​With recent wintry weather and storms across the country, it is perfect weather for learning and genealogy. As February is flying by, it seems like a great time to remind you of RootsTech 2025.
The dates this year are March 6-8, 2025. If you haven’t registered yet, you could join the free online registration and map out the classes that you are most interested in to stream. And lucky you if you are going in person to enjoy this event.
 
Here are two sites to help you:
What to Expect from FamilySearch in 2025  As part of RootsTech you’ll learn about innovative technologies. With this blog on FamilySearch you’ll learn about new features on the FamilySearch site itself including the use of AI in complete word search for documents that have not been indexed yet. I’ve tried this with some of the Canadian land documents in their “lab” site and it is amazing. I had found these documents the old-fashioned way using land indexes and searching manually. How much more efficient to search on my ancestor’s name! Check it out.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/ You can register here plus find out about speakers and classes available. With March just around the corner, take some time to plan your opportunities of learning.
 
I hope you’ve taken some time this winter to learn new genealogy skills. Check out RootsTech as another opportunity!

The history of Valentine’s Day has quite a few twists and turns so I will include a couple of links if you would like to learn more about this day. I was wondering if our ancestors paid any heed to this day or not. I suspect for many it was a saint’s day rather than the commercial day that we experienced today. However, I did find some postcards that could double for valentines among my great-grandparents papers from the 1910s so there was a nod to the holiday back then.  Do you have any clues about this day from your ancestors? Perhaps you have a family story or a letter or valentine that would give you a clue. Our family stories come from all aspects of our ancestors’ lives, not just dates. Explore your Valentine history, even your own for your children and grandchildren. Happy Valentine’s Day! (And Happy President’s Day for those of you in the United States.)
Valentine's Day - Wikipedia
The history of Valentine's Day: From its pagan origins to a billion-dollar holiday
Valentine’s Day 2024 Facts ‑ Fun, Interesting, Candy | HISTORY

If you’re like most of us, once we start researching a specific group of records, we get immersed in the euphoria of finding the records of our ancestors without stopping translating the actual documents until much later. It is common to want to find and save those records first but without writing down a plan, it is easy “loose” or misplace those records. If we’d only taken the time to  transcribe and translate our finds, we probably would be further ahead of the game. Let’s look.

If you’re like me, you’ve inherited family heirlooms and wonder how to create records of them. We have all taken pictures of items so that we can pass on to the next generation why this particular bowl or snippet of a wedding dress is important. (If you haven’t, add that to your 2025 goals.)  I have recently seen flat lay photography as a way to capture three-dimensional objects in a creative way. Let’s look.