Author Archives: Roberta Estes

About Roberta Estes

Scientist, author, genetic genealogist. Documenting Native Heritage through contemporaneous records and DNA.

RootsTech 2024: Paradigm Shift – FamilySearch Knocks It Out of the Ballpark With Full Text AI Search, Transcription & Indexing

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RootsTech 2024 kicked off on Leap Day, offering a wealth of sessions with remarkable depth and diversity.

All of the RootsTech keynotes and some of the sessions are available, here, for free. You’ll find them on the RootsTech YouTube channel as well.

This year’s RootsTech theme was “Remember.” I really encourage everyone to view Steve Rockwood’s keynote welcome, which, as always, is incredible and made me cry. Steve always makes me cry, but this time, he made himself cry too. Trust me when I tell you that, as a speaker, there’s nothing more difficult than trying to regain your composure on stage in front of thousands of people.

You’ll love this, though, so watch, please.

Well, now that you’re all blubbery, too, let’s move to tech.

FamilySearch Tech Forum

I was eagerly awaiting the FamilySearch Tech Forum, but I never expected what was in store. This knocked my socks off.

The panel discussed, among other topics, how they are utilizing generative AI, artificial intelligence, to preserve and reveal the records that we need to access.

Don’t let the word “AI” scare you. FamilySearch has been working on this project for more than a year and it’s working quite well in the way that they’ve implemented it.

They introduced us to the new technology roadmap and told us to buckle up for an innovative journey. I’m all strapped in and can hardly wait. Fortunately, we don’t have to.

The new FamilySearch AI tools provide more than a roadmap. It’s more like the galaxy just opened up.

The AI field is marked by explosive growth with the ability for Deep Learning. FamilySearch is harnessing this energy for genealogists.

FamilySearch has implemented a full-text search AND transcription capability in its lab sandbox. Additionally, every handwritten document that it transcribes is also indexed and, in some cases, translated.

They are using LLMs (large language models) and GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) systems to enable this technology.

In a nutshell, these AI systems are trained to recognize both words and script and to predict which words are most likely to come next.

This incredibly powerful mixture is only the beginning, though.

FamilySearch envisions creating family trees for entire cities and countries.

Be still my heart.

Can you imagine the power of a combination of probate records, wills, property records, census, vital records and the trees that can be created and verified FROM those records?

This technology will also facilitate comprehensive views of ancestry across entire regions with the capability of uniting people across the globe.

Holy COW.

I sat in stunned silence, unable to believe what I was hearing.

But they weren’t finished.

They’ve also built new search tools.

There are two types of searching. Let’s look at the second type first.

FamilySearch Helper

FamilySearch built a prototype, FamilySearch Helper, to help you. 

The new search tool includes the 100,000 FamilySearch wiki pages, the FamilySearch blog, and the resources at over 5000 Family History Centers.

To begin using the new tools, go to FamilySearch.org and sign in. Then scroll down until you see the FamilySearch Labs box on the right.

Click on “View Experiments,” and voila!

Next, click on the Find Help box.

This new search tool provides links across knowledge articles on multiple platforms.

Just type something in and try it.

I’m sure you noticed the other options. In fact, by now I’ve probably lost most of my readers because they clicked on that Full Text Search button.

Let’s go there next.

Full-Text Search

The Full-Text Search is a tool created for working with unindexed images, many of which are plagued by a variety of issues, including:

  • Poor quality image
  • Horrible handwriting
  • Lack of structure
  • Dense text
  • Just too many

Now, full text transcripts, searches and indexing are available with the click of a button. This is truly a genealogist’s dream come true. The results aren’t 100% yet, but WOW.

Just type what you want to know. I typed, “Joel Cook in Russell County, Virginia” to see if there’s anything more about this ancestor.

Look at this awful image quality. On the right is part of the transcription. The AI tool did amazingly well, certainly enough for me to determine that this is indeed the Joel Cook for whom I was searching. These documents, especially in deeds, not only index the grantee and grantor, but every name in the document.

Game-changer is an understatement.

Their example utilized Thomas Colson.

You’ll be presented with options. The presenter knew that Thomas Colson was from Massachusetts, so she clicked on that deed, which was, in fact, her ancestor.

100 million records are now available for full-text search, and that number grows every single day.

Collections available to be indexed include:

  • US Land and Probate

  • Mexican Notarial records
  • Plantation Records

Plantation, land, and probate records often include the names and locations of enslaved individuals. I’m helping my cousin track his enslaved ancestors, and this is an incredible boon to that research. I think I’ve found his ancestors in a probate record.

FamilySearch will take every unindexed image and run it through their full-text search AI tool over the next several years. I hope they’ll do this with records that are only partially indexed as well.

This process pairs the power of human volunteers and AI. Humans still need to adjust things a bit, and you can volunteer to help with that as well.

Please click the feedback link and be helpful and KIND!!

Speaking of AI

I took a series of classes in the fall from Steve Little who is teaching AI through the National Genealogical Society.

You can watch one of Steve’s instructional videos in the NGS RootsTech booth, here.

I remember that he mentioned that if a transcript is available for a video, one could copy and paste the transcript into AI tools such as ChatGPT or Claude and prompt the model for a bulletized summary.

I was disappointed that RootsTech did not provide transcriptions for their videos. Considering their announcement, I find that to be highly ironic, and it made me laugh.

How do you know if a transcript is available?

Here’s a great 1-minute video about how to find a transcript on a YouTube video. If a transcript were present, I could use AI to summarize and not have to watch the parts of videos that I don’t want/need. Of course, if you use the transcript tool, you’ll miss out on the accompanying slides, so beware. However, transcripts come with a timestamp, so you can scan the transcript and then view the slides at the time marker in the video.

The RootsTech videos don’t have an included transcript, but FamilySearch has posted the videos on YouTube too, so I have a second chance. I didn’t find any transcripts there either, so I asked Steve if I was missing something.

Indeed, I was. Steve provided a wonderful little summary for me showing how to generate a transcript if there isn’t one.

Normally, if transcripts exist, they will be found under the little three dots (…) at far right, beneath the image.

It never occurred to me to look for a generate transcript option under the video’s description. I think I clicked literally everywhere else hunting for this.

Thanks, Steve!

Steve follows AI passionately, and you can subscribe to Steve’s free blog, here.

I encourage everyone to take Steve’s AI classes.

Your Turn

If I haven’t lost you already to the FamilySearch full-text search feature, try it now. What fun things are you finding? This new tool is more than a game-changer; it’s a paradigm shift.

Which record types would you like to see next?

I’d like to see court record transcripts, which are almost never transcribed and indexed. There are nuggets of gold there, too. One of my ancestors’ probate and estate information is missing, but by reading every entry page by page, I found his death month and year in the court records. Soon, reading page by page will be like viewing census records on an old hand-cranked microfilm machine. I can hardly wait!

I’m planning to search for each of my ancestors’ names to see if they are mentioned in records that I don’t know about. So far, I’ve found unknown entries for every person I’ve entered. Maybe I can finally unravel some of those mystery wives. Maybe you can too!

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Honoré Lore’s Land and His Neighbor’s Farm – 52 Ancestors #420

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My friend, Suzanne Lesage, successfully located the land of Honoré Lore mentioned in his estate in 1818.

In essence, she has achieved what I believed to be impossible and, in doing so, has brought Honoré back to life through his land. Thank you, thank you, Suzanne!!

I had emailed Suzanne about something else when I received this reply.

Your personal e-mail gives me the opportunity to give you information regarding where the Lord [family] lived. One link is the list of concessions of la Baronnie de Longueuil – Honoré Laure at the bottom of the page – no lot number of course, but we know it is the second concession. The second link is an image of the village of Ste-Marguerite de Blairfindie in 1917 – from the picture I vote for number 114. Why? Second one on the list – no frontage (lot is pie shaped) and half the area of his neighbour.

What path led Suzanne to Honoré?

The Path to Honoré

Suzanne discovered two critical documents at the Quebec Archives, here and the corresponding map, here.

The first document is the land register of the Barony of Longueuil in 1857.

Honoré’s entry is noted as being in the second concession on the south side of La Rivière Montréal.

This map, created much later, shows all of the lots.

