Almost 10,000 attendees experience first RootsTech event in London
Thousands of family historians gathered in London for three days at the end of October for talks, workshops, interactive exhibits and more as the world’s biggest family history show held its first international event.
RootsTech London took place from 24 to 26 October at the ExCeL convention centre in London’s Docklands.
The original RootsTech conference, the flagship event of family history website family search.org, has been held every year since 2011 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The London event was the first overseas version, and attracted 9,727 attendees from 42 countries.
RootsTech London boasted keynote addresses from TV historian Dan Snow, Paralympian Kadeena Cox and music legend Donny Osmond.
There was also a full programme of talks from family history experts on such topics as DNA testing, census records, comparing family history websites, and international research.
Major family history organisations, as well as many smaller local societies, had stands in the Exhibition Hall, and several announced new family history services.
At the Ministry of Defence stand, attendees had the first opportunity to try out a new online ordering service for Second World War Army and Royal Air Force records, which will be rolled out next year. The service enabled people to receive service records within three hours rather than the current wait of up to six months.
Meanwhile Ancestry announced plans to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War next year, including publishing extensive home front and military records on ancestry.co.uk.
The website has recently released a new collection of 177,750 ‘WWII Royal Artillery Tracer Cards, 1939–1948’.
If you’re searching for a soldier who served in the British artillery, these records allow you to trace their movements throughout the war.
DNA was a big part of the event with 23andMe, AncestryDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, Findmypast and MyHeritage all offering big discounts on their test kits. Both 23andMe and Ancestry announced upgrades to their DNA testing services, with Ancestry offering 60 ethnicity regions and more than 900 communities and 23andMe offering 1,500 geographic regions as well as a new report
‘The event attracted 9,727 attendees from 42 countries’
covering 34 traits, ranging from eye and hair colour to motion sickness and the ability to match musical pitch.
In addition, the Association of Jewish Refugees launched a website paying tribute to some of the victims of the Second World War ( ajrrefugeevoices.org.uk). The site includes photos, documents and historical information.
Also, the Software MacKiev Company demonstrated the latest version of Family Tree Maker, with new tools including a Tree Browser and the capacity to edit profile pictures to produce headshots (see the review on page 83).
Finally, software company Calico Pie gave a preview of its new release of Family Historian coming in the New Year.
Family history website thegenealogist. co.uk is continuing to publish a major land survey from 1910 to 1915, with the first set of records from outside London made available online.
TheGenealogist has now digitised the Lloyd George Domesday Survey maps and field books for 96 towns and villages in north Buckinghamshire.
The 1910 Land Valuation Survey, or ‘Domesday Survey’, was an initiative of the Liberal chancellor and future prime minister David Lloyd George.
It was conducted as part of an effort to raise taxes on land in order to fund the ‘People’s Budget’, which included plans for welfare initiatives in addition to new battleships that could compete with those of Germany.
The five-year survey’s tithe books are a comprehensive record of Edwardian Britain, noting who lived in each property, whether they owned or rented it, and other details such as descriptions of the building and a note of its value.
TheGenealogist began digitising the records, now held at The National Archives in Kew, in 2017.
So far the website has released a number of London datasets, including the City of London, Paddington, Brent, North London and Tower Hamlets. TheGenealogist ultimately aims to digitise the complete collection.