Author Bios

Wednesday night, at the blogger dinner, FamilySearch made a number of announcements.  First off, they released that there are more than 6,700 registrants in advance of the conference.  This makes RootsTech the largest genealogical conference in North America.  In only its third year that is a remarkable achievement.  It has become the “not to miss” conference in the genealogical world.  If you did not pre-register you can still register at the door.  A one day pass is only $89. The exhibit hall is open for free.  

This year marks the 90th anniversary of The Morgan County News.  Edna and Clement Wallace began publishing The Morgan County News in October of 1923.  Over the past 90 years, the newspaper has been owned by less than 10 publishers and has published continuously since its beginning.  

Virtually all of us are immigrants.  Our ancestors may have come across on the Mayflower, or in one of the subsequent waves of immigration.  We may have ancestors from Germany, England, Wales, Scotland, Italy, Africa, China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, or any one of a hundred other countries that have made up the wonderful melting pot that has formed the United States.  We are a nation of immigrants.

For some reason lately it seems that I have received many questions about Personal Ancestral File (PAF).  PAF is a genealogical record manager created by FamilySearch nearly 20 years ago.  It started as a DOS program and then eventually was ported to Windows.  It has been one of the more widely used record mangers for genealogical work, particularly among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

The Chief Genealogical Officer at FamilySearch is a world-renowned Irish researcher.  Irish records are challenging and often necessitate a visit to Ireland to fully research the records.  He is fond of saying, “You don’t have to visit Ireland. You GET to visit Ireland.”

Memorial Day is a great time for family history.  Each year my family makes an outing to three or four cemeteries.  A part of our outing is that we have breakfast at the same restaurant each year.  While it may be true that the kids enjoy breakfast more than the cemetery visits, our annual trek has become family tradition, one that my kids even seem to enjoy and look forward to.  

Many years ago I visited The Family History Library.  I had received a significant amount of genealogical information from my grandmother and I wanted to continue the work that she and my grandfather had done over many years.  I had never done genealogical research before and I understood little about what was required.  I was anxious to learn what I needed to do and find additional information.  

Well, it’s finally here.  On April 2, the United States National Archive released the images of the 1940 census.  Almost immediately the National Archive site was virtually down, it was so slow.  Over the past week the site performance has steadily improved, but it continues to run a little slow.  What is not as well known is that the images are also available on FamilySearch.org/1940census and on Ancestry.com .  Both of these sites are making the images available for free.  If you know where your ancestor lived, you can now find the image in the census.  If you don’t know where they lived you can go to FindMyPast.com who has offered to find your ancestor for you in the 1940 census.  Images will also shortly be available on FindMyPast.com.

If you have Scottish records now is a great time to be searching online.  FindMyPast has just released the 1881 Scottish census on FindMyPast.com.  There are over 3.7 million records in the collection.   This is added to the 1841 to 1871 censuses already on their site.  

RootsTech has become the do not miss conference in the genealogical world.  It brings together the best and brightest from the genealogical and the genealaogical technology worlds in one space.  I have written a few articles about it over the past few months.  

One of the keynote addresses at RootsTech posed an interesting question.  He asked what we would do with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, and unlimited CPU.

A few years ago a new site emerged online with a large number of fully searchable newspapers.  The site is GenealogyBank.com and it contains information on millions of American families from 1690 to the present from over 5,800 newspapers.  There are more than twenty newspapers in Utah alone that are searchable on the site.  

As the clock ticks towards the release of the 1940 census, FamilySearch released new information on how they plan to produce a free version of the census, both index and images.  They said the following:

Many times family history is thought of as an activity for those who have retired.  When we picture a genealogist we often have in our minds the elderly aunt who is surrounded by books, photos, pedigree charts, and other family history documents.  While it is true that family history is a growing hobby of retired individuals, the demographic of those participating in family history is changing.

Nearly everyone will have heard of Wikipedia.  It began as a project and a software product.  The concept was that an encyclopedia could be created online in a collaborative fashion.  Wikipedia grew out of an online encyclopedia written by experts, but community content rapidly outpaced the expert contributions.  In the first year only 20,000 entries were created.  Wikipedia now boasts more than 3.6 million articles.  Studies of accuracy have been done and place Wikipedia at an accuracy rate comparable to expert authored encyclopedias.  It is the best case, worldwide, of community collaboration creating wide content, high quality content at a very low cost.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  In genealogy, a picture can be worth many hours of research.  Seeing your research in new ways can help you to detect errors, see patterns, and identify new opportunities for research.

