RootsTech is the world’s largest family history conference that offers workshop classes, keynote speakers and an expo hall to help people learn more about genealogy and family history.
This event, run by FamilySearch, is held in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City and also has online events available.
BYU had a booth featuring family history resources and tools available through BYU in the expo hall.
The BYU Technology Lab also had a booth there. The research lab is run by students who work to build family history technology. The applications are meant to help lower the bar of entry into family history.
Christopher Hatch is a computer science major at BYU and has worked in the technology lab for about a year and a half.
Hatch said that all of the lab’s apps work off FamilySearch and are built on their data. One of the most popular applications built by the technology lab is the Relative Finder.
This app allows the user to find relatives more easily and to see how they are related to famous people and the people around them. This app has been around since 2017 and has recently been updated with a new look.
FamilySearch even worked with BYU students in the lab to integrate the “relatives around me” feature into their own app.
“We also make games for interactive family history experiences, like Geneopardy or Record Quest,” Hatch said.
Geneopardy collects family history facts and creates a jeopardy game for the user to play. Hatch said that he has used the Geneopardy app at family reunions.
“The number one thing is just becoming familiar with the lab's applications. That’s the main reason that we’re here at RootsTech is to show people what we have to offer and how they can better their family history and genealogy experience,” Hatch said.
Another part of the BYU booth is a space set up for students to connect to a TV and present projects they are working on.
The BYU Center for Family History and Genealogy hires students from the family history major and minor to participate in research projects, which then go online for the public to use.
Juliette Hart is one of these students working on a project called the Welsh Saints Project.
Student researchers on the Welsh Saints Project work to find and share information about Welsh converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who immigrated to the United States in the 19th century.
Hart’s presentation shared how to use the website to navigate records of the Welsh saints who have immigrated to the United States.
“It’s been fun to see people’s interest or what gravitates them towards family history,” Hart said.
Shanna Besendorfer is the project mentor at the BYU Center for Family History and Genealogy and is running the booth for the family history major.
Besendorfer said the goal of this booth at RootsTech is to promote the family history major and minor programs, especially with the young kids in attendance for Family Discovery Day.
Family Discovery Day was Saturday, March 7, where RootsTech was free for the whole family to attend. That event featured games and family history activities for all ages.
The family history program at BYU equips students with many different hands-on opportunities to research and learn.
“There’s a whole range of things that people can do with this kind of degree,” Besendorfer said.
Besendorfer said the family history majors have the opportunity to do internships in Ireland, England and Scotland to gather early census records.
“We bring (the census records) back to index them and put them online so that people can see what those censuses were,” Besendorfer said.
BYU’s family history resources are available to the community to help people connect with their ancestors in a meaningful way.
“Just learning about them and their lives makes them feel a lot closer. Like, they were actually real, you know?” Hart said.
