Last week, RootsTech was a whirlwind and full of discoveries – which, ironically, was the 2025 theme.
I always take you along with me and share the RootsTech experience, start to finish, so here’s my 2025 “feet on the ground” report.
I might, just might, have overcommitted myself. I taught the half-day DNA Academy, three more sessions, plus several other commitments such as book signings, get-togethers, and interviews.
One class, “DNA for Native American Genealogy,” was a live webinar from the floor of the expo hall. You can watch that here for free, if you’re interested.
Unfortunately, none of my other sessions were recorded, but I’ll see what other alternative options may be available to bring those to you.
Additionally, I did two book signings at the GenealogyBank booth, along with two other authors, Drew Smith and Sunny Morton. I’m sorry, I don’t have any pictures. I should have asked someone to take some.
There were long lines and books sold out. Still, you can order either of my books, The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA or DNA for Native American Genealogy, at Genealogical.com. Thank you to GenealogyBank for being so welcoming.
The book signing was particularly fun because people shared their success stories or their hopes of what they want to achieve. I met a couple of new cousins too! Even people waiting in line were helping each other with information about research resources.
I had created my “RootsTech plan” for sessions I wanted to attend, but I was only able to actually attend one of those. Several were happening at the same time as mine, or directly before or after. As a presenter, you arrive early to get set up and make sure everything is working correctly.
Then, after your session, attendees have questions and are interested in your topic, which is a good thing. So essentially, you can’t attend sessions either before or after your session either.
Before I share photos, I’d like to share something else.
It’s About the People
I have never attended RootsTech for the classes, although there are wonderful offerings – and I have enjoyed them immensely.
Having said that, for me, the best part of RootsTech is the people. People I know and love but never get to see – many of whom I met in-person at RootsTech initially. I get to meet my blog followers. I meet with or reconnect with friends and cousins from around the world. I am privileged to talk with people about their challenges and their victories – when they’ve broken through a brick wall using DNA that they could never have otherwise achieved. People collaborating and helping each other. It’s all beautiful.
The reason I started blogging in the first place, and the reason all 1750 articles are free, is because I wanted to help people do just that – confirm ancestors, find ancestors, and connect with their fsmily.
My cousins that I’ve met through genealogy are some of my closest friends and closest family members. Outliving everyone is a mixed blessing but it makes me extremely grateful for my various cousins since all of my siblings and close family, with the exception of the next generation, have transitioned to the land of the ancestors.
So, yea, for me, RootsTech is about connecting and reconnecting with the people.
That’s also why I never get anything done because I’m always talking with someone.
Additionally, this particular RootsTech was a celebration.
Mitotree Release
Just a few days before RootsTech, the Million Mito Team at FamilyTreeDNA released the brand new Mitotree, 5 years in the making, reconstructing the tree of humankind to reflect our combined heritage more accurately.
At RootsTech 2020, I was honored to announce the Million Mito Project, and the new Mitotree initiative was born.
At some point, I will write about the deep, personal significance of the Mitotree for me, but for now, suffice it to say that there is something profoundly moving about rewriting the tree of humankind and in doing so, giving a voice to our ancestors from long ago. Yes, I know many of them are thousands or even tens of thousands of years old, but had they not survived, we would not be here today. Now we can identify who they are and that they lived.
Million Mito Team, left to right, Goran Runfeldt, Dr. Paul Maier, me, Dr. Miguel Vilar, Bennett Greenspan, John Detsikas
Our amazing Dream Team has given life to our ancestors and said their names once again, even if their name is a mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. Four team members, Goran, Paul, me and Bennett were at RootsTech. Where else can you actually approach and speak with the actual scientists?
When I say RootsTech is about the people, I know that I am related to every single individual at RootsTech, it’s just a matter of how far back in time. So are you.
Just think about the significance of that for a minute.
Every. Single. Person.
The other end of the mitochondrial DNA spectrum is genealogy, of course, and the new Mitotree with it’s haplotype clusters brings mitochondrial DNA results into the genealogical timeframe. In future articles, I’ll be writing about each one of the new tools, what they mean, and how to use them.
Dr. Paul Maier, lead scientist doing most of the hard science behind Mitotree, had the much-deserved honor of introducing the Mitotree to genealogists at RootsTech.
I’m not sure the audience understood they were witnessing history unfold, but they clearly were. We needed a drum roll and some balloons!
