RootsTech Connect

 After attending every RootsTech for the past 10 years, this year will be different!  Like every Conference in the past year, this one will be virtual.   While I'm happy so many new people from around the world will be able to participate, I will miss the crowds, comraderie, classes and vendors.  

And mostly, I will miss the opportunity to spend a few extra days in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.  I have spent many a happy day and night trolling through microfilms, becoming lost in my family tree!

I've seen a preview of the RootsTech Connect platform, classes, key notes, etc and I think it will be great. I particularly like the idea that I can watch at my leisure, and dip into classes that I wouldn't have time to do if we were in person in Salt Lake City.  It's always a dilemma over which classes to go to, when there are multiple classes of interest at the same time.   

Things I won't miss:

    Queueing for a seat, queueing for a bathroom

    Enduring a room that is too cold, too hot, too stuffy, and too crowded

    Struggling to hear a presenter and enduring technical glitches

    Racing from one end of the Salt Palace to the other through huge slow moving crowds

    The cold Salt Lake City weather

Things I will miss:

    Meeting cousins and friends

    The Expo Hall and ability to chat with the experts

    The Family History Library

    The buzz of being around thousands of people who share my passion

    The complete immersion for days on end, totally focused on genealogy

    

I look forward to blogging about the positives/negatives of a virtual RootsTech after it's over. I have confidence that FamilySearch will do a great job of pulling it off -- and I hope that in the future we can have a hybrid model, with both in person and virtual options!