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Relatives at RootsTech Returns!!!

Roberta Estes

I’m so excited. Relatives at RootsTech is back. I gotta tell you – I LOVE Relatives at RootsTech!

Not only will you be able to find cousins for research collaboration, but also cousins for DNA testing and matching.

Here’s the link.

You’ll need to sign in and sign up to be included.

So far, more than 43,000 people have connected, up from just 25,220 two days ago.

If you keep scrolling down, you can view the hometowns of attendees, too, if they’ve elected to display that location.

Join the RootsTech Event

You’ll be prompted to sign into FamilySearch or create an account if you don’t have one.

Signing up for FamilySearch is super easy and there are many great records for genealogists.


I choose not to make my location public, but others do. It’s nice that we get to choose.

How many of your relatives have joined?

Two days ago, 2,577 of my relatives had signed up, but today, it’s 4.452.

Are you one of them? Are we related?

Here’s the link to see if you’re related to me. (Please note, we genealogists just might have swamped their system. If the link doesn’t work, try later.)

FamilySearch does the heavy lifting for us, comparing our trees. Of course, as with all genealogy trees, both people need to verify accuracy.

You can share your link in various ways.

There are several social media options.

I’m posting to Facebook.

View Your Relatives

Click on View Relatives.

You can view relatives by location, ancestor, or family line. You can also search by attendee.

Your first view is by map, which may be useful if your ancestors haven’t moved much. Maybe one of those cousins can visit the courthouse – hint, hint!

I’m more interested in my relatives by ancestor though.

I’m hopeful that most of them have taken DNA tests.

For genealogy, it is critically important to locate current descendants who descend from males via the Y chromosome, which is generally the surname line.

Why? You can confirm or refute lineage and learn about history before surnames. You don’t know what you don’t know – and what we think we know isn’t always accurate.

Mitochondrial DNA descends from females through all females to the current generation, which can be male or female. Relatives at RootsTech is a wonderful tool to locate testing candidates or people who may have already taken those tests.

Let’s start with Margaret Herrell. I only share one relative who is signed up for RootsTech, who descends from Margaret.

I view our trees back to Margaret, chat, or leave a message for my newly-discovered cousin. It looks like they have photos. Hmmmm….

Fortunately, I already have Margaret’s mitochondrial DNA information, but I’m searching for descendants of other ancestors to offer them DNA testing scholarships for Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA.

Next, I can view by family line.

If any of these cousins have taken autosomal DNA tests, this tells me exactly which line we share in common.

Now, there’s just a little rain on this parade plus a bit of an umbrella. Two days ago, I had 701 relatives through my grandmother, Edith Barbara Lore’s line.

Today, I have 1,277. That’s great, except I can only view 300.

Regardless, I can only see a maximum of 300 per line in closest to most distant order. I had hoped this maximum would be expanded this year. However, this is why it’s really important to start viewing today and continue until the end of March. You don’t want people to “fall off” that viewable list that’s conveniently separated by ancestor for you.

Next, you can search by attendee name.

Try surnames or partial names. Some partial names seem to work, and some don’t. For example, I’ll search by the surname of any Y-DNA lines for which I need a representative.

I created a spreadsheet last year to track my Relatives at RootsTech and how we are related. I’m going to add to that spreadsheet this year.

I do have some specific goals in mind. For example, I hope to find a cousin I’m related to through Ollie Bolton, my grandmother’s lineage, who carries her mitochondrial DNA.

How can you utilize Relatives at RootsTech? What are your plans?

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