03/16/2026
Recent speaker, Kate Penney Howard, has written a super summary of RootsTech for those of us who weren't able to attend.
RootsTech 2026: Ten Things That Made My Jaw Drop
By Kate Penney Howard www.katepenneyhoward.com RootsTech 2026 wrapped up on March 7. The theme was "Together," but the unofficial theme was clearly artificial intelligence. AI crashed the party at every forum, every expo booth, and most of the talks. Here are the ten announcements and moments that had people excited.
1. FamilyTreeDNA Rewrote the Rules on Autosomal Testing
FamilyTreeDNA launched new Family Finder tests that analyze over 400 times the genetic data of their previous version -- roughly 9% of your genome compared to just 0.02% before. The best news? Upcoming Family Finder Discover reports will be available to all Family Finder test takers, whether they tested recently or years ago.
2. GEDmatch is Getting a Complete Overhaul
GEDmatch has been the scrappy workhorse of the genetic genealogy world for years. The company previewed a major redesign planned for later in 2026, incorporating AI-powered tools to help users interpret DNA matches and make organizing, filtering, tagging, and analyzing notes far easier. This has been a long time coming.
3. FamilySearch Released Its AI Tools from the Lab
For months, genealogists have been testing FamilySearch AI features in beta. At RootsTech, the AI Research Assistant and AI Hints officially came out of Labs and are now available to all users. Full-Text Search also graduated from Labs, and users can now attach search results directly to the family tree.
4. FamilySearch Is Testing Natural Language Search
If you have ever wished you could just talk to a database like a person, this one is for you. Simple Search, currently in Labs, is being tested to allow users to search records using natural language. Ask it a question the way you would ask a librarian. See what it tells you!
5. All Revolutionary War Pension Files Are Now Fully Searchable
Ancestry announced that its Fold3 collection of Revolutionary War pension files are now fully searchable thanks to optical character recognition. Researchers can now search for veterans and their next of kin by name, rather than relying on a limited index. For those of us working on pre-1800 American genealogy, this is a genuine breakthrough. They also announced new AI features, including a record and document transcription tool where AI transcribes, summarizes, and provides source citations for documents and photos uploaded to your Gallery.
6. Ancestry Introduced "AI Stories" -- And It's Exactly What It Sounds Like
A new tool called AI Stories narrates a brief story about a document in a shareable, podcast-style audio file. The possibilities here for people who struggle to write about their ancestors are significant. It could be a meaningful bridge for beginners. It raises questions about voice and accuracy that researchers will need to monitor carefully, but the concept is compelling.
7. LifeWeaver Crashed the Party as a Platinum Sponsor
No one saw this one coming. Newcomer LifeWeaver made a significant splash as platinum sponsor of RootsTech 2026. The tool archives and searches through text messages, emails and other digital communication files to create a story from those pieces. LifeWeaver also allows users to add older phones, computers, hard drives, and scanned handwritten journals, digitizing their contents while preserving images of the originals so they can be shared with family. And critically, users' data is private. The company does not sell data or use it to train AI models.
8. MyHeritage Unveiled Scribe AI
MyHeritage announced Scribe AI at the RootsTech Innovation Forum, demonstrating how the feature analyzes historical documents and photos to uncover genealogical insights. The tool provides record suggestions, photo descriptions, and transcriptions. The MyHeritage team also announced Country Coding, a feature that helps sort and organize international records and visualize your ancestors by country.
9. Ancestry Preserve Wants to Digitize Your Shoeboxes
The new Ancestry Preserve service, heavily featured in the Expo Hall, aims to help customers preserve and digitize their old media, including photographs, slides, film tapes, and more. For genealogists who have inherited closets full of analog memories, this fills a real need. The long-term implications for family history are significant. Your grandmother's slides deserve better than a dark box in a garage.
10. Marlee Matlin and Tara Roberts Reminded Us What This Is All For
The technology announcements were remarkable. But these two keynotes stopped the room. Marlee Matlin, Academy Award-winning actress, shared her inspiring journey of overcoming obstacles and connecting personal triumphs to family history. As a deaf actor, she did not utter a word, but her facial expressions, animated signing, and story had audiences listening with their eyes and hearts. Tara Roberts, National Geographic explorer, shared her extraordinary work documenting slave ship wrecks and reconnecting descendants with their ancestral past.
RootsTech 2026 made one thing clear. The technology is accelerating faster than most of us can keep up. The challenge for our community is to stay human in the middle of all of it. The records are the beginning. The stories are the point.