This wasn’t like most vendor announcements of a new product or feature – this was a major scientific achievement that led to genealogical benefits.
In celebration, I asked my friend to make double helix zipper pulls so that I could give them to colleagues, friends and cousins that I ran into at RootsTech. It’s my way of celebrating and sharing the joy!
Five years is a very long time to work on a project. The Mitotree is a massive accomplishment. Every customer at FamilyTreeDNA who has taken the full sequence test received their new haplogroup either the week before or during RootsTech, AND, the second updated version of the tree was released too.
While this is truly wonderful, the true highlight is the testimonials – seeing how Mitotree is actually helping people break through their brick walls.
Here’s just one.
Breathless Testimonial
I’m going to try to convey this exactly as it happened.
A lady that I don’t know literally runs up to me in the hallway. This isn’t unusual. She was so excited that what she said was one long breathless sentence, which I’m going to try to reconstruct here, although I’m adding a bit of punctuation. I also can’t remember how many “greats” were attached to the “grandmother,” but you’ll get the idea.
Roberta, Roberta, I’m so excited – I just wanted to let you know – I found my ancestor using mitochondrial DNA. I got my new haplogroup and I had like 47 matches before but now they are clustered together so I could focus…and there were three matches in my cluster…and one of them had an EKA but the other didn’t…so I built out the EKA matches’ tree and guess what??? They were from the same place and then I found that her great-great-grandmother’s sister is my great-great-grandmother but she had her surname so now I have more generations too. OMG I ‘m so excited I could never have broken through this wall without mtDNA because I had no surname. This is THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL DNA TEST I’VE EVER TAKEN, and I’ve taken them all. Thank you, thank you!
And with that she quickly hugged me and ran off to something she was obviously late for.
I never got to say one word, which was fine, but I stood there with tears in my eyes, thinking to myself, “This – this is what it’s all about.”
It doesn’t get better than this!
I want to hear your stories too. I just scaled my fourth brick wall last night using the new Mitotree and mtDNA Discover features.
RootsTech Week
RootsTech week started early for me – as in leaving the house at 3 AM Sunday. I fly on Sunday because the flights are cheaper and because the pre-conference meetings and events begin on Monday.
We took off into the dawn, jetting our way westward through the azure blue sky.
I have never gotten over the majesty and beauty of the Rocky Mountains.
And then, of course, the Great Salt Lake, for which Salt Lake City is named.
Looking at the Salt Palace across the street from the Marriott hotel. The silver building is the new Hyatt which is attached to the conference center behind the windmills which extends another very long block to the right, out of view. The mountain range is visible in the distance, and the beautiful sunset.
Speaking of the Marriott hotel, several people have asked if it was any better this year, and if I got trapped in the fire exit again, like last year.
No, I didn’t get stuck because I didn’t tempt fate again. It looked just the same though, so I’m presuming nothing has changed. Furthermore, there was no heat in my room, so they gave me a space heater and a pass to the concierge level – which they did not do last year.
That was kind of them, but food ran out, and there was only one poor server in the restaurant. I’m not even going to mention the nauseating thing that happened with my food. Let’s just say I’m not picky, but I will NEVER eat there again, and that makes it particularly difficult because there’s very little close by, especially when you’re exhausted.
I’m hoping that RootsTech will negotiate someplace different for speakers in the future. I’ve stayed in a lot of Marriotts and most of them are just fine. I have never had issues like this with any of them, let alone repeat issues year after year.
The good news is that we’re not there for the hotel, and the fun began on Monday.
Monday
My interviews began on Monday morning with “Mondays with Myrt” at the FamilySearch Library, which you can view here beginning about 16 minutes.
Mondays with Myrt is a RootsTech tradition and Myrt incorporates people present in person and tuning in virtually as well. Left to right, Kirsty Gray from England, John Tracy Cunningham, me and Myrt. Kirsty had a huge breakthrough that she shared with us just a few minutes after it happened.
I met John at the ECGGS Conference last October. He’s one of the few people I know whose 8 great-grandparents were born in the same county. I’m so jealous. Mine were either born in or first generation immigrants from four countries.
Sometimes the broadcast waiting area is just as much fun as the actual broadcast – in part because it’s the first day of RootsTech week and everyone is so excited to see their friends that they haven’t seen in forever. Call is a reunion!
Do Kirsty Gray and I look like we’re about to get into mischief?
Behind me is the first group of folks to be interviewed.
