Day Two of RootsTech 2015

A disappointment that after a short talk from D. Joshua Taylor of FindMyPast that part of the live streaming went dead, ON PURPOSE. What is this all about? So I don't get to watch Laura Bush and have only one quote of her talk via a blogger there in person. It is:

"Walk on the beach any chance you get."

I've found a quote from my favorite blogger James Tanner, too about yesterday's keynote:

"Keynote by Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch International. I note that they are using the name of the corporation including the "International" part for the first time. This is a change. He is getting a degree in family history from BYU Idaho. This year we will have about 21,927 people registered so far. They have people from 35 countries, but their graph had no dot for Australia and I am sitting next to three very nice ladies from Australia including famous blogger, Jill Ball."

I'd noticed this too, but a day later...today. FamilySearch International. I've been very interested in Mexican Records since my husband and I lived in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico from 1995 to 2001. 

Bob Field with Family History Center Staff and first box of films

The photo above shows a DAR lady who was searching at the center. Guadalajara had many expatriots living there, so we were the first bilingual center south of the northern border states of Mexico. 

The dream is coming true!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because my passion was family history and it WAS difficult to research US records from so far away, I organized a bilingual Family History Symposium with experts from Mexico and US. My husband, as Center director participated in delivering papers. One of the main suggestions that came from that conference was to digitize and index the millions of Mexico records that have been mircrofilmed by the LDS Church over the past 40 years. The dream is coming true!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bob listens to expert presenter in Spanish with headphones

Yesterday CEO Brimhall said that with Ancestry's help, over 50 million Mexican records would be indexed and 

online by the end of the year 2015.

Today Josh Taylor displayed this overhead projection during his speech.

This says it all. When I moved to Mexico twenty years ago, I found only one place with online accessability and that was BYU's Family History Center. So we got an internet connection. But the technology just wasn't there. Now, even in Africa.....well maybe not Australia, according to James Tanner, thanks to the collaboration of Ancestry, My Heritage, FindMyPast and FamilySearch International, ANYONE, ANYWHERE, can find the DATA to connect with the family's ancestors, and feel the joy of discovering, the excitement of solving their own mystery. Love it!