The same RootsTech, but also a different RootsTech

RootsTech London has been strangely familiar, but also very different.  It is not the same as RootsTech in Salt Lake City, yet in many ways it is.

One familiar aspect was meeting up with friends, though many people I am used to seeing in SLC were not at the London event, though a large number were. There were also friends who have never attended the Salt Lake City conferences.

Nick Barratt

The most obvious (and unsurprising) difference was the number of talks relevant to people with only UK ancestry.  While in SLC there are often more than one talk at any one time I would like to attend, in this case there were lots! Hence the delay in getting some of these blog posts out!  I loved the chance to hear several talks by Nick Barratt, as not only is he familiar to us all from TV, I am particularly interested in the medieval period and he is a medievalist by training.

Another difference was the number of European exhibitors. There was

• Adam Research Centre (Arabian Peninsula)
• American Ancestors
• Belgium and Luxembourg Societies – Historie de Families
• Bella Italia Genealogy (Italy)
• Coret Genealogy (Dutch)
• Coutot-Roehrig (European heirs research)
• Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft genealogisher Verbände (Germany)
• Federation Française de Genealogie (French)
• Filae.com (French)
• International Genealogy and Probate Service by Ukrainian Bar for Foreigh Affairs
• My China Roots

In addition there were the usual stands: Ancestry, Findmypast, MyHeritage and so on.

Disclaimer: As a RootsTech Ambassador I receive complimentary admission to the event, invitations to some extra events and a free registration to give to one of my readers. I bear the cost of my return airfares from Australia and pay for my accommodation and meals.

Discover more about your ancestors and you'll discover more about yourself.

Saturday’s keynote was the Peter Pan of music: Donny Osmond.  I’m not saying that he isn’t grown up, it’s just that he hasn’t grown old. At just under 62, he looks no older than mid 40s. Yet he has ten grandchildren and a career in the music industry spanning five decades.  This didn’t always look like it would be the case. When he was 21 he was told that his career was over, that he was a “has been”. He is glad he didn’t listen to those advisors.

When you study your family history you learn which side of your family bequeathed you not only your hair & eye colour, or nose shape, but also out attitudes and character traits. And he credits the tenacity, the work ethic and the “never say never” attitude he got from his ancestors with giving him the determination to keep going in the fickle music industry. Donny told us the story of his life and of those ancestors.

Donny standing in front of a picture of
Elizabeth Williams & Thomas Davis,
his great-great grandparents

Elizabeth Williams, his great-great grandmother from Wales, is one of those influences. She had grown up in Wales, and then converted to the Mormon faith and moved to the States, where they lived in a two-roomed log cabin.  She never went to school, and couldn’t read or write, but she was determined to do what she could to give her children an education and a better life.

George Virl Osmond

The other ancestor whose attitudes influenced him enormously was called Virl. He lost his father when he was just six weeks old, had two step-fathers over time, and was kicked out of home by one of those step-fathers when he was just a teenager. He went to the local store to see if there was any work, but there wasn’t. So he asked to storekeeper if he could borrow a broom. Every day he swept the porch clean and greeted every customer. At night he slept on that porch. He was in survival mode, living on just bread and milk. Occasionally he would get hold of some tomato ketchup and add it to water, calling it tomato soup.

Virl eventually married and the couple’s first two children were born completely deaf. The doctors advised them not to have any more children. But they went on to have nine children, and Donny was the seventh of those.  From six-weeks of age, Virl had prevailed over all sorts of adversity and subsequently did all he could to make sure his children had a better life.

RootsTech attendees lining up to meet Donny

We inherit our personality, attitudes, creativity and sense of humour from our families, not just our DNA.  Donny has been in a unique situation in that almost his entire life has been lived out in the public eye and documented and recorded. But we need to make sure WE document the stories and experiences of OUR lives, no matter how quirky or funny, and we should document them before time runs out. Your descendants deserve to know who you were, what you were like and what you experienced. The most insignificant thing to you could be the most valuable to your descendants.  Donny told us how he keeps a file of the baby-words his children used to say.  I keep one too, though my son would kill me if I ever shared it outside the immediate family. One day he may feel differently.

Donny left us with one important thought: when you discover more about your ancestors you discover more about yourself.

Donny and his wife with his descendants

Disclaimer: As a RootsTech Ambassador I receive complimentary admission to the event, invitations to some extra events and a free registration to give to one of my readers. I bear the cost of my return airfares from Australia and pay for my accommodation and meals.