Pat Richley-Erickson, aka Myrt, Cheryl Hudson Passey, Laura Wilkinson Hedgecock, and Jenny Horner Hawran.
This is the livestream room at the FamilySearch Library. The waiting area for the next group is to the right, and the three presently being interviewed are sitting on the left beside Myrt.
For those who know Gordon, aka Mr. Myrt, he’s coordinating interviewees outside the livestream room. His job is herding cats and he’s the nicest cat-herder you’ll ever meet!
Pre-RootsTech Library Research
I love the FamilySearch Library. It feels like coming home to me.
So many passionate genealogists at every level – learning and searching. Lots of volunteer helpers available, too.
Normally, I create a research plan for the library, but I had been so utterly slammed between preparing my several RootsTech sessions and the Mitotree release that I hadn’t really been able to prepare anything.
I did, however, have a group of ancestors in mind that settled in the Oley Valley in Pennsylvania, so I decided to focus on the Berks County books.
I won’t bore you with the details, but among other things, I found confirmation that the Hoch surname is also the same as High and Hoy, which explains some very confusing Y-DNA results. So even though I didn’t get much productive time there, I did find something very useful in the land records.
I also ran into cousins and friends, of course, which is why I didn’t get more actual research done.
I knew Judy Nimer Muhn, at left, was going to be at RootsTech as a speaker, and I knew we connected through Acadian lines, but we never took the time to really piece together that puzzle.
My cousins, Mark and Manny were also coming for RootsTech, and to visit the library, for the first time. Mark, Manny and I visited Nova Scotia together in the summer of 2024, chasing our ancestors.
You know, fate is a funny thing.
We all descend from Acadian, Francois Savoie who was born about 1621 in France, but settled in Acadia, today’s Nova Scotia. Mark, Manny and I knew that we are cousins through Francois, but Judy and I did not. Mark, Manny and I ran into a local historian, Charlie Thibodeau, the Acadian Peasant, last year, outside of Port Royal. It just so happened that he was taking another couple to see the remains of the Savoie homestead deep in the salt marshes at BelleIsle.
We asked if we could join them, and Charlie was kind enough to include us. It was a long, brutally hot, tick-infested hike through the swamp, but oh so worth it!
We also found the well, located between three homesteads.
The year before, Judy had been in the same place in Nova Scotia, found the same man, Charlie, at the BelleIsle Hall Acadian Cultural Centre, and he had taken her to the remains of the same homestead.
And here we all four are in Utah.
What are the chances?
Needless to say, we had a LOT to talk about, and still do. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to Judy’s talk, but Mark and Manny attended.
I ran into Katy Rowe-Schurwanz, the FamilyTreeDNA Product Manager at the library too, and look what she’s wearing – a mitochondrial DNA scarf. How cool is that!
The rest of Tuesday and most of Wednesday morning were spent trying to update my several presentations to reflect newly released information by various vendors and practicing the timing of the presentations. I had another interview, and more people were arriving.
I found time to visit Eva’s Bakery about 3 blocks from the Salt Palace. If you’re ever in Salt Lake City, Eva’s is a must! Lunch is wonderful, and so are their French pastries.
Wednesday is “tech prep” day at RootsTech, along with speaker instructions and then the Speaker Dinner.
Steve Rockwood, President and CEO of FamilySearch always delivers an inspirational message and this year did not disappoint.
If you’ve wondered about RootsTech conference stats, they provided this information. I can’t even imagine trying to coordinate all of this – and that’s not including the vendors, expo hall, technology in the presentation rooms, food, security and so much more.
Last year, in 2024, the final attendance numbers were more than 16,000 people in person and 4 million virtual attendees. I noticed a few days ago that there were more than half a million people participating in Relatives at RootsTech, which is still live until April 12th.
On Wednesday evening, after the Speaker’s Dinner, vendors in the Expo Hall were putting the final touches on their booths and preparing for the thousands of excited genealogists who would descend Thursday morning.
Discover
This year’s RootsTech theme was “discover” and attendees were greeted with this display just inside the door.
Attendees listed their discoveries on Post-its and could either post them on the board or plastic boxes, or on the green tree.
I placed my discovery from the day before at the library on the Rootstech tree.
Some people place their wishes here, kind of like a technology wishing well.
I couldn’t help but think of the new Mitotree, now forever green and growing, so I posted a second discovery, “Mitotree.”