Click to enlarge images

On this 1917 map, you can see the River in the center, running left to right. The second concession is located in the bottom center, with the road running left to right, transecting the lots. That’s often how farms were laid out initially for convenience. Roads didn’t try to avoid farms but ran through them. This map is NOT oriented with the north at the top.

Grande Ligne, a landmark, is at left.

Based on the land descriptions, Suzanne pinpointed lot 114, which fortuitously just happens to be just to the right of a distinctive divot in the road.

Can we find it today?

Indeed we can, and here’s the divot.

Indeed, we find the divot and align the map with Grande Ligne, which becomes important to Honoré’s wife’s story for another reason.

Let’s take a virtual drive.

Driving Around

With this divot as our landmark, we can see the triangle-shaped lots that correlate to the hand-drawn map.

I’ve drawn arrows pointing to the borders of the land we believe to be Honoré’s.to the right (east side) of the road. It looks like he owned a few feet on the left side of the road as well.

Honoré bought his land in July of 1789 and must have been overjoyed! After 47 years, he finally had a place called home. He may have eventually owned more than this one parcel.

Corn graces Honoré’s field, now as it did then.

This house stands on his land, but it’s very unlikely that it dates from the late 1700s or early 1800s unless some portion of an older structure is buried underneath. What is likely is that his house stood here.

We know that Honoré had at least one barn on the property along with livestock. His 1818 estate inventory showed that he had 200 sheaves of oats, 1000 sheaves of corn, and 600 bales of hay. That’s a lot!

Today, the address is 461 Chem des Ormes, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, but when Honoré lived here, everyone knew where everyone else lived and who the neighbors were. No one needed addresses.

Many Acadians who settled in L’Acadie in Quebec had been brutally expelled from Acadia, Nova Scotia, in 1755 during Le Grand Derangement, so they were bonded, if not by blood, then by a shared experience. Even half a century later, no one had forgotten any part of that history, nor would they, their children or grandchildren. Many didn’t survive. Honoring their shared heritage was to honor their memories. They wanted to stay together, so they settled with other Acadians.

Honore and his wife, Appoline Garceau, had settled here by 1787, but she died shortly thereafter, and in May of 1788, he remarried to Suzanne Lafaille, the younger sister of his eldest son’s wife.

Those families lived on the same road.

On the Way to Church

Various records show Honoré and his family across the generations attending both Sainte-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie in the L’Acadie/Blairfindie community and St. Luc Catholic Church in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu beginning in 1801. A document detailing the area’s history can be found here.

Honoré and his family would have either walked or climbed into a wagon or maybe a buggy if they were lucky, and traversed the 5 miles or so to church every Sunday and on special occasions such as funerals.

On their way to Ste. Marguerite, they would have passed the Joseph Roy farm, with its stone home and matching barn across the road. Barns were generally larger than their owners’ homes.

Thirsty travelers and their steeds would have been welcome to drink from the well that still exists beside the road. Today, there’s a hand pump.

Ste. Marguerite was closer than St. Luc, so the family attended Ste. Marguerite from 1787 when they arrived until St. Luc was built in 1801. Family members are buried in both cemeteries.

I still wonder what prompted that shift, especially given that Honore Sr.’s adult children and grandchildren were still attending Ste. Marguerite.

You can drive down that same road today, tracing Honoré’s path through the countryside to Ste. Marguerite which was located near the river in L’Acadie. Of course, the roads were dirt paths then, just wide enough for a wagon.

The Bourassa Farm

Down the road a bit, very near if not adjacent Honoré’s land, this quaint old home and barn has a sign outside saying #56 and 1812, which dates this house to that time.

Acadian families were quite large, but their homes were small by today’s standards.

You can read about the Bourassa home, here, along with other landmarks on the Circuit of Heritage Homes, beginning at the Saint-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie church, where the family attended before 1801.

Life in L’Acadie

Honoré’s home probably looked a lot like this one, which is known to have been built prior to 1812. His estate revealed that despite having at least 23 children over a span of 48 years with three wives, there were only two feather beds, a hutch, a chest, and a wardrobe, along with 11 dishes. His wives would have cooked on the “small cast iron stove,” which may have provided additional heat during the cold Quebec winters. He had both a table and an old table, but only four chairs.

Based on the furnishings, Honoré’s house was small, too, but it would have been a mansion for a man born before the Acadians were evicted from Nova Scotia in 1755. He and his family wandered the colonies for two decades he fought in New York in the Revolutionary War. A decade later, the family arrived in Quebec. Any home,no matter how small, would be a Godsend when you’ve had nothing for so long.

In Honoré’s 1818 estate settlement, we find the following information, using Google Translate:

Only an undivided sixth part [marginal addition: in the equally undivided half] of a land of 3 acres of frontage out of 30 acres [arpents] of depth, located in the lordship de la Prairie La Madeleine, holding from the front to the path which leads to St Jean, in depth by representing Pierre Noël Terrien, on one side to the widow François Brosseau and on the other hand to Victor Girouard, and a similar part of the buildings built on it.

Is Francois Brosseau in this document actually Francois Bourassa? It’s possible, but based on these families at WikiTree, I don’t think so. A misspelling is always possible, though, especially since we know the Bourassa family lived in very close proximity.

Honoré Lore began traveling to Saint Luc in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu after that church was built in 1801, but his son, also named Honoré Lore/Lord, continued attending Ste. Marguerite.

My mother’s great-grandfather, Antoine Lore, was born to Honoré Jr. and Marie Lafay/Lafaille and was baptized at Ste. Marguerite, above, in 1805. Antoine would have spent his childhood visiting his grandparents, working and playing in these beautiful fields. He assuredly visited the Bourassa home and knew their children and grandchildren well.

I can’t help but wonder if Honoré Lore Sr.’s son, Honoré Lore Jr., lived on the same land that his father owned. Honore Jr. would have been 50 years old when his father died in 1818. I don’t know if Honore Jr. actually lived here, but I do know he purchased his siblings’ shares of his father’s land.

This location is also confirmed by a secondary indirect source. Honore Jr’s wife, Marie Lafaille, regularly walked to the Protestant Mission at Grande Ligne, reportedly a distance of 2 leagues, or about 6 miles.

If they did not live on the exact same farm as Honore Sr., their home would have been somewhere between Honore’s land and Menard, in the red box above, which would be about 6 miles as described in the Grand Ligne Mission’s documents.  

The Bourassa land is just up and across the road. Are Bourassa and Francois Brosseau in Honoré Lore’s estate settlement one and the same individual?

The Bourassa family is shown in the first entries on the following page in the land register, immediately following Honoré’s name.

Notice that Jean-Baptiste Laure is listed, too, so at least some of this land, apparently down the road a bit, is indeed still in the family. Victor Dussault was married to Honoré Sr.’s daughter, Charlotte Marguerite Lore. J. B. Laure is probably Jean-Baptiste Laure, Charlotte’s brother.

Several members of the Lafaille family are recorded, beginning 11 properties further down the list. Both Honoré Lore Jr. and Honoré Sr. married Lafaille daughters, Honoré Sr. as his second wife. This tells us that their father, Francois Lafaille/Lafay, who died in 1824, probably lived on this same road somewhere between the Bourassa home and the church. Based on that property list, the Lafaille home was probably between the Bourassa home and present-day Menard, which grew up at the crossroads.

All of these families would have been in and out of each other’s homes. No one would have knocked, and there were no locks. In many places, especially rural locations, these customs remain to this day.

Within a generation or two, these neighbors up and down the road were all related if they weren’t already when they settled there after more than a century in Acadia and more than two decades in exile.

Finding Honoré’s land and the neighboring Bourassa home allows my mind to drift back more than two hundred years when surrounding trees were being felled for teams of French-speaking men to build cabins and barns as the fields were cleared for planting. Well-manicured orchards replaced old-growth forest.

Honoré’s neighborly arrival would have been heralded by the clip-clop of horses’ hooves and a friendly “Bonjour, Mon Ami” greeting shouted from horseback as he stopped out front to see if his neighbor needed a hand with something.

Honoré’s barn probably looked something like this initially, or maybe he eventually built a stone structure like the Roy barn. It needed to be rather large, sheltering his 18 hens, 9 pairs of turkeys, and 6 young pigs that were the offspring of three old pigs. He was fattening one pig. He also had 8 old sheep and 5 young ones, along with three horses and an old carriage. We don’t know their names, which would have been French, of course, but he had one white horse, one black horse, and one grey horse.

