Thousands Watch or Attend RootsTech 2017 Family History Conference

Contributed By R. Scott Lloyd, Church News staff writer

  • 15 February 2017

People register for the RootsTech family history and technology conference at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, February 8, 2017.  Photo by Laura Seitz, Deseret News.

The “world’s largest family history gathering without question,” according to organizers, flooded the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, this past week with an estimated 12,000 attendees from 43 countries and nearly every state in the United States.

Now in its seventh year, RootsTech 2017 was the largest yet of the annual family history conference sponsored by FamilySearch International, the genealogy service operated by the Church’s Family History Department.

General sessions of the three-day event, which commenced Thursday with the opening keynote session, were streamed live over the internet to more than 100,000 viewers.

RootsTech

Select addresses are available to watch on Rootstech.org.



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People attend RootsTech, a family history and technology conference and trade show, at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, February 8, 2017. Photo by Laura Seitz, Deseret News.

LDS Family Discovery Day

On Saturday, attendance swelled when 30,000 registered attendees gathered for the Family Discovery Day, the component of RootsTech directed toward Latter-day Saint families.

President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and his wife, Sister Wendy Watson Nelson, led the keynote presentation. That and other events of Family Discovery Day can be viewed on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.


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Leadership Session

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People listen to Steve Rockwood, president and CEO of FamilySearch International, speak at the RootsTech conference at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, February 9, 2017. Photo by Spenser Heaps, Deseret News.

Steve Rockwood, president and CEO of FamilySearch International, speaks at the RootsTech conference at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, February 9, 2017. Photo by Spenser Heaps, Deseret News.

Participants work at a booth at the RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City Friday, February 10, 2017. Photo by Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News.

People register for the RootsTech family history and technology conference at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, February 8, 2017. Photo by Laura Seitz, Deseret News.

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