Thursday – Opening Day
For those who don’t know, the Salt Palace Convention Center is two lengthy blocks long, a block wide, and two or three stories high, depending on whether you are in the front or rear portion. In other words, it’s massive and you need a map!
The huge Expo Hall with vendors is located in the center on the first floor and vendors have aisle addresses. The show floor is always very busy, and this year was no exception. One of the things I love is that spontaneous conversations just spring up between people who often find commonalities – common ancestors, common locations, and more. People compliment each other and join others at tables. It’s like a big family gathering of sorts.
I always try to walk the entire Expo Hall, because I really enjoy seeing the vendors and their wares, but this year, I never actually had enough time to traverse all the aisles. I took several pictures as I was passing through and running into people, but not nearly enough. I know I missed a lot, but there just wasn’t enough time and I arrived at RootsTech already tired.
However, the energy of RootsTech is like no place else and just infects you.
It’s like you can’t drink from the genealogy firehose fast enough!
Let’s Take a Walk
Ok, come along on a walk with me.
Left to right, Lianne Kruger, a speaker, and Courtney, in the FamilyTreeDNA booth. I believe they said they are cousins.
Daniel Horowitz, genealogist extraordinaire, in the MyHeritage booth. More about MyHeritage’s announcements shortly.
Geoff Rasmussen in the Legacy Family Tree Webinars booth. For those who don’t know, there’s lots of good material at Legacy, and the freshly recorded webinars are always free for a week.
Several vendors offer booth talks, including MyHeritage. I love their photo tools and use their site in some capacity almost daily.
One of the RootsTech traditions is ribbons. Collect one, collect ‘em all. Liv’s ribbons almost reach the floor. I think she wins!
Selfies are also a RootsTech tradition. Me, here with Jonny Perl of DNAPainter fame. I owe Jonny an apology as he asked me if I had a minute, and I had to say no because I was on the way to one of my own classes. I never got back to his booth to view his new features. Sorry Jonny – don’t take it personally!
Jonny released a new Ancestral tree version titled Places, so take a look here at his blog. I need to go look at my ancestors Places.
You’ll find this new feature under Ancestral Trees, Places. These are my most recent 8 generations. Just think of all those brave souls who climbed on a ship and sailed for the unknown. Check this feature out and have fun.
In a booth talk, Dave Vance, Executive Vice-President and General Manager at FamilyTreeDNA is speaking about the three types of DNA, which are, of course, Y-DNA, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA – all useful for genealogy in different ways.
Dave is explaining how in-common-with matches, also known as shared matches, operate with the chromosome browser. You can use the chromosome browser, shared matches, the new Matrix Tool, and download your match segment information at FamilyTreeDNA, a combination of features not available at any other vendor.
WikiTree, a free a moderated one-world-tree is one of my favorite genealogy tools. One of their best features is that you find your ancestor, and in addition to lots of sources, their Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and those who are related autosomally are listed. Here’s my grandfather, for example.
Several DNA connections are listed. The further back in my tree, the more DNA connections are found, becuase those ancestors have more descendants.
WikiTree volunteers were wandering around taking pictures of “WikiTreers” holding fun signs.
Paul Woodbury, a long time researcher with Legacy Tree Genealogists, who specializes in DNA. I don’t take private clients anymore, and regularly refer people to Legacy Tree.
Me with Janine Cloud taking our annual RootsTech selfie. Janine, the Group Projects Manager at FamilyTreeDNA and I co-administer one of those projects and accidentally discovered a few years ago that we are cousins too. How fun is this!!!
I wanted this shirt, but by the time I got back to the booth, it was too late. I’m going to order it online from Carlisle Creations, in case you want one too. This is so me.
Land records are critically important to genealogists. Rebecca Whitman’s class was about plotting land plats. What she’s holding is a surveyor’s chain. You’ve read about chain carriers? This is what they carried to measure land boundaries – literally metes and bounds. Some of my best discoveries have been thanks to land records.
The only session I actually got to attend was Gilad Japhet’s “What’s New and Exciting at MyHeritage.” For those who don’t know, Gilad is the founder and CEO of MyHeritage and it’s always great to hear about the new features straight from the top executive who is, himself, a seasoned genealogist. That’s why he started MyHeritage in the first place – 22 years ago in his living room.
Gilad had several wonderful announcements, but the one I’m most excited about is their new Cousin Finder. Cousin Finder finds and reveals cousins who are DNA candidates if they have not yet taken a DNA test.