A cow with a broken horn lived in Honoré’s barn, too, along with a red cow with a black nose, a red cow, a brown cow, and one that was red and white. He also had 4 heifers which are cows that have yet to give birth. They probably were the offspring of the other cows.

His two oxen would have been trained to work together as a team and pull the plow in the field.

When Honoré was done helping or visiting with his neighbor, he would have mounted his horse and headed for home, just over the horizon, his house perhaps sheltered behind a few protective trees as a windbreak.

Old trees still stand sentry and line the path along the road in front of the old Acadian homesteads or where they stood.

If you close your eyes, you can still hear Honoré’s galloping horse as he disappears in the distance around the curve in a cloud of dust.

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RootsTech 2024 Happy Dance – FamilySearch Library and RootsTech Setup

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Monday, February 26th, dawned in Salt Lake City with beautiful blue skies. I was excited to walk the couple blocks to the FamilySearch Library. Come along with me!

I was planning to chase a few ancestors and had created a research list.

The iconic “salt shaker” of the Salt Palace with its “Point of View” unity signs, which is a permanent art exhibit, greeted me as I exited the hotel.

Fittingly, the Art Museum is next door in an attached building.

It was chilly and windy, but we’ll term it “refreshing,” especially since it became much colder later in the week.

Five minutes or so later, I was outside of my home-away-from-home, genealogy Mecca, the FamilySearch Library. I love this place!

Library Research – A Strategy List Pays Off

I always create a research list using the FamilySearch wiki and catalog. I only include items I can’t access from home. I don’t want to waste valuable time in Salt Lake City working on things I can do elsewhere.

This time, I was planning to work on a few stragglers who have proven incredibly difficult, and then a line that I had hardly touched.

I quickly found the land grant survey of my Joel Cook in Russell County, Virginia, then moved on to the Hill line out of New Hampshire.

I know that my Joseph Hill was born in Barrington, Strafford County, New Hampshire on September 2, 1791. Of course, like many families, several people were named the same name and often lived at the same time in the same place. They have to be sorted, one from another.

Joseph’s father, John Hill, was born about 1737 in Durham, Strafford County, New Hampshire, and died in 1804 in Barrington, New Hampshire.

John’s father, Henry Hill, was born about 1700, in Black River, near Dover, also in Strafford County.

The line continued, at least ostensibly, through William and his father, William, in Durham and Dover, both in Strafford County.

Was there evidence of this?

I met my cousin, Audrey, at the library in the morning.

She had previously recruited two Hill men, and we ordered Big Y-700 DNA tests for them. Their results were back, so I explained how to use the Big Y-700 and Discover tools and what we could discern. Fortunately, we confirmed our lineage.

We have more work ahead of us, but we do have two English matches, in different locations in England. I’m hoping that additional research and perhaps upgrading these men to Big Y tests will provide us with a location in England that might yield birth or other records for our Hill line.

By this time, we were ready for lunch.

Audrey and I made our way to the main floor of the library from the third floor, where we had been working.

It was still three days before RootsTech, and the place was already packed.

It did my heart good to see all those genealogists working hard and helping each other. I noticed several young people too.

During Covid-time, the library renovated and installed a very nice lunch or break area with several tables and vending machines. Nice vending machines. There’s a selection of frozen and cold food items, plus a microwave and complimentary paper plates and silverware. They also provide a clean refrigerator so you can bring your own lunch.

There’s no place nearby to eat anymore, and it’s a cold walk anyplace.

Plus, you really have to pack everything up, including your laptop, which disrupts your research. It’s much better to just grab food in the convenient snack area and chat for a few minutes.

Back upstairs, I began sifting through books and other wonderful resources. However, what I initially thought was a book turned out to be the most exciting revelation of my research.

The great irony is that I almost bypassed this item because I didn’t think that “Dover Neck Village” was the right location for my families. Fortunately, I always at least take a cursory look at everything because I learned long ago that it’s better to waste a little time than miss something critical.

One resource available only in the library is a map of Dover Neck Village, which was reconstructed in 1912 (for some reason) by local officials. The map shows the locations of the landmarks and residences of citizens between 1623 and 1723.

The library has a special map room that is AMAZING!

You can take the map to scan various stations on other floors.

The challenge was that this map was huge – probably at least 18X36. I wish I had taken a picture of myself holding it.

None of the scan stations could accommodate a map of that size.

However, this lovely young man who is serving his mission at the library knew of a way to help me. I’m INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL.

Joseph Gongaware had just finished some advanced training in the library’s “Memory” area, where patrons can bring their family photos and other memorabilia to scan and preserve.

You can see the scanner behind him, with the map partially hanging off of one side.

Joseph scanned the map in portions and digitally stitched the pieces back together.

It took him several tries, but when he was finished, it was perfect – as in, you really can’t tell that it was “stitched” back together other than the slight color variation. The text and lines are perfect.

Click to enlarge map

I am over the moon ecstatic.

Of course, I wouldn’t be quite that happy if my ancestors weren’t on the map.

BOTH John Drew, the father of Hannah Drew, and William Roberts, the father of Hannah Roberts, are shown on this map. Oh, happy day!!!

There’s one more hint too.

William Hill’s father, John Hill, was reported to have died in Kittery, Maine. Could this be the right parent for William, who was clearly in Dover, NH, given that he married Hannah Roberts?

Look, the location of the ferry to “Old Kittery” is marked, so this does in fact make sense, even though they are two different states.

This map is a goldmine in so many ways. The old Quaker Meeting House is marked too, as are other landmarks my family would have frequented, like the tannery, the old road, the ox pasture, the sheep pasture, the physician, the training ground, the old log meeting house, and ultimately, the “Oldest buring (sic) ground.”.

I literally wanted to jump up and do the happy dance right there in the library.

And you know what, every single person would have understood.

If you have a thumb drive, you can save the files to the drive. If you don’t have a thumb drive, they give you one!!

Seriously!

You might notice that I didn’t know the identity of Hannah Roberts’ parents before this trip, but I do now.

I was super excited, but I was also tired after a day of research, and this seemed like a good stopping point.

On the way back to the hotel, I noticed that there was still ice on those poor Pansys that had been planted a bit too early.

The Nordstrom’s window made me laugh out loud. I do believe this is a Florida man.

The Blue Iguana

I dropped my laptop bag off at the hotel and decided to eat at one of my favorite restaurants, the legendary Blue Iguana.

I knew if I didn’t visit before RootsTech, we would never get in. It’s very popular because it’s close and has excellent food.

The Blue Iguana is about a block away and quite unique. The restaurant is down a flight of steep blue steps enclosed by glass. The great news is that there’s a sturdy banister. The bad news is that it’s not handicapped-friendly.

I took this photo from above, looking down into the patio.

Looking off the other side of the steps here. You can see their reflection in the window.

The flowers are plastic, of course, but they are bright and cheery.

Color always warms my heart and makes me happy.

The inside is warm and inviting.

And the food is AWESOME. Who would think you’d find great Tex-Mex in Utah, of all places? I think these are my second-favorite tacos ever – and the first place doesn’t exist anymore.

Audrey and I enjoyed ourselves immensely. It’s a lot of fun having a research partner who is also interested in genetic genealogy.

Fine-Tuning Presentations

Arriving back at the hotel, I saw something I’ve never seen before.

You’ve heard of that mythical money tree? This is a donut tree. The chocolate donuts were to die for. Unfortunately, there were no chocolate donuts for the rest of the week.

Beginning now, evenings would be consumed with fine-tuning my presentations.

I’ve never given a RootsTech session that’s 2.5 hours long before, and I wanted it to be perfect. Pacing 1 hour is hard enough. You want to move fast enough but not too fast.

Plus, vendors are well known to modify their products or webpages just before RootsTech – so I had to check everything.

And there’s always that elusive spelling error just lurking.

I fell into a fitful sleep, worrying about PowerPoints that didn’t work and hotel doors that wouldn’t open. I woke up at 4:25 a.m.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???

At least as the sun came up, it was another beautiful blue-sky day!

Cold Tuesday 

Tuesday morning was downright cold and windy. Icy gusts swept through the valley.

