RootsTech 2014: Day 1

Yesterday, the team set up our booth in the large exhibit hall at RootsTech 2014, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

From an empty space on a concrete floor grew green grass, white cabinets, great graphics and a large circular MyHeritage logo hanging from the ceiling. Computers and cords were retrieved from sturdy travel containers and within a few hours, the screens and keyboards were set up and connected.

Wednesday night was the Geneabloggers Dinner, sponsored by FamilySearch.org. It was good to see our friends James Tanner, Dear Myrtle, Randy Seaver and others at this annual event.

This morning began bright and early with a keynote by Dennis Brimhall, FamilySearch.org CEO, who spoke about news that would be presented at the conference. Following two more talks by the new CEO of FindMyPast.com and television cooking personality Ree Drummond, the exhibit hall was open for business.

Our booth is located just inside the main doors to the exhibit hall, which means many attendees come to MyHeritage first. With some 200 sessions (lectures, lab workshops and developer sessions), visitors to the exhibit hall streamed in all day, visited us at our booth, and filled the computer screens. We heard happy comments from satisfied users, and helped many new members sign up.

Daniel Horowitz and Mark Olsen presented two talks, while each of them also offered demonstrations in our booth’s classroom area.

There are so many classes and programs at each time slot that it’s hard to decide what programs to choose. Yesterday, I attended am interesting talk on a new genealogical gazetteer project that will provide a unique ID to places with similiar names, and help genealogists discover which town they are really looking for from a list of places spelled almost the same way but in different locations.

Today I attended a talk with four DNA experts fielding questions from a full room of attendees. The questions were interesting, and they were fielded by Dr. Spencer Wells of the National Genographic Project, Bennett Greenspan of FamilyTreeDNA.com with Dr. Tim Janzen, who works with all the DNA companies, as well as the representative of Ancestry DNA.

Following a dessert reception and a concert by a local singing group, we found our way back to the hotel quite exhausted.

Tomorrow morning the keynotes will be presented by geneablogger Judy Russell of The Legal Genealogist, and by Dr. Spencer Wells of the National Genographic Project. Another early start to MyHeritage Day at RootsTech, with numerous staff presentations (see this previous blog post) and a sponsored luncheon for bloggers, media and others. We’ll post about this special day over the weekend.