I’ll be writing more about the MyHeritage announcements soon, but you can read their blog about Cousin Finder now, here, and their Roundup here about the rest of their announcements!
My Last Class – Reveal Your Maternal Ancestors & Their Stories
My last class at the end of the final day of RootsTech was “Reveal Your Maternal Ancestors & Their Stories – Solving Mitochondrial DNA Puzzles.”
Had I tried to coordinate this presentation with International Women’s Day, I could never have done it, but fate winked and here I was.
I’m often asked what it’s like from the presenters’ perspective. This is one of the smaller ballrooms. My earlier sessions were in larger rooms, maybe 3 times this size. I took this picture about 15 minutes before the session started as people were beginning to drift in.
The amazing RootsTech techs had me wired up to microphones and had verified that the audio and video equipment was working correctly, so now it was just waiting.
My cousin, John Payne, who co-administers the Speaks surname project with me, came by and took this great picture of the two of us. We’ve made huge inroads connecting the various Speake(s) lines in America, plus finally proving our home village in England, thanks to the Big Y-700 test, followed by church records. All is takes, sometimes, is that one critical match.
As I sat there, waiting to begin the mitochondrial DNA session, I couldn’t help but reflect upon all of the women who came before me and how fortunate I was to have been in the right place at the right time to be a member of the Million Mito team.
These are my direct matrilineal ancestors who give me, and my daughter, pictured at left, their mitochondrial DNA. I felt them with me as I sat there, waiting.
The woman at furthest right, Barbara Drechsel (1848-1930), immigrated to Indiana from Germany as a child with her parents in the 1850s. Before her came thousands of generations of women with no photos, of course, and no names before Barbara Freiberger, another eight generations earlier, born about 1621 in Germany.
Before that, which was before church and other records, prior to the 30 Years War, this lineage came from Scandinavia where some of my exact matches are still found today.
Before beginning, I said a positive affirmation and thanked my ancestors – so very honored to introduce them. I know they were proud of me, a member of the team that opened the door to the distant past. I wouldn’t be here if not for every one of their lives.
In this session, I would discuss, for the first time ever, the new Mitotree and my/our connection to all of humanity some 7000 generations ago, more or less.
The mutations we carry over those generations form an unbroken chain of breadcrumbs, connecting us to mitochondrial Eve who lived about 145,000 years ago. We revealed that breakthrough finding in the Haplogroup L7 paper, published in 2022.
I’m still in absolute awe that we have been able to both reach that far back in time AND, at the same time, make the newest haplogroups and haplotype clusters genealogically relevant. I will write more about that soon, but for now, I wrote about the Mitotree release here and you can find articles by Katy Rowe-Schurwanz here and here.
I’m very excited about my new mitochondrial DNA results for my ancestral lines that I track and have already made headway on several.
I’m not the only one.
Not only was I excited about my results, many other people have had breakthroughs too, including Mark Thompson, one of our genealogy AI experts who also spoke at RootsTech. I particularly love his AI generated image.
If you haven’t yet, check your mitochondrial DNA results.
It’s a Wrap
Another year done, another RootsTech under our belts. Hopefully everyone is over the “conference crud” by now and are busily applying their newfound knowledge.
You can view either live-cast sessions or RootsTech webinars, here.
I saw a meme posted sometime during the conference that coined the term “exhausterwhelmulated,” a combination of exhausted, overwhelmed and overstimulated at the same time.
I added exhilarated and elated to the mix and asked ChatGPT to draw me a picture of someone at a genealogy conference feeling those simultaneous emotions.
ChatGPT titled this request “Genealogy Conference Overload,” which made me laugh.
The first two attempts looked like the person had a headache, which I fully understood, so I asked ChatGPT to make the person look happy to be there.
This person, carrying a coffee like I often do, looks like they have just discovered the great irony that they have chased the wrong ancestor for some 20 years – with “laugh or I’ll cry” mania being their overwhelm “go to” in that minute.
This one made me laugh too!
Yes, indeed, I think every single one of us, especially at RootsTech, has experienced this exact adrenaline-fueled emotion.
We leave with a VERY long to-do list, exhausted but full of anticipation and buoyed by excitement. Filled with so much gratitude for our cousins and fellow genealogists, the speakers, vendors, DNA to solve thorny problems, new tools and records, FamilySearch who sponsors RootsTech itself and their amazing employees, plus the legions of the volunteers who make it all work.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
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