I had to stop at the light, and I looked across the street to see someone riding one of those “lime” rental scooters.

I shivered thinking how cold they must be, then thought to myself that I’d surely fall off. Based on their bag, I surmised that they were probably a genealogist heading for the FamilySearch Library, which would be opening in a minute or two.

Wait!!!

Isn’t that Audrey???

It sure is! I’m impressed. She is one brave lady! She said she went about 3 blocks in 3 minutes and it cost her $3.

You pay via Paypal and just drop the scooter off out of the way when you’re finished.

On Tuesday, the library was jam-packed. In the front, the staff had set up folding tables and chairs in any open space.

Tuesday is always the day for broadcasts, podcasts, and, previously, the bloggers’ lunch.

However, the Blue Lemon, where we used to gather, closed, and the blogger group walked back to the mall. I was really torn. I was heads-down in New Hampshire, and I wanted to go to the lunch, but I didn’t want to go.

New Hampshire won, but I missed my friends.

Everyone loves those great MyHeritage bags. They are sturdy, lightweight and fold up easily for travel. This year’s bag didn’t have DNA on the outside.

Do you have any old discs with known or unknown files but no way to read them? Audrey brought these and the library retrieved the files off of the old, years-obsolete diskettes.

Keep that in mind!

Lunch took place in the snack room again, catching up with people I hadn’t seen in a least a year.

I wish I could share the energy with you. The utter joy at spotting someone you know.

And even if it isn’t “you,” just watching other people joyfully greet each other.

Once again, the library stayed open late, but I was at a good stopping place and decided to return to the hotel and finalize my presentations.

I noticed the signs had been placed on the sidewalk between the library and the Salt Palace. Early festivities began the following day, Wednesday. During RootsTech, FamilySearch provides a free shuttle golf cart between the facilities.

I had planned to go back to the library on Wednesday, but I never made it.

Walking back from the library, the wind had begun to blow, and snow was in the air. We were just hoping for not-too-much snow.

The new silver high-rise Hyatt dwarfs the salt shaker now. I wanted to stay there until I saw the $450 per night price. Wow!

Setup and Speaker’s Dinner

On Wednesday, I had lunch with a friend and then headed over to the Salt Palace to pick up my lanyard and nametag.

In the past, the registration lines have been hours long, and I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t stranded in a line with more than 200 speakers later that evening.

The staff was putting the final touches on the hall as the speakers arrived for the Speaker’s Dinner.

Steve Rockwood, the FamilySearch CEO, welcomed us and spoke briefly.

Seldom is one person skilled in both leadership and speaking, but Steve definitely is that person. He’s one of the most inspirational speakers I’ve had the privilege of hearing.

This year, his message was about RootsTECH, with TECH emphasized. He talked about the inspiration for a technology-focused conference. The first RootsTech was held in 2011, and has technology ever morphed since then.

Of course, genetic genealogy has become increasingly important and prevalent. It went from a novelty to a comprehensive and critical tool in the genealogist’s toolbox. Today, AI for genealogy is bursting onto the scenes, too, and holds incredible promise.

New technologies and new tools!

It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been to exactly half of the RootsTech conferences.

After the dinner concluded, I joined another speaker who had access to the Expo Hall which wouldn’t be open until RootsTech officially opened its doors the following morning, welcoming genealogists by the thousands from around the world.

My first commitment on Thursday morning was a book signing in the My Genealogy Books booth for my DNA for Native American Genealogy book.

Unfortunately, there were some glitches with the Expo Hall vendor map, and their booth was not shown, so I definitely wanted to be sure I knew where I was going ahead of time. I hoped other people could find it the next day, in spite of being omitted from the map.

The hall was eerily quiet.

The vendors’ booths were, for the most part, all ready for the crowds who would begin streaming in at 8 AM and fill the space with their excited, happy voices.

Final touches were being applied to some booths, and the Salt Palace staff was still rolling out the carpets that would attempt to soften the concrete floors. One of the FamilyTreeDNA staff told me that she walked 60 miles in three days last year. I didn’t walk nearly that far, but 20 wouldn’t surprise me, and I felt every step of it!

By morning, everything would be pristine.

I didn’t manage to get a photo of the many RootsTech helpers, but hundreds of FamilySearch volunteers made navigating this huge conference center much less confusing. Donning shirts that asked, “How can I help you?”, they directed many confounded genealogists in the direction they needed to go.

The RootsTech staff and volunteers really do go out of their way to help everyone and make RootsTech a world-class experience.

Tomorrow would be here before I knew it.

And yes, as all speakers do, I reviewed my slides – again.

I had two book signings, two presentations and two ask-me-anything (AMA) sessions on opening day. I also hoped to attend a couple of classes.

Was I nervous? Of course – this conference is huge. It’s the granddaddy of them all. No one wants to mess up or make a mistake, or, heaven forbid, have a technology issue.

And we know, for a fact, that Murphy takes up residence here during RootsTech week.

We also know that our fellow genealogists have our back.

We know that other speakers will help as much as possible. Every single one of us has been on both ends of that.

We know that the RootsTech staff and our room ushers are there for us. They are amazing!

We know that we can go to the Speaker Ready Room and have a moment if we need to, or take a Tylenol, grab a water, or a quick snack.

Most importantly, we know that everyone else at RootsTech is as excited as we are, and everything will be just fine. Just keep repeating that to yourself!

What no one does is sleep well the night before RootsTech opens. We are all just too excited!

_____________________________________________________________

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RootsTech 2024 – MyHeritage is ON FIRE with 13 Announcements

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I’ve got to tell you, MyHeritage has outdone themselves.

I had a hard time just keeping track of their announcements, which totaled 13 – a baker’s dozen.

You can watch the MyHeritage RootsTech keynote by Aaron Godfrey, here.

However, there are a few things not in the video, so let’s take a look at a quick summary of what’s new.

DNA Uploads with Free Advanced Tools Forever Extended Until March 10th

MyHeritage just extended their DNA upload that includes ALL ADVANCED TOOLS FOR FREE, forever, to March 10th so click here now to upload every kit you manage. This is a great deal. Hint – new ethnicity results are coming soon and you’ll be saving $29 on each kit you upload.

20+ Billion Records

MyHeritage has just passed the 20 billion record mark and is continuing to add. That’s billion, with a B. These records are available to customers with a MyHeritage subscription. If you don’t have a subscription, you can try a MyHeritage Subscription with a Free Trial, here.,

Additionally, right now, subscriptions are 50% off, but I don’t know how long that price lasts.

I love my MyHeritage subscription, and if you try it and don’t like yours, you can cancel and be charged nothing during the 14-day trial period.

I particularly like that the local newspaper where my grandparents lived is available on MyHeritage, and no place else. In addition, MyHeritage has integrated with FamilySearch, which is digitizing and indexing records like wildfire. That collaboration has provided me with information from European sources, including archives.

MyHeritage Wiki

MyHeritage has been working on their new Wiki, a community encyclopedia for genealogy and DNA, for almost a year now, although it was only recently released.

Photo courtesy of MyHeritage

I’ve been honored to write several articles for the newly announced MyHeritage Wiki, including the definition of DNA itself:

Take a look at the new Wiki, here.

You can filter in a number of ways, and you can even sign up to be a contributor.

Check out their blog article, here.

AI Record Finder

The AI Record Finder is the world’s first AI chat-based search engine for historical records.

I should probably tell you that, at this point in time, I do use AI, such as ChatGPT, very cautiously, and I’m inherently suspicious because AI tools sometimes hallucinate. It’s a new technology with lots of glitches and unknowns, so let’s see how MyHeritage is using this tool. It should be much more reliable since it’s in a controlled environment. I need to be convinced. 😊

The AI Record Finder is under the Research Menu. Just type your question about your ancestor.

I’m cheating and giving MyHeritage a tough one. I typed, “Please tell me about Solomon Ferwerda, who died in 1768 in Groningen, the Netherlands.”

MyHeritage returned three possibilities in their database, including their affiliated databases. One is a MyHeritage tree and two are records from FamilySearch.

Don’t limit yourself at this point.

I happen to know “my” Solomon is the first person, but I played around a bit before selecting the “right” Solomon. Why? Because there’s a lot that I don’t know about his life. It’s possible that the second and third records are ALSO the right person, so be sure to review everything.

