Miles Meyer RootsTech Presentations
Our Education Director, Miles Meyer, will be delivering several feature presentations at RootsTech 2026. Here’s the current list, along with some brief descriptions for each of them, courtesy of the RootsTech website:
- Location, Location, Location – Tracking Family History through Land Records: Land records are an important but under-utilized record set in your genealogy research. In many regions, land stayed in the family for generations, passing from father to child. Sometimes it was sold, other times it was inherited. Adjacent property ownership may help resolve questions about marriages or other relatives. This presentation will cover topics such as plat maps, deeds, and property transfers to piece together families, relations, and their movements. The presentation will also address federal land versus state land states, bounty lands, homesteads, deeds, probate records, agricultural schedules, maps, and other relevant records. Examples of how these can be used to discover lost family details will be discussed.
- Solving Family Mysteries with the FAN Method and Census Clues: When a mysterious “Leo” appears in your family tree, how do you uncover who he really is? This session explores how to solve genealogical puzzles using the FAN method—researching Friends, Associates, and Neighbors—alongside a deep dive into census records, cemetery data, newspapers, and more. Follow the real-life case study of an unknown relative and learn how to:
> Spot misleading census entries
> Work around poor indexing and missing records (like the 1890 census)
> Use nearby households to uncover hidden connections
> Piece together multiple marriages and name changes
> Perfect for intermediate researchers, this session will sharpen your analytical skills and show how a single mystery can unlock a wealth of family history.
- Discovering German Church Records: Nearly 20% of all Americans claim German ancestry. It is one of the largest ethnicities across the Midwest, Plains, and Pacific Northwest states. For these people, German records are an important part of researching their family history. Many of these records are available online making them easily accessible. This presentation will cover the different online repositories for German church records including site such as Matricula, Archion, various archives, and the major genealogy websites. The most used records include baptism, marriage, and burial records but there are additional records available. Some of these records provide much more information than you would expect. For example, baptism records may also include marriage and death dates, indicate the number of the child in order of the family, and provide immigration details. Examples of various records from the 18th and 19th centuries will be discussed along with the importance of knowing certain German words.
Miles Meyer delivers a webinar on U.S. census records at RootsTech 2025, viewed by over 2,000 people online