I’m having some Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (#SNGF), with help from Randy Seaver and his prompts! Feel free to join in.

Favorite RootsTech Session

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: March 7, 2026

Prompt: “RootsTech 2026 just finished today.  Did you watch any classes online?  Which online class was your favorite, perhaps the most informative, most helpful, or most entertaining, for you?”

Introduction

Have I watched any classes online? 18, so far.

Which was my favorite? Wow, that’s almost as bad as asking which child is my favorite.

Discussion

There are so many which I would heartily recommend!

• I watched every Artificial Intelligence one which was put online (sadly, not all of them were). (These links are for your convenience, but please note that only one day comes up; you need to tab over to the other days of the conference.)
• I leaned heavily on the Methodology sessions.
• I was astounded, as always, by the Gardiner Brothers in the Day 3 Keynote.

But once I watch my entire list, the first one I plan to rewatch will be:

FamilySearch Full-Text Search – Your Golden Path to Ancestral Discovery with David Ouimette.

He’s an engaging, experienced speaker, and genuinely enthused about his subject.  He explains the advances FamilySearch has made to Full-Text Search, with real, relatable examples of how to use it. He explains navigation and when we would want to choose the different options. He gives search examples for different scenarios.

One of the most exciting parts of the session is learning that Full-Text Search doesn’t rely solely on traditional indexes. Instead, FamilySearch is using AI to read and transcribe historical handwriting, allowing us to search every word in millions of documents. That means names, places, and details that never made it into indexes can suddenly become discoverable.

This opens up records that were previously searchable only by browsing images—court records, land records, and other manuscript collections where names appear deep inside the text.

As the lead of FamilySearch Content Strategy for Asia-Pacific, he has unique insight into what’s coming.

Ouimette’s enthusiasm is truly contagious in this session – I highly recommend everyone drop this blog right now and go watch it!

Challenge

Go watch just one session* – navigate to https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/schedule?tab=full_schedule&day=2026-03-07 and filter by a topic or speaker you’re interested in!

* OK that was a trick. You can’t stop at just one.

AI Disclosure

This post was created by me with the help of AI tools. While AI helps organize research, the storytelling and discoveries are my own.