Clicking on the middle or right record for Solomon shows that, indeed, this record from FamilySearch comes from the Dutch Archival Indexes, so it’s not “just someone’s tree.”

We do know the Ferwerda family is from Leeuwarden, but we don’t know when Solomon was born, nor if he was married twice. I only have the name of his second wife and one child, Jan, who was born the year he died.

The two FamilySearch Dutch archive records are from Leeuwarden, so maybe, just maybe, I’ve discovered something new about Solomon. How exciting!

I need to click through and check this out further.

I didn’t expect to like this tool, but so far, I really do. But wait – there’s more.

AI Ancestor Bio

You can click to have MyHeritage generate an AI bio of an ancestor for you.

The bio takes a few minutes to generate and will be available for download in the chat and will also be emailed to you. You can easily share with others. Getting other people interested in genealogy often encourages them to take a DNA test. DNA tests are still on sale for $39, here.

Solomon Ferwerda’s AI bio was completed quickly and arrived in pdf format. We know so little about him, I knew it would be short. I must say, I really enjoyed the “Historical Context” section that discussed the surrounding events that would have affected his life. That’s incredibly important and would have or could have influenced the decisions he made. Maybe the warfare and political unrest caused him to move from Leeuwarden to Groningen for some reason, where he died the year his son was born.

Here’s Solomon’s bio.

Here’s a link to the RootsTech lecture about the MyHeritage AI tools by Ran Snir, the VP of Product.

MyHeritage blog links for AI Record finder are here and here.

You can watch Telling Your Family’s Story with MyHeritage’s AI Features by Janna Helshtein at Legacy Family Tree Webinars, here.

I can’t wait to play with the MyHeritage AI tools more.

Updated Ethnicity Coming Soon

This is going to make a lot of people happy!

MyHeritage is in the process of updating their ethnicity results, increasing their regions from 42 to 80, with significantly optimized granularity in Europe. I initially misunderstood and thought the new results were available now, but they won’t arrive until summer.

I understand from talking to a Jewish friend involved in MyHeritage’s R&D effort that their own results are substantially improved and that they have now been placed in Armenia where their ancestors are from. They are no longer generically “Jewish.”

New Profile Pages with Hints

Daniel Horowitz said that everyone calls Smart Matches and Record Matches hints, so now MyHeritage has updated profile pages and is adding them to the profile page and officially calling them Hints.

You can still find Smart Matches and Record Matches listed separately under Discoveries, but on everyone’s profile, they are called Hints.

On Solomon’s profile page, scroll down to view his journey based on the information you’ve entered or accepted into your tree.

I did not yet add Leeuwarden, because I’m yet positive those records in Leewarden are his, but if I had, Leeuwarden would also be shown on his journey map. I’ll be incorporating these into my 52 Ancestors stories. I love maps! Maybe I can find old maps to include too,

You can read more about the new profiles and hints, here.

Tree Collaboration with FamilyTreeDNA

Aaron Godfrey announced tree collaboration with FamilyTreeDNA who pre-announced this at their conference in November.

I don’t have specific details about how it works, as this won’t happen for a few months yet, but FamilyTreeDNA customers will port their trees to MyHeritage which allows them to take advantage of MyHeritage’s record collections and such. Existing MyHeritage customers will simply connect their FamilyTreeDNA test to their MyHeritage tree.

FamilyTreeDNA has never been a “tree” company, so this means that users will have one less tree to maintain independently, and they can augment their research with records from MyHeritage.

I talked to Katy Rowe-Schurwanz, the Product Manager at FamilyTreeDNA to confirm that this is NOT a DNA transfer. FamilyTreeDNA matches still occur in the FamilyTreeDNA database, just like always, and MyHeritage matches still occur in the MyHeritage database. If you want matching in both databases, you still have to upload to or test at both. Only the trees are integrated, meaning when you click on a tree at  FamilyTreeDNA, you’ll see the tree displayed on MyHeritage.

The great news is that FamilyTreeDNA features such as Family Matching (bucketing) where you link your DNA matches at FamilyTreeDNA to their profile cards so that maternal/paternal bucketing occurs will still work the same way. The only difference will be that your tree will actually reside at MyHeritage and not at FamilyTreeDNA.

You’ll be able to enjoy the best of both worlds.

We will know more in a few months, and I’ll provide more details when I have them.

Invite Another MyHeritage User to View Your DNA Results

Aaron Godfrey said in the keynote that 2FA (two-factor authentication) at MyHeritage will become mandatory later this month, and with it, MyHeritage is adding the feature of being able to invite another MyHeritage user to view your DNA results. This allows people to collaborate more easily, especially if a different person is managing someone else’s DNA test.

Reimagine Multi-Photo Scanner App

This photo-scanning innovation is for your phone and allows you to scan photos and entire photo album pages – automatically separating and improving the photos. Then, of course, you just tag them to the proper person in your tree like any other photo.

Oh, and did I mention that Reimagine is free? I expected to have to pay when I downloaded the app, but I didn’t, probably because I have a full subscription.

Based on this article, Reimagine is not meant for other types of images, like pages of text or albums of clipped newspaper articles. But guess what? I downloaded the app, and it works just fine for those items! Hallelujah. How I wish I had this last week at the FamilySearch Library when I was finding pages in books I wanted to associate with a specific ancestor.

If you have album pages of photos to scan, this is golden and integrates with the profiles of people into your MyHeritage tree.

I really, really like the idea of having the ability to scan in the palm of my hand. That way if someone has a photo, you don’t have to try to take a photo of it. Gone are the days of literally dragging a laptop and scanner around with me when I’m traveling – just in case. Yes, I actually did and now I don’t have to anymore.

I cringe to think how many opportunities were lost to me before the days of laptops – but not now.

Thank you – THANK YOU, MyHeritage. What a great gift!

You can find the QR code to download the app, here.

OldNews is New News

MyHeritage has introduced a new website for old newspapers called OldNews which you can find here.

This addition doubles the number of newspapers previously available on MyHeritage.

Users can also subscribe separately to Old News for about $99/year.

MyHeritage customers use their normal credentials to sign in to either site, but accessing newspapers not previously integrated into MyHeritage will require an OldNews subscription too.

I had to try it. I entered my mother’s name.

Look, my Mom had a tonsillectomy. I never knew that. It was just a couple of months after she graduated from high school.

I didn’t know Mom spent the summer in Philadelphia, either. She was 19 at that time, and I had heard rumblings that she studied with a “prima ballerina” at the School of American Ballet. Guess where that is? Yep, Philly.

My Mom was a professional tap and ballet dancer before she became my Mom.

Understanding that Mom spent the summer of 1942 on the east coast sheds new light on this and a few other photos in Mom’s photo album, which I can now scan.

Ok, I can’t help myself. I have to enhance this photo at MyHeritage.

Much better. Another tiny piece of Mom’s life brought into focus.

I wonder what else is in OldNews that I don’t know about. Hmmmm…

You can read about OldNews here.

New All-Inclusive Omni Subscription

MyHeritage is launching a new Omni all-inclusive subscription plan that includes most of the MyHeritage products and tools, except for Filae, unless I’m missing something. Omni reportedly costs less than half the price if you were to subscribe to all of these individually. I’ve asked for a comparison chart which I don’t have yet, but I’m told will be coming soon.

Here’s what’s included:

Additionally, I asked MyHeritage about whether or not the advanced DNA tools are included with Omni, and they are. So, add advanced DNA tools to that list.

The following information about the Omni Plan is a screenshot from the MyHeritage blog article, here.

I have not been able to determine the price of an Omni subscription. At RootsTech, you were interested in the Omni plan, you submitted a Google form and a day or so later, you received this email.

I suspect MyHeritage needs to talk to you because how much it costs initially depends on your existing subscriptions, and how much time is left on those.

I reached out to MyHeritage and asked when Omni will be available to purchase, and the answer is “soon.” You can’t sign up just yet.

I have never subscribed to Legacy Family Tree Webinars, even though I’m a webinar presenter and have several webinars available there. My gift to myself is going to be Omni when it’s available because I want Legacy Family Tree Webinars, and I’d love a subscription to OldNews. I already have a full subscription to MyHeritage, and I’d probably use Geni more than I do as a casual user if I had the Omni subscription.

