BRIGHTSOLID SPONSORS ROOTSTECH 2012, 2-4 FEBRUARY

The following is from BrightSolid.

BRIGHTSOLID SPONSORS ROOTSTECH 2012, 2-4 FEBRUARY

• It will be a main partner with a large presence at major family history and technology conference in Salt Lake City

·         CEO Chris van der Kuyl will be announcing the launch of a new product into the US market

brightsolid, a leading online provider of historical and genealogical content, today announces that it will be sponsoring RootsTech, the major family history and technology conference, taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah from 2-4 February 2012. 

With over 3,000 attendees in 2011, when brightsolid first sponsored the event, Rootstech again promises to be the genealogy and technology event of the year. It will assemble everyone from family historians and product developers to content providers and users in a unique forum of innovation, learning and networking.

“We are proud to be a main partner of such an important event”, says Chris van der Kuyl, brightsolid CEO, who will himself be speaking at RootsTech, as part of a 19-strong team there representing brightsolid.

brightsolid has been at the forefront of technological innovations in family history for over three decades. It hosts over a billion genealogical records across its family of brands and was this month voted Best Genealogy Organisation in the online Gene Awards.  

As well as sponsoring the conference itself, brightsolid will also be using RootsTech to announce the launch of a new product into the US market and sponsoring key elements within the conference.

Van der Kuyl will address a brightsolid-sponsored lunch on Thursday, 2 February with a talk on, “Why Everyone Deserves Their Own Episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ and How brightsolid Will Help You Get There.” 

RootsTech overall will include no less than 11 different talks by members of the brightsolid team, who will also join a range of discussions and workshops between leading family history content developers and users.

brightsolid will also have a large stand at RootsTech, showcasing not just brightsolid’s global network of findmypast sites (includingwww.findmypast.co.uk; www.findmypast.ie and www.findmypast.com.au) but also the Scottish Government site, ScotlandsPeople

(www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) and the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk). The latter is a unique treasure trove for the family historian, containing millions of pages from the British Library’s newspaper collection, featuring more than 200 newspaper titles from every part of the UK and Ireland published in the 18th and 19th centuries.

RootsTech will assemble all these resources in one place for the first time. The brightsolid stand there will also boast a presentation area for 15 to 20 people, where visitors will be able to see demonstrations of brightsolid sites and meet production developers. “If English is your mother tongue, the brightsolid stand will be where you’ll find your roots”, says van der Kuyl.   

brightsolid is also sponsoring Exercise Your Funny Bone, an evening of comedy on Thursday 2 February, presented by comic Ryan Hamilton, recently named by Rolling Stone as one of Five Comics To Watch.

• About RootsTech 2012

RootsTech 2012 will be held in the Salt Palace Convention Center of Salt Lake City, Utah, from 2-4 February, 2012. It will be a gathering of technology users and technology creators who will be working together to find solutions to difficult family history and genealogy problems. http://rootstech.org/about

• About brightsolid

Since 1994, brightsolid group has been delivering online innovation and pioneering the expansion of the genealogy market with leading family history

websites including the global network of findmypast sites, plus  ScotlandsPeople, GenesReunited, andbritishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, together servicing over 18 million registered customers worldwide.

The sites connect people via their innovative family tree software and deliver access to over a billion records dating as far back as 1200. Family historians can search for their ancestors among global collections, relating primarily to people with UK and Irish ancestry, of military records, census, migration, occupation directories, newspapers, as well as birth, marriage and death records.

• About brightsolid and the 1940 U.S. Census

On 2 April 2012, digital images of the 1940 United States Federal Census will be made available by the National Archives and Records Administration for the first time.

brightsolid is proud to be part of the 1940 US Census Community Project, a joint initiative with Archives.com, FamilySearch and other leading genealogy organisations, which aims to make the census searchable as quickly as possible after its release. The completion of the project will allow anyone to search for their ancestors in the 1940 census for free online. Learn about this exciting new project at www.the1940census.com