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At the RootsTech 2025 Family Discovery Day, President Jeffrey R. Holland, left, joins Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Kathy, in the Salt Palace Convention Center on Saturday, March 8, 2025. Here, a video plays in the background about how Elder Andersen’s farm experiences helped him better understand how to follow Jesus Christ.

Courtesy Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

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Laura Giles

Courtesy Jeremy Hall

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RootsTech, an annual global genealogy conference brought to the world by FamilySearch and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrapped up a few days ago. With tens of thousands of people attending in person in Salt Lake City and even more attending virtually, the work and hobby of family history is going strong.

The necessity to safely host RootsTech virtually during the pandemic years has come to an end. But that virtual attendance has stuck around and grown to millions of people across the globe logging on to RootsTech, according to information from the church’s Newsroom website.

RootsTech first began in Salt Lake City a decade ago. “That first year, we had a million and a half people show up,” said Kevin S. Hamilton, executive director of the church’s Family History Department.

This year, thousands of youth attended, in addition to the many adults, celebrating their ancestors and family history work. In other words, family history work is not just for older people. This is something that millions of people all over the world, young and old, are passionate about.

There are probably a variety of reasons people are so interested in their family history, but here are a few. It’s exciting to discover family members, what their names were and where they lived as well as read stories about them. This can help us feel closer to our families.

Some research has even shown that when people know a lot about their families – the stories, traditions, etc., – they experience stronger emotional health. We can also find out some important genetic information that could impact our own health.

Stories about ancestors can increase our compassion for others and even be an example of resilience to us. My own great-grandfather wrote about his time serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ in 1913 in Chicago when he contracted smallpox and had to be isolated. He wrote, “For eighteen days I was the only patient in the hospital, which covered one-half a city block and two stories high. The only thing that kept me from going batty was my ability to sing and so I would lie in my bed and sing through the nights and listen to my voice as it echoed throughout the halls from one empty room to another. The only other sound that I could hear either during the day or night was the humming noise as the Catholic Sisters were in prayer and running the Rosary. After eighteen days alone as the only patient, two other boys came in to keep me company.”

It may seem daunting to begin looking into family history. FamilySearch.org is a great place to start. There, users can search their family tree, find out the origins of their names, record their own life stories, read stories and look at photos of ancestors, and even find out which famous people are relations.

Of course, another great way to learn about family history is at next year’s RootsTech. If you missed this year’s conference, you can still watch the sessions from RootsTech on FamilySearch.org. However you decide to go about it, discovering your roots through family history can be rewarding.