Artifact Testing – Maybe

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend CEO Gilad Japhet’s RootsTech session because his session and mine were at exactly the same time.

However, I asked Aaron Godfrey after Gilad’s session what I had missed that was not in Aaron’s keynote, other than Gilad’s wonderful stories.

Aaron and others told me that Gilad stated that he was personally submitting personal artifacts, such as stamps, to a third-party lab once again, to test the waters to see if DNA can now be extracted from artifacts successfully.

MyHeritage tried this a few years ago, ultimately unsuccessfully. Perhaps this time will be different, but I would not hold my breath, truthfully. Degraded DNA has quality issues, not to mention that the DNA extracted might not be the DNA of the person expected.

I would personally love this, but I am also skeptical at this point. Kudos to Gilad for trying again with his own personal items.

MyHeritage Online RootsTech Booth

MyHeritage has provided several educational videos in their online RootsTech booth, at this link. Be sure to take advantage of this free resource.

Whew, I’m finally done! I told you that MyHeritage had been very, very busy, and I wasn’t kidding. I hope I didn’t miss anything.

_____________________________________________________________

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RootsTech 2024 – Panic in the Cavern of Doom

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RootsTech is one of those events that speakers, vendors, RootsTech staff, and volunteers prepare for in an ever-increasing whirlwind for the 6 months before RootsTech actually takes place. I’m sure that the RootsTech staff starts next week for next year. At least, I sure hope they get a week or two of rest.

I can’t see behind the scenes of course, but I know that speakers begin submissions in about June and by the late fall, webinars have been recorded, syllabus documents are complete, and Powerpoint slides are well underway.

Vendors have been preparing for months too – planning their booths, videos and feature announcements.

RootsTech is the largest and most far-reaching genealogy conference in the world, offering hundreds of classes in a variety of formats. It’s one huge family reunion.

2024 was the best RootsTech ever. I think the years we missed in-person events due to Covid have made attendees incredibly grateful to see one another.

I know that not everyone can make the journey to Salt Lake City, so I’m going to take you along with me.

Including the misadventures😊

Sunday

The FamilySearch Library (FSL) is open Monday through Saturday with extended hours during RootsTech week. Many genealogists extend their RootsTech trip and visit the library! It’s like old-home week, with people hugging and then teaming up to collaborate.

That makes Sunday a travel day if you’re planning to research in the library on Monday through Wednesday. RootsTech opened on Thursday, February 29th, but for speakers, events began on Wednesday afternoon.

Saturday is packing day. Every single technology item needs to be checked and checked again. Trust me on this – Murphy LIVES at RootsTech, and he has been cloned because every speaker has some kind of issue that needs to be resolved.

The camaraderie is amazing as everyone helps everyone.

Kitters, one of our now-elderly rescue cats, wasn’t fond of me leaving and tried to pack herself in my suitcase. She missed slightly, but I clearly got the idea. She figured that if she didn’t look at me, I wouldn’t notice, and maybe she could go along!

I was excited and laid out my new chromosome leggings for the trip.

Jim made me a peanut butter English Muffin for breakfast on the way in the car. Trust me, I did not want to be awake.

My flight left hours before dawn, as in 5-something. I figured that my trip through the airport would be made at record speed. No one in their right mind would be there.

I still allowed almost 2 hours, as the airlines suggest – and guess what – I needed every minute of it.

I have never seen my home airport so jammed, with incredibly long lines both to check luggage and at the TSA. Everyone was grouchy, to say the least, passengers and staff alike.

I was afraid I’d miss my flight, but thankfully I didn’t. I even had five minutes or so to chat with another genealogist who was on the same flight.

I figured my “close call” for the week was over at this point.

Salt Lake City

I arrived in Salt Lake City and called an Uber. I’m not fond of snow, but snow on the mountains is beautiful, especially if it’s not in the city.

The ride from the airport into the city isn’t long – maybe 15-20 minutes.

Salt Lake City isn’t terribly large – tucked into a valley. You can see the mountains everyplace you look in SLC.

As we entered the city, I could see the familiar buildings on the left and right. The conference center is beside that tall silver building on the left.

I was getting excited!

It was only about 10 AM mountain time and I had been trying to arrange for early checking at the Marriott City Creek which is across the street from the convention center and a block or so away from the library where I would be spending the next two or three days.

I like that hotel because it has a Starbucks in the lobby, and the hotel’s location is super convenient, especially in inclement weather.

Because the RootsTech speaker rooms were reserved in a block, I could not change my reservation personally and had not actually been able to get ahold of a human who could alter my reservation – but I was lucky, and they did have a room that I could get into early.

I’ve developed a pattern, as have most repeat RootsTech attendees. Many of us walk to Harmons, the local grocery store, and grab snacks for the week. The food locally is quite expensive. The Salt Stone restaurant in the hotel is adequate, but I wanted snacks and something like Lunchables for the for the FSL. Nearby restaurants closed during Covid and never reopened. No one wants to take time away from research to walk to a restaurant for food.

It was cold and slightly windy, as it often is in SLC, but it was actually rather pleasant, considering that it’s still winter, so walking was no inconvenience.

I headed down the elevator and was looking forward to a sunny walk to the store.

Trapped in the Cavern of Doom

I stepped off the elevator and headed for the front doors of the hotel when I realized that this side exit would cut off about half a block each way. There was no need to walk to the front door to circle back again past this exit.

Wonderful!

Since all of SLC is built on the side of a mountain and in the valley, I wanted to check and be sure this actually did exit to the street.

Yes, indeed, I could see the street out the shutters and I was pleased for the shortcut.

I opened the door and stepped down the two steps to street level. The door automatically closed behind me.

I pushed on the outer door and it would not open. I tried again, thinking it was just sticky. Still wouldn’t budge, but it felt like it should.

The area looked very unkempt. Maybe it really wasn’t an exit? But lighted exit signs pointed the way. Right?

I thought that was strange since there was no sign on the door I had just come through saying anything like “emergency exit only,” and even if it had been an emergency exit, the door is still supposed to open.

I tried again, but the door simply would not open.

Ok, so I turned around to go back inside.

Only to see this.

There WAS NO WAY BACK INSIDE.

I swear, it looks like people have been scratching and digging at that that door.

And, there was no way to get outside.

I was trapped in a small concrete Cavern of Doom.

Did I mention that I’m claustrophobic?

I refuse to even consider an escape room, but suddenly, I’m in a very small one – alone – with no way out.

I could feel the anxiety surging through my blood.

I had to control this, because I had to be able to think.

There was no way to get my fingers in that gap to pry the door open. Nothing in my purse that might work either. So I decided to try to see if the outer door was just stuck. I threw my whole body weight against it.

Nothing.

The handle depressed, kind of askew, but the door would not open.

I remembered that the entire hallway was just conference rooms, so no one was going to be using them on a Sunday.

I decided to pound on the inner door, just in case someone could hear me.

Dead silence.

OK, what next?

I decided to call the front desk.

Yes, call the front desk. That’s it! Hopefully I would get a human and not that blasted “select this option” menu that I had kept getting when I was trying to modify my reservation.

The front desk would send someone to retrieve me.

I tried calling, but got the reservation center that is not the local number.

By now, I was shaking.

Thank Heavens I had my phone. I remembered that if you enter a location in a Google maps, they often give you the local phone number of the business you’re trying to reach.

I typed in Marriott, and the location popped up, with a local number.

THANK GOD!!!!

I called, and an actual human answered. What a relief!

I explained that I was trapped and explained exactly where.

“Enter the front door. The front desk is on your left. The Salt Stone Restaurant is straight ahead. The hallway by the restaurant is the elevators. Not that hallway. The hallway just before that – the only other hallway on that side. Turn right, the only way you can go, towards the street. Walk down the hallway towards the exit sign. Turn left. Double doors on the left. Not those. Exit door straight in front to the street. That door. Please come open it. I’m trapped.

Please hurry!”

The female who answered sounded confused.

I repeat myself again.

She hesitantly says OK and hangs up.

I wait.

Nothing.

No footsteps.

No voice.

I’m pounding on the door and calling.

Silence.

I call the number again.

The same woman answers.

