Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
- RootsTech, a genealogy conference in Salt Lake City this weekend, hosted by the Church of Jesus Christ, attracts millions.
- Steve Rockwood, CEO of FamilySearch, said this year, people will see real applications of generative AI to help people discover their family history.
- Elder Kevin S Hamilton, of the Seventy, said the virtual attendance grows each year and a majority of attendees are not members of the church.
SALT LAKE CITY — Steve Rockwood said he was "humbled" by the millions of people already joining RootsTech online and the many people who were flooding into the Salt Palace Convention Center before the conference even started on Thursday.
Rockwood, the president and CEO of FamilySearch, the organization behind RootsTech, also wanted to make sure people know it is not too late to join.
"There's no need to fear that you're missing out. Come on down to the Salt Palace, come online to RootsTech.org, and discover who you really are," he said.
Rockwood said figuring out how people are connected to each other leads to treating each other differently. He said this process starts with the theme of this year's conference — discovery. RootsTech is not something people "watch," he added, but something they "do" as they interact and find connections.
"Our ultimate goal is to simply unite families — past, present and future — because there's this amazing thing that occurs when we're able to find ways that you and I are connected, and we do that as we start to investigate each of our origins and see how that begins to merge together," he said.
Rockwood said last year at RootsTech, visitors saw the potential of generative AI, but this year they will see applications. One of those is using artificial intelligence to translate languages and allow communication with people around the world without a human translator. He said democratizing language "is a simple but an amazing miracle."
Discoveries
Rockwood started off the first keynote address by sharing how one person adding to his family tree taught him about his great-great-grandfather, who had the great business idea to try to farm lobsters in the Great Salt Lake — which did not work.
He encouraged attendees to look for their own lobster, and invited them to add what they know to FamilySearch to help others find stories in their families.
"The opportunity to make life-changing discoveries is what this industry is all about; it's what RootsTech is all about," Rockwell said.
Rachel Platten, a musician, was planning to come to RootsTech but needed to attend remotely instead — sharing her keynote message through both prerecorded and live videos.
She said her music since her release of her hit "Fight Song" has helped her discover that there is more to her than she was showing to the world. She said she has learned to love all of the parts of herself, which she said is a gift.
Platten talked about being a mom to her two girls. She talked about how loving herself helps her love her daughters in the same way, accepting everything about them. A video was shown of her playing her song "Girls" which was written for her children.
In place of Platten performing live at the conference, Utah father-daughter duo Mat and Savanna Shaw stepped into that role after an invitation Wednesday afternoon. Mat Shaw said, usually, it takes some time to settle into an audience while performing, but on the RootsTech stage, it immediately felt warm and welcoming.
The two have both been singers their whole lives but started singing together when Savanna wanted to post a video to Instagram after the pandemic shut her choir down, and she wanted someone to sing in a video with her. Savanna Shaw said they didn't expect the video to go viral.
She said having a business relationship with her father has helped them learn about each other. Her dad said it was a fun learning experience for him, too, watching his daughter gain confidence.
Mat Shaw said music is therapeutic, powerful and inspirational for him. He said the goal of their music is to "share hope and spread joy."
"Music is so powerful in its ability to break down our walls and allow us to feel things that maybe we're guarded against normally," he said.
Jonathan Wing, director of RootsTech, said everyone has a story to tell about family history, and when looking for keynotes, both online and in person, they look for people who can share those stories and have a legacy to pass on.
"When we think of family history, we think of the past and the present and the future because the stories of the past really do affect us here and now," he said.
A worldwide audience
Elder Kevin S. Hamilton, executive director of the family history department for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the conference, which started in 2011, grew to about 20,000 attendees before the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to switch to an online event in 2020. That first time, he said the church did not know how many people would be involved and was surprised to get 1.5 million virtual attendees.
He said that growth was a "silver lining" from the pandemic. Since then, the audience has grown each year, with 5 million attending virtually in 2024, and he expects even more this year.
"It's a very powerful kind of a universal experience. People want to be part of a family, and RootsTech is filling part of that need," Elder Hamilton said.
He said the purpose of the family history department in the church is to provide names of ancestors so members can perform temple ordinances — but RootsTech helps with that by people getting involved in genealogy.
Elder Hamilton said it is "electrifying" to see something new in your family tree — a photo or immigration record from someone previously unknown. He suggests those wanting to spread the spirit of family history have a one-on-one experience with others, helping them discover something.
"This is kind of hardwired into our DNA. This is something that we all care about — we want to connect, we want to belong, we want to be part of a family, we want to know where we come from, we want to know where our roots originate from," he said.
Elder Hamilton said a majority of those online attendees of RootsTech are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Over the last 10 years, he said the FamilySearch website's visits from people who aren't members have grown to about 95% of the roughly 100 million unique people visiting the website.
Elder Hamilton said they welcome anyone — "the whole world" — to help build the family tree on the FamilySearch website, and they are.
FamilySearch is working to make the process accessible to those who are not technologically savvy and those who are not genealogists. He said they are automating finding names members can take to the temple and attaching documents to people already on the family tree. He said the process is something his 8-year-old grandson and his 90-year-old mother can both do on their own.
Crista Cowan, corporate genealogist at Ancestry, announced a new feature of the website as part of the opening session. She said Ancestry.com will now allow people to add networks, documenting relationships outside of a family to tell a more complete story of each ancestor.
"Hardcore genealogists know that researching an ancestor's fan club is an essential methodology. Studying the people in their community provides crucial clues to identify ancestors when records are scarce, helping you break through brick walls," she said.
RootsTech runs from Thursday through Saturday. On Saturday, there will be a message from Elder Neil L. Andersen of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Sister Kathy Andersen, as part of Family Discovery Day, a free event both in person and online that will also feature music from the Piano Guys.
