I went to two sessions at the RootsTech conference that talked about genealogy in two kinds of media.
Jennifer Utley gave a talk and showed clips in “Family History Research for TV: Behind the Scenes.” Jenn is the Director of Research for TV shows sponsored by Ancestry. One funny thing she mentioned is that before an episode airs all the professional genealogists get to watch it. She says they all start laughing every time they send a person to a new location to view family records. That is because most of those records are viewable online and there is little need for them to travel. These are the current genealogy TV shows sponsored by Ancestry from around the world:
- My Family Secrets Revealed (UK)
- Who Do You Think You Are? (Australia)
- Who Do You Think You Are? (US)
- Long Lost Family (US)
- Every Family Has A Secret (Australia)
- A New Leaf (US)
Jenn also showed a short clip of new genealogy TV series called Roots Less Traveled that she said would start in the spring. She was restricted as to tell us what network that program is going to be on.
Scott Fisher
Another session that I attended was hosted by genealogy podcasters. On the panel were:
- Lisa Louise Cooke (The Genealogy Gems Podcast)
- Amy Johnson Crow (Generations Cafe Podcast)
- Scott Fisher and David Allen Lambert (Extreme Genes)
Drew Smith from (Genealogy Guys Podcast & Genealogy Connection) was supposed to also be there but he had some problem that kept him at home.
They talked about how it was making a genealogy podcast. Scott Fisher had been a discjockey before retiring from playing music. If you haven’t heard all these podcasts, they are all free to listen to online but may contain ads.