The Shamrock Genealogist

RootsTech is officially over. The last two days (Friday and Saturday) were a bit of a whirlwind.  Friday Early that morning I attended the MyHeritage Friends breakfast. It's always a fun opportunity to learn about some new features and announcements (including some news ahead of the keynote). The big news is that MyHeritage will donate another 5000 DNA kits to help adoptees and their families reunite. You can apply for a DNA kit on  www.dnaquest.org.   I then attended the power hour hosted by my company, American Ancestors . The session was " Breaking Down Genealogical Brick Walls: Strategies for Success" I thought it was a great session and was well attended. Lots of great tips on how to use records on extended family, associates, and neighbors to bust down those pesky brick walls.  Later I attended the American Ancestors luncheon where my colleague Claire Vail, Director of Creative  and Digital Strategy, discussed the Mayflower web site . The site has a...

RootsTech 2019 is speeding by so fast. Yesterday was a very full day. Ancestry sponsored the keynote session. Some of the key features that were rolled out are tags for DNA as well as incorporating newspapers.com into search results using OCR software. The star celebrity for the keynote was Patricia Heaton. She shared a lot of stories about her family. I really enjoyed seeing the reveal with all of the different Catholic records that were found on her family. It was a nice tie-in to my lecture later that day. Speaking of Catholic records, I lectured for the first time at RootsTech. It was an unforgettable experience (definitely a bucket list item that I had on my resolution list). The attendance was awesome and I received great feedback. I'm lecturing again tomorrow (Saturday) at 3 pm if you missed my first lecture. Last night I had the honor attend the FamilySearch VIP dinner for the first time. I It was a great networking opportunity to talk with others in the industry and ...