I have to congratulate the #RootstechConnect and Family Search Team for an impressive feat of organisation. The day began with a Zoom breakfast chat with the lovely folk from Family Tree Magazine (UK). It was great to see so many familiar faces. I was able to become part of the ‘What Family Historians Like for Breakfast’ poll.

I then started making my way through the playlist that I’d made from the 1500+ sessions on offer. This proved not to be as daunting as I’d thought, as some were less than two minutes long and none were more than twenty minutes. There doesn’t seem to be a way of knowing how long the session is until you open the video. I started with Why Family Search has a shared Family Tree with Brad Lowder, worth watching for the hilarious opening but I might dispute his reference to it as ‘the most accurate tree’.

I tried looking at Thru Lines and Genetic Clusters with Nicole Dyer, then watched Penny Walters’ more substantial Adoption sessions. Having had fun with Relatives at Rootstech, I tuned in to Mike Sandburg’s session, which was accompanied by rather a lot of background noise. I learned that you could filter the relatives by maternal and paternal lines. Only 20% of mine are on my mother’s side.

I then decided I’d better see what was on offer in the Expo Hall and maybe pick up some bargains. I was tempted to upgrade my Family Tree Maker at a seriously discounted price, although the person I ‘spoke’ to seemed to think it was a better idea for me to use the existing customer discount, which is substantially less than the show offer. I then tried to get a reduction for my soon to expire Ancestry account. Having got rid of the virtual assistant I got a real person who offered me 30% off but I would have to ‘ring this number’ as they couldn’t process payments on chat. I duly rang that number and spoke to a ‘customer solutions agent’. I was a bit surprised to find the person on the end of the phone had absolutely no idea what Rootstech was. She kept telling me that Rootsweb was different! ‘You know’, I said, ‘big virtual conference, half a million people.’ It appeared to fall on stony ground and I couldn’t get a discount as I had no record of the ‘conversation’ I’d had online, not much of a solution there then.

Some ‘proper’ sessions next. Maurice Gleeson on Y DNA for surname research, Sylvia Valentine’s Children in Care and Debbie Kennett’s Secrets and Surprises, followed by the briefer 10 Virtual Family History Activities to Connect with Family from Shenley Puterbaugh. I watched and enjoyed Sunetra Sarker’s live keynote session but I will give the other keynotes, none of whom I’ve heard of, a miss. I am afraid I just can’t get my head around using non-historians/family historians as keynotes, although that’s just me, other people love these sessions and find them inspiring.

I then had fun with My Heritage’s new Deep Nostalgia feature, which animates old photographs in a somewhat creepy fashion. This is another marmite thing and I have misgivings about tampering with the original evidence but this didn’t stop me giving it a go.

I finished the day with a brief visit to a virtual genie pub.

All in all, great fun. I hope you are joining the party. Now all set for day two. What will that bring?