Call for Papers

Registration is free this year!

The 2024 Family History Technology Workshop will bring together developers, researchers, technology professionals, and users to discuss current and emerging family history technologies. The workshop will feature developer sessions, lightning talks, technical presentations and demos to showcase technologies that will impact the future of Family History and Genealogical Research.

Developer Talk

You are invited to give a 10-15 minute talk about new tools, libraries, or languages, accompanied by a demo of what is being developed. Our emphasis is on novel approaches that will impact the future of family history technology.

To submit an idea for a developer talk, send us a 1-2 paragraph description of what you will cover. Include a short biographical statement and a link to your developer profile on GitHub or other relevant sites.

Lightning Talk

You are invited to give a 2-5 minute presentation on your latest work in family history technology. We welcome startups, new open source projects, work-in-progress, or strongly-held (but informative) opinions on what technology break-throughs are most needed and how this will impact the future of family history.

To submit an idea for a lightning talk, send us a one-paragraph description of what you will cover. Include a short biographical statement and a link to your product or web site and to your social media profile. Indicate whether you would also like to provide a demo in between sessions.

Research Talk

You are invited to give a 10-15 minute presentation on your research, including key ideas, algorithms and results. Topics could include big data, deep learning, data modeling, extraction, search, natural language processing, document processing, handwriting recognition, machine learning, expert systems, social networks, human interfaces, data visualization, mobile technologies, automated research, cloud computing, security, or other areas of computing as they relate to family history research. Research with demonstrated results will be given priority. Working demos are strongly encouraged.

To submit an idea for a research talk, send a 1-2 page extended abstract, including citations, similar to what you would submit to a technical conference in your field of study. Include a short biographical statement and a link to your personal web presence and/or social media profile.

How to Submit

Presenters should submit the above information by January 30, 2024 to fhtw@internet.byu.edu. Submissions will be reviewed by members of the program committee. To see presentations from previous years, visit fhtw.byu.edu.

Important Dates

Submissions due: 30 January 2024

Notification of Acceptance: 6 February 2024

Research Paper Final Version: 13 February 2024

Workshop: 27 February 2024

Program Committee

Program Chairs

Mark Clement, BYU
Joe Price, BYU

Publicity Chair

Daniel Zappala, BYU

Program Committee

Joe Price, BYU Economics
Bill Barrett, BYU Computer Science
Mark Clement, BYU Computer Science
Dallan Quass, RootsFinder
Kirk Duffin, Northern Illinois University
Dave Embley, FamilySearch Research
Christophe Giraud-Carrier, BYU Computer Science
Doug Kennard, Independent Consultant - Historic Journals
Deryle Lonsdale, BYU Linguistics
James Mayfield, APL / JHU HLT Center of Excellence
Heath Nielson, FamilySearch Research
Oliver Nina, Ohio State/AFRL
Patrick Schone, FamilySearch Research
Doran Wilde, BYU Electrical and Computer Engineering
Randy Wilson, FamilySearch
Robert Ball, Weber State
Daniel Zappala, BYU Computer Science
Scott Woodfield, BYU Computer Science