Bringing RootsTech Home

Continuing Education, Action Steps and Reflections

Hello, Rootsquad! What a whirlwind RootsTech 2025 was!

Here’s how I brought RootsTech home with me and how I will continue to incorporate what I learned and the connections I made:

The first thing I did was watch Kori Robbins presentation, “From RootsTech to Real Life: Turning Your Notes into Practical Steps”. Wonderful, thoughtful questions and action steps!

From that presentation, I created this Action List:

1. Download all the handouts and organize them. I plan to create a public OneDrive to save them, and I will send out a link to that, so you can access them as I write about them.

2. Update my Relatives at RootsTech spreadsheet with all the fun new cousins I met there, making sure I can read the screenshot of our relationship and saving their email addresses. I plan to reach out to all the Goodwins to tell them about my Ship Brooklyn newsletter, and to create a Goodwin Family Association.

3. Start watching the recorded sessions that I missed. My plan is to watch 3 per week and review them in a post.

4. Create a list of “Do This Differently Next Year for RootsTech 2026”.

5. Assess and write up all the research from the FamilySearch Library. This will take a while, because I had 2 “assistants” helping, and we really found some good stuff. I am very excited!!

6. Implement several ideas at work, a “Practice Media Kit” for the DigiStation, develop an “AIMS” program for launch next fall, and document my notes to share here with you, my Rootsquad.

7. Reach out to my Genealogy Librarian and Archivist friends and create a special network just for us to share ideas (and duplicate books). I haven’t yet written about my experiences at ARC - the Archives and Records Custodian Symposium held the 2 days before RootsTech. It was its own brand of magnificent. (more will be said later!)

8. Explore the new products and features I learned about. (And purchase the ones I want to before the end of the month when the discounts end!)

We had a wonderful “Lunch and Learn Genealogy” program last week at the library, where we watched, “Beyond the Brick Wall Strategies for Pre-1850 US Research.” by Julia A. Anderson. Very excellent tips - for all times periods, not just Pre-1850! I will be watching it again and working alongside the video on a brick wall of mine.

And lastly, I wanted to share just a bit of the “Insights” part of my Take Home:

Every single person I met had a unique story in so many areas of their lives: their products, their family, their culture, their library and/or archives, their patrons, their research challenges and successes, their passions, their weather, their jams and their style. Each person I met was so interesting, had their own take on things, and I learned and grew because they shared themselves with me.

In this vast world of differences, it is the connections that we make that bring us together. We are all humans, part of the 'family tribe of keepers', and we all do it our own way. How much I appreciate that each one shared a bit of themselves to help me grow this week. I am certain that the part they played, whatever it was, I was meant to be there to interact with them, and I hope they know that I saw them, and they made an impact. I wish I could say thank you. I hope that I did at the time.

If you are reading this and you were a part of my RootsTech 2025 experience, thank you!

It was such a fabulous, fun whirlwind of Relatives, new products, tours, discussions, classes, research and learning, I am so glad to be able to continue it here at home, and I hope all of you can join me next year in person! Save the dates, March 5-7, 2026.