Walk the ground your ancestors walked to truly understand them

The keynote speaker for the first day of RootsTech London 2019 was TV historian Dan Snow. He told us that we are all here because of history, we are all a little part of a great continuum from the past to the present. Growing up, history was a big part of his family life. His childhood was spent visiting historic places and cemeteries, and his love of history developed. Even more influential was his maternal grandmother: an Indian-born Welsh woman living in Ontario and married to a Scot.  When he was young all her grandchildren would visit and at night she would tell them stories about their family. She told them they were descended from King Arthur, Llewellyn and Owain Glendower.  While this may not be true, it did instil in them a love of history, and their family’s history.

She told them stories about their ancestor who started in very humble circumstances in north Wales and became the only Prime Minister of the UK for whom English was a second language: David Lloyd George.

Dan’s father was descended from a man who hated Lloyd George: Lt General Sir Thomas Snow. Snow was in charge of a section of the line on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. That section was highly unsuccessful in their goals and suffered huge casualties.  While the battle was going on Snow was safely miles behind the lines in a Château, completely out of contact with the reality of what was going on.  His men advanced to enemy lines, and then got caught behind the enemy. They fought bravely, once their ammunition ran out they used their rifles as clubs and then their fists. The majority of them died. General Snow reported “I regret to inform you that the men lacked offensive spirit.”

While Dan did not feel that his great-grandfather was anymore culpable than any of the other British Generals, it is this one statement that he is ashamed of. Having had the opportunity to be in that château, and to read the journal and letters that his great-grandfather wrote in the place that he wrote them was a powerful experience. To actually walk the ground that your ancestors walked, to be in the places and buildings that they were in brings it all to life. On our family history journey we will find people who were deeply imperfect, and events that were unpalatable. But this is all part of that continuum of history and part of what made us who we are.



Dan's talk was live-streamed and will be available on the RootsTech website soon.

Disclaimer: As a RootsTech Ambassador I receive complimentary admission to the event, invitations to some extra events and a free registration to give to one of my readers. I bear the cost of my return airfares from Australia and pay for my accommodation and meals.

One week til RootsTech London

It's just a week until the first RootsTech conference to take place outside Salt Lake City opens.  This conference, at London's Excel Centre, opens on 24 October and runs for three days. And it's not too late to register. A three day pass is currently selling for £99 (valued at £149), or if you can only attend for one day, the pass will cost £49 (£99 value).  These passes will enable you to hear the fantastic keynotes (Dan Snow, Kadeena Cox, Steve Rockwood and Donny Osmond) as well as having access to over 150 talks (classes) on a variety of topics from DNA, to methodology, preserving family memories, and more traditional genealogy topics. These are not limited to UK research, but cover family history from a variety of countries. The full schedule can be checked out on the RootsTech London page.

The passes will also give you access to the Exhibition Hall, with over 100 stands from the big companies (Ancestry, FamilySearch, Findmypast and MyHeritage), family history societies (including the Society of Genealogists), software vendors and even a few unusual exhibitors like the Ministry of Defence and the Museum of Freemasonry.

But if you don't want to purchase one of  the (heavily discounted) passes, you can still get free access to the Exhibition Hall.  This will allow you to see everything going on there, including any talks at the vendor stands, but does not give you access to the classes or keynotes.  While this Exhibition Hall Pass is free, pre-registration is necessary at the RootsTech website. You will be sent a confirmation email which will act as your pass.

For those unable to attend at all, or who want to relive the event later, three sessions will be live-streamed each day. After the conference is over they will be able to be viewed online for free.  The list of streamed sessions can be viewed at https://www.rootstech.org/london/live-stream-schedule

There is one other pass that is available, which is the Premium Virtual Pass. For £49 you will be able to see twenty sessions which will never be available online for free.  Not only is this great for people who can't make it to the conference, but for those who do come, it allows you to choose another class while these are on, and to view the classes as often as you like.  The list of the twenty sessions covered by the Premium Virtual Pass is available at https://www.rootstech.org/london/premium-virtual-pass

You can't imagine how much I am looking forward to this conference, especially as the conference I organised in Sydney (Exploring the Past) has just ended, and I don't need to do any organisation for this one!

Disclaimer: As a RootsTech Ambassador I receive complimentary admission to the event, invitations to some extra events and dinners and a free registration to give to one of my readers. I bear the cost of my return airfares from Australia and pay for my accommodation and meals.