Tuesday, March 6, 2018

RootsTech2018 - My Review!

Any of you who have attended RootsTech know what a gigantic event it is. At RootsTech 2018, according to reports from the organizers, there were over 15,000 descendants in attendance at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, from February 28th to March 3rd. Although the Salt Palace is sizeable, at times I ended up drowning in a sea of barely-mobile humanity. With that many bodies about, it was surprising to find out that RootsTech did not take up the entire Salt Palace. A few of us sought refuge from the masses in the western section of the venue, where there were no events taking place.

For me, the best part of RootsTech was the class sessions. There were four days of them, on an impressive variety of topics for both beginning and more experienced genealogists. My only frustration with the sessions was the festival seating (first come, first seated). Some classes filled up a half hour or more before they were scheduled to begin. After being squeezed out of a couple of classes I was hoping to attend, I began leaving an occasional session way before it was over so I could get a seat in a class in the next time slot with a topic that was more interesting to me. As a former teacher, I hated to do that, but I was forced into being rudely competitive. If you go to RootsTech and are really interested in a particular class, you should arrive 45 minutes early, especially if you think it will be a popular session. Fortunately, my second-choice classes were pretty good.

Another advantage of arriving early for a session was that you had time to chat with other early birds who were sitting nearby. Without exception, it was a joy to chat with other attendees while we waited for a class to start. We could relax and enjoy the conversation, rather than simply exchange expressions of mutual exasperation as we dealt with crushing crowds, long lines, and ice-cold water at the bathroom sinks.

One other great thing about the classes was the availability of detailed syllabi for all the sessions, even the ones we did not not personally attend, which we were able to download as PDFs. This mitigated the occasional seating issue. 

There were general sessions with guest speakers. I attended only the first of these events, which included enlightening presentations on the technical progress that has been made in the genealogy world, some current challenges, and future advances to which we may look forward. Two terrific keynote speakers were scheduled for succeeding days -- Scott Hamilton and Henry Louis Gates. However, I opted out of seeing them live, because the sound level in the main auditorium was intolerably loud for me. The general sessions were going to be available to watch online, so I chose to save my hearing and enjoy the guest speakers at a later time, at a reasonable volume.

Thankfully, my desire to avoid noxious noise allowed for some time to peruse books and microfilms at the Family History Library, just a five-minute walk from the Salt Palace. The library was open until 9 p.m. every evening except Saturday, so I had time to gather several pages of notes from their copious collection.

There are a number of videos from the conference posted on the RootsTech website, including the general sessions and a number of the class sessions. From what we were told, the videos will be available until about the time of next year's conference, but videos from 2017 have remained on the site,too. I have not yet viewed all of the class videos (but I will!), although I have watched the speeches of Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Gates, both of which were very enjoyable. Hamilton's was an emotional talk about his life as an adoptee. Particularly poignant was the part where he spoke about his amazement over looking into the face of his first-born biological son -- the first biological family member he had ever known. Gates spoke excitedly about his personal adventures in family history, the evolution of his work in the field, and his plans for educating young people about the power of genealogy.

Seems I have just enough Scottish blood to keep me from being much of a spender. So, I was only mildly interested in the exhibit hall, through which I made just a couple of passes. It was basically a genealogy shopping mall, of course, but there were demonstrations, freebies, and opportunities to chat with consultants. The only stops I made were at the table for the Bureau of Land Management (they were giving out folders containing great information about land surveys) and some of the genealogy society tables. In particular, I wanted to visit the booth for JewishGen, where I obtained some excellent resource listings and also got a chance to chat with Lara Diamond of a blog that I follow, Lara's Jewnealogy, where she shares very useful information about Eastern Europe that is of interest to anyone with family from that part of the world, Jewish or not.

Having the RootsTech app on my phone was a great survival tool for nagivating the madness. I heard from one of the organizers that many attendees state they are uncomfortable with technology and will not use the app. Why would tech-averse people be attracted to a conference with the word "tech" in its name? Hopefully in order to begin learning 21st-century "tech"-niques!

One major "no-no" that I have learned from having attended many conventions is that it is very unwise to walk around the host city sporting conference name tags or wearing/carrying any other tell-tale swag that screams "out-of-towner." Salt Lake City is one of the safer urban venues, but it is good standard practice to try and blend in with the locals, who are less likely to be a target for crime than tourists. Almost all of the RootsTech-ers I saw out on the town were totally swagged-out. Sorry folks, but that screams "newbie" in the convention world. Keep your dignity and protect yourself from crime. When you go outside, go incognito!

It is no wonder to me that RootsTech is popular. The informative value of the class sessions far outweighs any aggravation from the crowds and noise. It offers tremendous opportunities for family historians to learn, network, and be inspired. 

Annie

"The only disability in life is a bad attitude." -- Scott Hamilton









1 comment:

  1. I love your quote at the end. I just read another review that had the same experience. She focused on making lemonade and have fun to outweigh the issues.

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