Thursday, February 10, 2011

RootsTech Conference Opens

The new RootsTech Conference inaugural opening The new RootsTech Conference inaugural opening is today, Thursday, 10 February 2011. Close to 3,000 attendees are expected to attend. Keynote addresses will be streamed complimentary at RootsTech.org, and Twitter users can follow real-time updates using #rootstech.

“When we first started, we thought we’d have 1,500 attendees,” said Jay Verkler. “We thought 2,000 was a stretch goal.” At a pre-conference media event Verkler, chief executive officer of FamilySearch, expressed optimism about the success of this new conference.

“The purpose of RootsTech is to encourage innovative technology solutions in the fields that have a bearing on genealogists,” said Verkler. Innovation can make it easier for people to find their ancestors, he explained.

“RootsTech grew out of an effort Brigham Young University began several years ago with its Conference on Computerized Family History and Genealogy,” said Paul Nauta, FamilySearch spokesperson. “BYU is now a key partner in this new conference.”

In addition to FamilySearch and BYU, other conference sponsors are Microsoft, Dell, Ancestry.com, brightsolid, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the Federation of Genealogical Societies, and the National Genealogical Society.

Yours truly will moderate two open discussion sessions. And I’ll report on the conference in the days to come. Maybe I’ll tweet, maybe I won’t.

Stay tuned…

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