. How did they do? Well, basically, it was pitiful. Did any of them even go to the conference? It doesn’t seem that way on their blogs.

Kathy Dalton provides no way to search her blog, but looking through the March entries, she didn’t mention RootsTech at all, unless it was some half-mention in another article. Finally finding her Family History category, there were only two posts that were about RootsTech, from February.

Jenny Eckton has another blog that is not searchable, she has one blog post about RootsTech/Story@Home, which she uses entirely to sell her 365 Days of Story Prompts book.

Emily Hill does not have one single blog entry that mentions RootsTech.

Veronica Johnson appears to blog less often than I do. The only RootsTech post on her main page is from February.

Kim Orlandini, according to her blog, is mainly a photographer. Her blog has no search function. The RootsTech page says she is a “blogger extraordinaire”, but hasn’t blogged since 11 March. Nothing about RootsTech.

Rhonna Designs got a link to her store on the official blogger page. Did they not look at what they were posting? Another blog with no search, blog posts jump from 21 March to 25 March with no mention of RootsTech anywhere.

Summer Rumsey, a scrapbooker, sounded excited for RootsTech in her profile. The search on her blog shows the last mention of RootsTech in February when she gave away a free registration.

Sistas in Zion is another new official blogger, or rather, bloggers. They have only one blog post about RootsTech on 17 March. [Note: Cheri Daniels said that they “rocked it” with their Twitter feed. Good to know at least one of this group showed up to the conference, apparently enjoyed it, and posted about it. I just didn’t see the evidence on their blog.]

Conclusion

Clearly, I’m still a little miffed at being passed over for the last two years. I’ve heard some interesting stories from RootsTech, like how they analyze blog readership. Why do they spend the time and how do they even know the traffic I get? You can’t expect my blog, focused more on one ethnic group, to get as much traffic as some of these others. Don’t they want more variety? Don’t they want someone to blog towards those smaller groups? Do they not want anyone to write from a developer’s perspective? Do they want nothing written about the sessions that most of the bloggers keep missing?

They tried some new techniques this year by inviting locals to get different perspectives, but my analysis makes that look like a failure.

I know that they want the bloggers with the most readers to be official, but if every conference keeps promoting the same bloggers, it makes it that much harder for other bloggers to get noticed.

I don’t think of social media and blogging as a popularity contest. Do I want people to read what I write? Of course I do! Do I care that I don’t have as many readers as other bloggers? No. I write for myself. I write because I want to and I write about what I want to write about. And as long as some of the blog posts take me, especially these Nitpicker posts, I have to care about what I’m writing.

What do you think? Think RootsTech should have an official Jewish blogger? A developer blogger? Someone who would rather attend sessions than do interviews all week?

(Think I should change the title of my blog to The Genealogy Nitpicker?)

The URL of the blog post is http://idogenealogy.com/2013/04/16/rootstech-2013-critique-part-2/.