February 2012 - Phil Moir's Blog

It has been a few weeks since I posted a Technical Update, and I wouldn't want anyone thinking that we've been slacking. I'm sure you are all very aware that we have made some changes, many have been behind the scenes, some more up front. From a performance and stability and evolutionary point of view they have been quite significant, and looking at the statistics of the site running, and the general volume of feedback from members, we are now heading in the right direction. But of course there will be more improvements coming very soon.

Firstly, I would like to apologise that this blog was not completed until today, and should have been posted over a week ago. Hopefully, despite my negligence, you still enjoy the report. Well, the final day at RootsTech2012 is over (well for me at least), and what an amazing, informative, motivating experience it has been. RootsTech2012? I was going to equate it to the "Who Do You Think You Are" show at Olympia in London (UK), but that would be an unfair comparison. RootsTech is in its 2nd year, hosted by FamilySearch.org in Salt Lake City, Utah USA (and jointly sponsored by brightsolid and several other companies), and is quite unique in terms of content. It is both a genealogy show for genealogists and family history enthusiasts, but also a technical conference where all the major and minor for-profit and not-for-profit companies in the genealogy business get together to discuss new technical innovations that are being incorporated into this field and are discussed openly in the hope that we all rise to the challenge in providing and securing genealogical records, research and discoveries for now and the future. It was so pleasing to see non-technical genealogists showing a a direct interest in the technology seminars, as well as developers and the like attending user focused seminars, and this cross fertilisation of ideas and concepts and requirements between the groups.