FindmyPast goes to Utah

Just received a press release from Brightsolid, announcing its sponsorship of the American based Rootstech conference in Utah from February 2nd-4th. This line's interesting:

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

Are we about to see a FindmyPast USA? A consolidated FindmyPast platform of the three existing sites? The British Newspaper Archive getting an airing overseas? Something else? No idea! The only other mention of it:

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. 

Elsewhere in Salt Lake City:

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 uses. 

Brightsolid will also have a large stand at RootsTech, showcasing not just brightsolid’s global network of findmypast sites (including www.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.

(With thanks to Carolynne Bull-Edwards)

Chris