Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - RootsTech 2022

 From Randy (a cousin discovery!!) over at Genea-Musings:

it's Saturday Night - 

time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

(1)  The RootsTech 2022 Virtual Conference was Thursday through Saturday (March 3rd-5th) this week.  Did you register and attend classes?  Did you watch the Keynote talks? Did you visit the virtual Expo Hall?  What was your favorite experience?

(2)  Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, in a post on Facebook, or on Twitter.  

Here's mine:

I registered for RootsTech 2022 months ago since I attended last year and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I took two days of vacation time for this.  I participated all three days, only taking bathroom and meal breaks.  I guess that's why I didn't write a blog post about the experience.  

I checked out RootsTech Relatives prior to the conference starting.  I have 44,981 relatives there; I only looked at maybe 10-12 of those!  The closest cousin match I had is a 2nd cousin, 2x removed.  That's pretty good!  Turns out, after checking with a cousin on Facebook, who turned out to be this person's aunt, that I am acquainted with her mother, uncle, and aunts already.  I had one 3rd cousin connection that I already know!  We met in person for the first time in December!  Then I had several 3rd cousins, 1x and 2x removed.  I researched a few of them, and sent messages, hoping to make connections.  I haven't heard back from anyone  yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  

Looking at the relationships between these cousin matches and myself, I have found some information I did not have and am busily working on extending my family tree!  I rarely use FamilySearch so I've been missing out.

The only Main Stage items I watched were "Ancestry For All" and "The 1950 U.S Census and You."  The Ancestry.com video made me very excited for the things they are working on, and the great things ahead for users.  I am especially interested in the partnership between Ancestry and Photomyne that will allow users to upload pictures, negatives, historical documents, etc. to the galleries of our ancestors for FREE.  Hearing about the 1950 census (and the handwriting recognition technology!) and seeing Crista Cowan's enthusiasm for the release has me getting more excited every day!  This will be the first census that my mother will be included in the enumeration.  I'm looking forward to getting a peek at where she and her parents were in 1950.  

I added many videos and classes to my Playlist.  I did watch a lot of them.  Luckily, I have more time to watch all of them!  Some of the ones I watched were:

    - "Tarheels:  Genealogy in Colonial Virginia and the North Carolinian backcountry" by Jonah Ryan            Barnes  

    - "Maximizing Messages" by Michelle Patient (messages to cousin matches!)

    - "What to Do with Your DNA Test Results in 2022, Part 1" by Diahan Southard  (Looking forward to             watching Parts 2 and 3 also.)

    - "No Time? Try Five Minute Family History  Ideas" by Taralyn Parker

    - "A Call to Arms Part 1. Researching Revolutionary War Ancestors" by Melanie McComb 

I also visited the Expo Hall, though I did not explore it as much as I probably should have.  I chatted with a Family Tree Maker customer service rep about the companion manual for FTM2019.  I also watched the videos they had about the software, and I learned some very cool things this software will do that I was not even aware of!  It's the little things that are so exciting.  I visited Ancestry in the Expo Hall and watched some of their videos.  I also plan to visit Photomyne's "booth" and watch the videos they have posted there.  

This opportunity to attend RootsTech from my own home for FREE has been the best gift of the pandemic for me.  Otherwise, I would not be able to attend.  I thoroughly enjoy most of the classes, and I learned so much that my head was spinning at the end.  So I cannot say that I had one favorite experience, but I can say that I discovered two new teachers/presenters that I loved and hope to see again.  

    - First is Taralyn Parker.  I watched three of her presentations.  The above mentioned Five Minute Family History Ideas, but also "Power of the Post: Making Connections through Social Media," and, my favorite, "Finding Your Cousins on Instagram."  Taralyn is full of enthusiasm and it shows.  She explains things well. and she is full of great ideas.  Her energy was awesome.  I had joined Instagram years ago, but rarely used it.  She got me excited to sit down and learn out to use it, the purpose of hashtags, and how to participate on the app fully.  

    - Next is Jonah Ryan Barnes.  I watched two of his presentations at this year's RootsTech: The one mentioned above about researching in Colonial Virginia and North Carolina and the other was "Cracking the Internet: Stop Bumbling and Start Searching like a Pro."  (His wife, Charlotte, helped him on the last one.)  Jonah is FULL of energy.  He talks fast but he's understandable.  That is a huge help in squeezing in all the information he needs to share in 20 minutes.  He's funny.  His hints and tips for searching the Internet like a pro were great!  

Luckily, most of the classes shared a handout, syllabus, or copies of their Power Point slides with the attendees.  I saved all of those so I can refer to them as needed.

I am most looking forward to working with my DNA results more and figuring out how I'm related to my matches.  This will lead me to use DNA Painter, which I heard great things about at this conference.  I want to try out the new Ancestry feature for enhancing photographs.  I want to continue to use Instagram and Facebook to try to find new cousins.  I want to research my Revolutionary War ancestors.  I want to finish watching all the classes I didn't get to the last three days...

My goodness, I already thought I don't have enough time to try and do all the genealogy things I want, but I REALLY do not have enough time now!  There are not enough hours in the day... plus real life interferes... What are the chances of my becoming independently wealthy?  Then I could stay home and do genealogy all the time... A girl can wish, can't she?