The 15th rendition of RootsTech looks to not only cater to thousands of in-person attendees but also meet the needs of a mass global audience.

Running Thursday through Saturday at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, the annual family history conference is expected to host 15,000-plus in-person attendees and surpass the 4.7 million online participants it had in 2024.

Each participant, in person or online, will have the opportunity to make “meaningful discoveries” in their own family history, said event director Jonathan Wing.

“Discovery is such a powerful word in the family history industry, because that’s where the emotion is,” Wing told the Daily Herald. “That’s what everyone wants to do. They want to discover the individual. They want to discover more about their heritage through DNA. They want to find that record that finds that missing person or connect to and discover more about their homeland, their culture and traditions.”

Hosted by FamilySearch and sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the convention will give ancestry gurus and family history newbies alike opportunities to learn new skills through beginner, intermediate and advanced classes.

Newcomers may discover how to track ancestors in the Eastern world with “Introduction to Asian Research Power Hours” or learn about their mother’s family line with the “Reveal Your Maternal Ancestors and Their Stories Using Mitochondrial DNA” class.

Intermediate learners can dive into using Swedish tax records to solve family history issues, while advanced participants can learn strategies for taking researching their English ancestors to the next level.

There are 187 online sessions and 251 in-person sessions across the three days.

“There is a wide range (of classes) and it’s not just here at the Salt Palace,” Wing said. “We can’t stress that enough. The majority of our attendees, millions who join from over 300 countries and territories around the world, they’re joining online, and there is a whole curriculum, a whole smattering of different classes, that are specifically catered to needs around the world, because the way that we do family history is different in different parts of the world, and it’s nuanced.”

LDS youth are also invited to participate in RootsTech through a global youth activity Wednesday where Primary General President Susan H. Porter and Bradley R. Wilcox, first counselor in the Young Men General Presidency, will speak on temple attendance and worship.

Saturday is “family discovery day” and will feature classes the entire family can participate in.

Participants can discover any distant relatives also attending RootsTech through the FamilySearch app.

“What’s amazing is there are individuals that have over 100,000 connections and relatives who are participating in RootsTech,” Wing said.

Rounding out the seminar is a number of keynote speeches from public figures.

Emmy Award-winning artist Rachel Platten, singer of “Fight Song,” will share her story of discovering and rediscovering herself, according to a church release, and put on a musical performance.

Tara Davis-Woodhall, a 2024 Olympics gold medalist in the long jump, and her husband Hunter Woodhall, a Syracuse, Utah, native and 2024 Paralympics gold medalist, will speak.

“We affectionately know them as the golden couple from the Paris Olympics, and they’ll be sharing their story of their road to their gold medals,” Wing said. “But they’ll also be sharing some significant family stories and from their own family history, even if it’s the more recent family history. And then we have some surprising details to share with them about their family history that we will unveil on stage live.”

Other speakers include New York artist Dana Tanamachi; renowned South African speaker Ndaba Thembekile Mandela; Orlando, Florida, content creator family Los Chicaneros; Los Angeles artist Ysabelle Cuevas; Italian mime and comedian Marco Lui; Genealogical Society of Utah CEO Steve Rockwood; and Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ.

“When we look at the conference, there’s obviously the learning component, the classes that help empower people to make meaningful discoveries in their family history,” Wing said. “But what we do on the main stage is we provide inspiration, we bring all different types of speakers and keynotes from around the world, different life stories, and we show that family and family connection is a part of everybody’s lives.”