1752 is an important year in family history.  It is the year that most of Europe switched their calendars.  The Julian calendar did not coincide perfectly with the earth’s orbit and added eleven minutes each year.  The Gregorian calendar (which we use today) was introduced in 1582, but only a few countries in Europe adopted it.  

BrightSolid is a British company that is beginning to become a serious player in the online genealogical community.  They are owned by DC Thompson, a private British company who has been in the publishing industry for many years.  They entered the world of online family history with Scotland’s People.  Scotland’s People is the best online site for Scottish research.  They have great indexes and images to help with Scottish family history work.

Probably one of the best resources for knowing about your family, and often the least used, is your living family.  Family members don’t always have all of the genealogical information about ancestors, but what they know can help to validate or disprove theories.  Information from family members can also add color and life to ancestors and give a personal connection that, if recorded and shared, can help reveal ancestors as real individuals with real lives.

Last month FamilySearch announced that there are now more than 140 genealogical online training courses on FamilySearch.org.  I have written somewhat about these, in the past, but thought given the large increase in courses that it was worth another mention.

Today I received information about a new experience in family history.  I am a somewhat reluctant user of Facebook.  I recognize its value, but don’t really like the idea of living my life in public online.  I have several family members who are crazy about it.  I have watched many individuals while away hours of time at Farmville (a game where individuals create virtual farms and grow virtual crops).  I have played many online games and video games in my life, so I understand some of the addiction, but I have not really understood the fascination with Farmville. 

Often when digital cameras and families are mentioned together we think of family gatherings, snapshots, and family memories.  At RootsTech last week I had the opportunity to consider digital cameras in a new light, as digital capture devices.

Those who are regular readers will know that I work for FamilySearch.  In my role there I have responsibility for Patron Services.  My team provides help for individuals around the world to find their ancestors and use FamilySearch software.

One of the most daunting tasks in family history can be just getting started. “Where do I begin? “ Is one of the most common questions I am asked. Like many things in family history the answer is simple, and not so simple.

Have you ever gotten stuck while doing family history and wished that you had a personal trainer to help you and teach you how to do research the way the professionals do? If so, you are in good company. Everyone comes upon a problem they don’t know how to solve at some point.

I will return to the topic of land records soon, but this week I have been involved with a few of the individuals who author some of the most read blogs in the genealogical community.

  It is not often that I write editorials. I think most often our role  as a newspaper is to report the news in the most objective way we can,  and allow each person to develop their views. I work particularly hard to ensure that I keep a neutral tone when I write. I have opinions, but I work to keep them out of my articles.

This last week I visited the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum in Morgan.  If you have not been there, it is worth a visit.  It is next to the log cabin across the street from Larry’s Spring Chicken Inn and Stephs.

This last week, Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, acquired Genline.com.  If you have Swedish ancestry, this could be significant. 

Family Tree Maker is a record manager from Ancestry.com.  Ancestry has been steadily enhancing this product for many years.  It has always been a strong product, but has grown to be one of the best record managers in the marketplace.  The cost of the software is $39.95, making it a little more expensive than most.  Ancestry is about to ship a new version of the software.

     Over the next few weeks I will provide a review of Record Managers. I will begin with RootsMagic.  RootsMagic has two products.  They have a free product called RootsMagic Essential and a more full featured product that sells for $29.95.  In my experience the $29.95 is well worth the cost.

Julie Miller, a genealogist with whom I have worked over the past few years writes a column for The Broomfield Enterprise.  She recently wrote and article which started me thinking.  Her article focused on the fact that while the Internet is a great resource, not everything can be found online.

The past few years have seen many entrants providing software for family history. The new FamilySearch pedigree software has added significantly to this mix for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As more people have begun using Macs (Apple’s personal computer) over the past few years I have often been asked if I could recommend a record manager for the Mac.  I have consistently replied that there are no good record managers for the Mac and that I run one of the Windows record managers in Parallels on my Mac.  Today I will change my reply.

I had not previously used Legacy Family Tree and my impressions from the beginning were very positive.  The screens are clean, uncluttered, easy to understand, and easy to navigate.  There is a free product and a premium version for $29.95.  As with most of these products, the premium version is worth the small additional investment.