I ask, none too politely, where she is.

She tells me she’s confused.

I give her my phone number and tell her NOT TO HANG UP.

She says she won’t, but she can’t figure out where I am.

I explain this over again.

She says OK, she’s coming.

I implore her not to hang up.

Click – she hangs up.

I pound and call and wait again.

Nothing.

I’m increasingly panicked.

I tell myself there’s no reason to panic. It’s just a small space, and I will eventually get out.

I won’t freeze to death anytime soon.

I MUST MAINTAIN MY COMPOSURE to be able to get myself out of this.

I wish this were a nightmare, and I could just wake up. It feels like a night terror.

I call again. The woman says she has to get her manager.

This time, she laid the phone down.

I hear two women talking.

A different woman comes to the phone.

I’m explaining all over again.

She says she’s coming.

DO NOT HANG UP!!!

Click.

More pounding and yelling on the door so they will hear me.

Nothing.

Ok, T-H-I-N-K calmly. Plan D because so far plans A-C have not worked.

I am going to give this 5 more minutes of pounding, and then I’m going to call 911.

They WILL FIND ME, and THEY WILL RELEASE ME from this concrete hell.

Yes, it’s going to be incredibly embarrassing, especially if the door does work with jiggling it a bit or something like that. Maybe I’m just not strong enough.

  • One minute

How can minutes possibly be this long?

  • Two minutes

Try the outer door again. Repeatedly. Push everyplace.

  • Three minutes

Yell even more loudly. Maybe someone outside on the street will hear you and get help. The voices outside drift away.

  • Four minutes

Distantly, I hear two women’s voices in the hotel.

They are getting closer. Approaching in the hallway.

THANK GOD!!!

FINALLY!

This seemed like an eternity but had only actually been about 20 minutes.

What took them so long??

My heart was pounding its way out of my chest. Good thing I don’t have a heart condition. I think this counts as a stress test.

The door begins to open, and the landing is so small that the door pushes me down the two steps. I don’t care. To steady myself but mostly to be sure it doesn’t close again, leaving me trapped, I grab ahold of the edge of that open door and hold on for dear life.

Once inside, I angrily demanded of the two females what took them so long.

Where were they?

They both looked entirely stunned.

They just stared at me incredulously.

I said, “I called the front desk three times. You hung up. Where were you?”

They told me they were Starbucks employees who just happened to hear me and had nothing to do with the front desk. They were headed into the two double doors where the food supplies were stored.

I suddenly realized I was yelling at the wrong people. I apologized profusely and headed for the front desk.

A man was working the front desk.

I was furious.

I explained what had just happened, and he told me that there were no women working the front desk. He gave me what I term “the side-eye,” which essentially expressed disbelief.

On my phone, I showed him the number I had called. There’s another Marriott, the City Center, just a couple blocks away. Apparently that’s the number that popped up on my phone and I called their front desk. Still, they did not call me back. Someone was obviously in distress.

The man seemed to think the issue was resolved now that I had been freed, but it clearly was NOT.

I insisted that he come with me NOW so I could show him the problem. I did not want that to happen to anyone else.

I took him into the Cavern of Doom, while I stood with the door open into the hallway. Trust me, I was under no circumstances going back in there. He could not open the door either. He said that it appeared that a screw was loose. The handle depressed unevenly, and the screw certainly could have been loose.

I don’t care what was wrong. It should never have been in that dilapidated condition, and it needed to be fixed ASAP. He said he would put a sign on the door not to use it and notify engineering. What if someone did not have their phone and was trapped there overnight, or worse? You could freeze to death.

I was still shaking badly and could feel the adrenaline coursing through my body. I really, really needed that walk to Harmons.

I went into the Starbucks to apologize to the ladies, my rescuers, again, and they made me a cup of decaf coffee. Bless their hearts. They showed more compassion than anyone else other than the Fire Marshall’s office.

I left a message for the hotel general manager, and I called the Fire Marshall’s office on Monday morning. The Fire Marshall’s office was very concerned and compassionate. I had taken photos. I took two photos inside when I was trapped in the Cavern of Doom thinking I could send them to the front desk or the firefighters if I had to call 911 and it might be a clue as to where to find me. I went back and took pictures of the hallway with the exit signs for the Fire Marshall’s office.

I wanted them to see the exit signs directing the unsuspecting to said Cavern.

They requested the photos.

Furthermore, on my Facebook page, Sunday afternoon, another well-known genealogist told me that she had been trapped IN THAT EXACT SAME LOCATION IN THE SAME HOTEL 4 years prior. Yes, four years.

That infuriated me.

She said she would vouch for me, so I sent that screenshot to the Fire Marshall too.

This is not a new problem, and the general manager surely should have known about it, which made me even angrier.

This isn’t a neglected maintenance issue – it’s worse. It’s a huge, chronic, safety issue – potentially life and death in the event of an emergency.

There’s no excuse for management NOT to know about it.

If it’s repeatedly problematic, it should be checked daily. It should be permanently remedied.

What if someone froze to death in there?

What if there was a fire?

Or an earthquake that required evacuation? They had a 5.7 magnitude earthquake in 2021 that toppled Angel Moroni from the Salt Lake City Temple and the church buildings are still under repair/renovation with scaffolding and cranes visible across the skyline.

The fire Marshal visited on Monday, and I verified with the manager that the door worked after their visit. However, the handle still depressed unevenly, so will it continue to work? The entire handle/door needs to be replaced. Minimally, there needs to be an emergency phone or an emergency call button in the Cavern of Doom, just like in elevators.

I hope the hotel was cited and fined, and I hope the Fire Marshall inspected the other emergency egresses too.

I don’t know what the final resolution is/was, but the general manager said he would have engineering “remedy the situation” when I talked to him the following day.

The general manager was pleasant enough and acted professionally. I informed him very directly that the buck stops with him and that there is absolutely no excuse or justification.

Full stop.

None.

Nada.

He mentioned that there are a lot of doors in the hotel, and he can’t really check them all.

PLEASE!!!

In retrospect, this Marriott is in a prime location for the Salt Palace conference venue across the street, along with the FSL, and they don’t need to do better. They just need to be there.

I had an extremely difficult time sleeping. If that ground-floor exit, which would be used more often than other emergency exits, is in that condition and has been at least twice in four years, what do the rest of the egresses look like? For example, what about the stairs from the upper floors in case of a fire? Do those doors open?

This had/has disaster written all over it.

I will be following up with the local Fire Marshall’s office and probably with Marriott Corporate as well.

I know that the FamilySearch folks would never knowingly put their speakers and guests at risk, so I think I’m going to suggest that perhaps they could schedule a pair of their missionary elders to test this door episodically – one elder staying outside the door, of course.

Maybe not a bad idea for the Fire Marshall too.

I’m hoping that next year, perhaps the Hyatt that is attached to the Salt Palace can be the conference hotel and would be willing to match the Marriott pricing.

Harmons, Finally

Yes, I did make it to Harmons grocery store. After all that, Harmons seemed downright boring and anticlimactic, which is exactly what I needed.

I saw a beautiful display of orchids. My soul needed some calming peace, and if I had been at home, I would have purchased one.

Instead, I took a photo that soothed my frayed nerves with their beauty.

I purchased my goodies, including chocolate, and returned to the hotel to unpack. Inside my suitcase, I discovered a treasure. It seems that Kitters and my other cat kids, Chai and Mandy, had packed something in my suitcase since Kitters couldn’t pack herself.

Kitters is not doing well. This made me sob like a baby.

You have no idea how much I needed this. Not the Peeps, but the letter.

I smiled and settled in to prepare a research list for the FSL the next day.

Sunday was a VERY long day. I aged about a century and couldn’t help but think about my ancestor, the Reverend John Lothropp who was imprisoned in horrific conditions for two years. I feel you, John. I wonder how many other ancestors have experienced something similar or far worse than my brief entrapment.

I was sure Monday would be much better. After all, I was going to chase ancestors for the next two days.

I guarantee you, I avoided anything that even resembled a shortcut that might morph into a Cavern of Doom.

_____________________________________________________________

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FamilyTreeDNA RootsTech Pricing Lowest Ever & Still in Effect

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Yesterday, I wrote about how to find the RootsTech vendors’ online booths.

