RootsTech 2023 - Day 1

Day 1 of RootsTech is over and there was so much going on. I had several classes on my schedule but didn't even get to any of them. So, what did I do instead of classes?

At 9:00, I did an interview with Jen Allen, Brandon Beckstead, and Jonathan Wing, the FamilySearch employees who are responsible for making RootsTech happen. We talked about the process of setting up RootsTech, how much sleep they have lost over the last couple months, and when RootsTech 2024 will occur - (Spoiler Alert: It will start on February 29th, 2024!)

After that, I walked over to the Storied booth where I spoke with Brandon Camp, the CMO of Storied. Storied is a new company which officially launched on January 18, 2023. They use ChatGPT (AI) for their Story Assist to help you develop the story of your ancestors. Story Assist gives you several prompts and then provides the start of a story for you to edit and add to as you wish. This is meant to remove writers block and help people get started in telling the story of their relatives. The site has a set of basic research records which is growing. They currently have access to Newspaperarchive.com, many of the US Census records, a variety of vital records, some international records, and has integration with Goldie May. 

Storied has a three tier membership. Their basic Free account allows you to create your family tree or upload a GEDCOM file and you can create unlimited stories. Their Storied Plus account is $4.99/month and allows you to create a group, have access to the US historical records collection, and invite up to 50 people to collaborate. The group members get free access to what you have created and can add unlimited memories to the people. The Storied Ultimate account is $11.99/month and provides access to everything in the Plus account as well as UK newspapers and Newspaper Archive and you can add up to 10 groups with up to 100 people in each group to help you collaborate and create stories. But right now, they have a RootsTech special where you can get the Ultimate subscription for only $99 for the year using this link. That is $40 off the regular price. The link is good through Saturday.

Then, I went to the Main Stage to watch Jordin Sparks. I had front row seating in the Media Section. Jordin did a little interview and then performed four of her songs during the 45 minutes she was on stage. Afterward, a few of us were able to go to the Meet & Great to get pictures.

After lunch, I attended the Innovation Showcase where several new companies promoted their products. Vlada Bortnik of Marco Polo discussed their video chat platform. The Marco Polo platform allows you to record a video chat and send it to others. They can then view the chat at their leisure and return a chat to you. The object is to make the interactions more personal and build connections. See the bottom of this blog post for a QR code for 2 free months of Marco Polo Plus.

Andy Gold of FamilySearch presented their new developments in Computer Generated Trees (CGT). CGTs build the scaffolding to store data in tree form. It scans millions of records in a matter of hours, looking for connections that can add to the family tree. This process is currently being developed for locations in Australia, Brazil, Philippines, Mexico, and Italy. You can begin exploring the CGTs by visiting FamilySearch at https://www.familysearch.org/search/cgt.

Bank of Memories was the next to present. They are a blockchain storage where you can store your digital information. I'm not up on the blockchain process so I won't even try to explain how this works.

KinSame has a really cool technology which can analyze photographs for genetic information and relationships. I don't understand the algorithm they use but they claim to be able to detect thousands of genetic traits, verify degrees of kinship between individuals, and develop family trees just by analyzing photographs. They are marketing their product to the big genealogy companies and hope that they will be able to license the product for commercial use in the near future.

GENXT is another company that is developing a product that they hope the industry will adopt. Their product allows for cross-platform genetic matching. There are currently over 250 companies which do genetic analysis and more than 70 of them specialize in genealogy. However, there is no way for an individual to see what is in all of these databases. GENXT would allow the data to be shared across platforms so you can see if you have cousins at company X without having to test at that company. Many of us today use the major companies, Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilyTree DNA, 23 and Me, etc. and have either had to upload our data or take tests at various companies. If the GENXT technology is adopted, the data from all of these companies would be available to us with only one test.

Ericcson demonstrated their EPHAS augmented reality technology. EPHAS stands for Every Place Has A Story. This technology has a variety of uses, but for genealogy it would allow you to experience the story of a place in a virtual environronment. Ericcson provided a RootsTech Trial QR code which I have provided at the bottom of this post.

Then MacFamilyTree presented their latest release. This software is for personal use and has spectacular graphics. It almost makes me want to have a Mac so I could use their 3-D tree and other components. MacFamilyTree has integration with FamilySearch and uses AI to colorize and enhance photos and enhance blurry documents. You can see their video on their website and get a good idea of what they have developed.

MyHeritage cM Explainer

And lastly, MyHeritage talked about their AI Time Machine, which I wrote about last November. MyHeritage has also just released their cM Explainer. This is a free new feature that accurately estimates familial relationships between DNA Matches. For every DNA Match, cM Explainer offers detailed predictions of possible relationships between the two people and the respective probabilities of each relationship. It also determines the most recent common ancestor, and displays a diagram showing their relationship path.

There was a lot more going on, this was just my day before 2:30. Maybe I'll write about the rest later. But now, it is time for me to head out again for RootsTech Day 2.

Ericcson EPHAS trial