So, guess what I found in the online FamilyTreeDNA RootsTech booth – a list of their show prices AND the associated promo codes, which means you can take advantage of these low prices even if you didn’t attend or even sign up for RootsTech.

These prices, most of which are the lowest I’ve ever seen, remain in effect through March 29th.

Not only are new tests on sale, but so are upgrades if you’ve already taken one test and want to purchase a different type of test, or you want to upgrade an existing test.

Click to enlarge images

Upgrade pricing is shown below. Now is a great time to upgrade to the Big Y if you have only taken one of the 12-111 marker tests. There’s so much more to discover, pardon the pun.

Also, the new mitochondrial tree will be released soon with approximately 5 times as many haplogroups, and you’ll want the full sequence test to benefit from that new technology.

FamilyTreeDNA gave a sneak preview of the new MitoTree at RootsTech, and it’s AMAZING – both the haplogroups that reach into a genealogical timeframe and also the new MitoDiscover tool. (MitoTree and MitoDiscover are my names – FamilyTreeDNA might select something different.) I’ll write about this soon!

Click here to order a new test or sign on and upgrade!

Finding Cousins to Test

I talk in my sessions and in blog articles about the importance of testing someone from each of your ancestral lines for both their Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA. Essentially, you don’t know what you don’t know about your ancestors, and this is the only way to find out. I wrote about constructing a DNA Pedigree Chart, here.

Both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests are useful for recent genealogy as well as before the adoption of surnames. Both can confirm or even disprove an ancestral lineage, not to mention breaking through brick walls. At these prices, there’s no better time to order tests for cousins who have the proper DNA to represent those ancestors and are willing to test.

Where might you find those cousins who carry the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA of each of your ancestors?

  • Known cousins who descend appropriately from those ancestors
  • Your autosomal matches at any vendor – search matches by surname.
  • ThruLines at Ancestry
  • Theories of Family Relativity at MyHeritage
  • WikiTree descendants of each ancestral line and people contributing to each ancestor
  • Relatives at RootsTech (through the end of March only)
  • FamilySearch descendants of each ancestor
  • FamilyTreeDNA Projects for the surname in question
  • Facebook pages for surnames or even county genealogy society pages where your ancestors lived.
  • Facebook users by that surname, although if they are not involved in genealogy, they might think you are stalking them. I don’t reach out on Facebook unless I know the connection or they are in a genealogy-focused group.

Needless to say, always verify other people’s trees to be sure it’s the line of descent you need. I also test two people from each line, preferably through two separate children if possible, to make sure they match, confirming the lineage.

Anything Else?

Yes! You can upload your autosomal DNA file from either MyHeritage or Ancestry to FamilyTreeDNA for free. Uploads from 23andMe are currently paused and will resume soon.

Uploads receive free matching, shared matches and maternal/paternal side matching. Some of these features either aren’t available or require a subscription at other vendors.

Normally the one-time payment to unlock FamilyTreeDNA’s advanced tools, including the Chromosome Browser, myOrigins ethnicity, Chromosome Painter (including segment information), and Ancient Origins is $19, but right now, it’s only $9, and there’s no subscription required for anything.

This article provides DNA file upload and download instructions for each vendor.

Then, click here to get started at FamilyTreeDNA.

_____________________________________________________________

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

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RootsTech 2024 Online Vendor Booth Videos & Resources

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Maybe it’s just me, but I could not find the online booths, with their wonderful resources, on the desktop RootsTech website.

I found the list of vendors, but they had no links. I know many vendors offer all kinds of videos, downloadable documents, and show specials in their “virtual booths,” even after RootsTech.

I asked one of the vendors to provide the info. (Thanks FamilyTreeDNA who replied to my request on a Sunday.)

Here’s the link to the Online Expo Hall for ALL vendors.

Just search or scroll and select the vendor you want. I suggest taking a look at all of the vendors to see what kind of information they are providing. I attended in person but never got the chance to visit even half the booths.

You do NOT have to be registered for RootsTech to visit the virtual booths so everyone can take advantage of this freebie.

Here are the links for two of my favorites, FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage. Lots at both of these booths.

Phone App

On the phone app, you can find the vendors’ virtual booths under the Expo Hall.

What’s Next

I’m going to see what’s available, and you can expect a few short articles in the next couple of days. I’m also preparing a longer summary of RootsTech fun happenings, along with lots of photos.

Enjoy!

_____________________________________________________________

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

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MyHeritage: Upload DNA Through March 4 & Receive All DNA Features Free – Forever

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MyHeritage is offering a free DNA upload and is including access to all DNA tools and features – forever.

This is a limited time offer though, so if you have tested elsewhere, and you have not yet uploaded to MyHeritage, click here to upload now.

I’ve found some of my best matches at MyHeritage. Who is waiting there for you to match?

_____________________________________________________________

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If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

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My RootsTech 2024 Schedule – Come Visit!

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This is lining up to be the busiest RootsTech ever.

My appearance schedule includes:

  • 3 RootsTech sessions
  • 2 presentations in the MyHeritage booth
  • 5 AMA (ask me anything) panel sessions in the FamilyTreeDNA booth.
  • Book signings for my book, DNA for Native American Genealogy

Plus, there are some sessions I’d like to attend as well. I’m going to need roller skates!

RootsTech opens at 8 AM on Thursday, February 29th. Yes, it’s a leap year, so leap into RootsTech!!

Here’s my appearance schedule:

Date/Time Session Location
Thursday, February 29, 2024
9:30 AM DNA for Native American Genealogy book signing Booth 218-222
10:30 AM Native American AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Janine Cloud, an enrolled Cherokee Nation member FamilyTreeDNA booth
11:00 AM DNA for Native American Genealogy book signing FamilyTreeDNA booth
12:15 PM Genetic Genealogy Turns 25: DNA Experts Tell
Their Stories – Diahan Southard’s panel discussion		 Ballroom B – also live-streamed and recorded
2:00 PM Leveraging Triangulation – From Three to Many MyHeritage booth
4:00 PM Adoptee Research AMA Ask Me Anything with Courtney Eberhard FamilyTreeDNA booth
6:30 PM Jumpstart Y-DNA Research with New Family Finder Haplogroups FamilyTreeDNA booth
Friday, March 1, 2024
Noon Leveraging Triangulation – From Three to Many MyHeritage booth
1:30 PM – 4:00 DNA Academy – Pulling it All Together – Tests, Vendors, Tools and You Room 355 D
5:30 PM Mitochondrial DNA AMA Panel with Paul Maier, Goran Runfeldt FamilyTreeDNA booth
Saturday, March 2, 2024
10:30 AM Y-DNA Ask Me Anything Panel FamilyTreeDNA booth
1:30 PM Highways of History – Fleshing Out Your Ancestors Using Discover Case Studies Room 151

Lots of vendors have educational sessions in their booths. I encourage you to stop by the FamilyTreeDNA booth for these sessions. Please note that schedules at shows can be somewhat fluid.

The FamilyTreeDNA booth location is very near the show entrance.

My Heritage is to the right and will have more booth presentations too, but they have not released their schedule yet.

Books & Things where I’ll be signing books at 9:30 AM on Thursday is to the far left.

I’ve starred those locations on the final booth layout that we received this morning.

Hope to see you soon!

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Book

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Book

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

Congratulations!!! – MyHeritage 20th Anniversary Documentary

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A full six-episode documentary about the history of MyHeritage has just been released. I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.

I am incredibly grateful for all of the MyHeritage tools and want to say a personal congratulations to Gilad Japhet. He personally started this company two decades ago and has literally changed the world.

I’ve been very privileged to be in the right place at the right time to be a part of launching these new technologies, some of which leverage DNA, but all of which benefit genealogists.

Congratulations Gilad – and thank you from genealogists around the world. What a leap – from pen and paper to DNA, AI and automation that does what we, individually, cannot. What an incredible legacy – and they are just beginning.

I can’t wait to see what’s next!

You can be a part of the MyHeritage genealogy family by purchasing a MyHeritage DNA test here or upload your DNA file from other vendors free here.

You also receive 14 days free when you sign up for a records subscription here. If you don’t like the subscription, just cancel at the end of 14 days to avoid billing. I use the combination of DNA and records nearly every single day. I can’t imagine genealogy without both.