Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Conference Keynote: Pajama Genealogy

Don R. Anderson - “Learn the Tech to Trace Your Roots!” – Fri., 28 August 2009, 8:00AM.

Don R Anderson Hall has filled up pretty well, maybe 80-90%. Holly introducing Don R. Anderson, FamilySearch head of FHL and worldwide support.

Don R. Anderson, "Technology to Trace Your Roots, Bring the FHL to You."
World in Transition.
Bring the FHL to you while still allowing you to go to the Family History Library (FHL)

I wish to contrast the world of genealogy today with the future when you can do genealogy any time, any where. I call it, “genealogy in your pajamas

You
need to have these services to do genealogy:
- Learning.
- Training.
- Reference materials. [Don's words per slide rate is high. Thanks Don!]
- collaboration
- record access
- help (assistance).

Learning Today:
- must drive (or fly) to the FHL.
- Drive to FHL and WAIT for the classes :-(
- Another alternative, drive to book store. Buy book from 2004 and it doesn't have latest
... web links.

Learning In pajamas:
- moving resources to wiki.familysearch.org .
- Also learning modules online:
... www.familysearch.org > Library > Education > FHL Research Series Online
http://bit.ly/11tm0p
Can watch lecture in pajamas, but also go to FHL and talk to presenter.
Roots Television has how to videos also, like Kip's Tips.
http://bit.ly/13Yjp2
Demoing http://wiki.familysearch.org . Searched for "England Census"
He's adding info: 1911 census is available at FHL. [See http://bit.ly/eMWiM ]
Please contribute. Be bold. You can't do any harm-at least permanently.
[Hey, Mac fans. Don's using a Mac!]

Collaboration today:
He calls it "Swapping stories and Gedcoms". Audience didn't get his joke about ...
..."easily mashing together all the GEDCOM CD-ROMs". They did laugh when he recalled trying to match/merge 2 files with 8,000 people each.

Pajama collaboration:

Ancestry.com, Geni.com, New FamilySearch (NFS). Using NFS he found a Rigby cousin worked 30 ft from his desk and he didn’t know it before.

Records today:
microfilm vertigo.

Records In PJs:
Digital books.
(Told story of 87 yr old: "Jay, I'm going to meet my ancestors before I can find them. You've got to make this faster.")
www.familysearch.org > Search > Historical Books. http://www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/index.php
BTW, free parking @ FHL on Saturdays.
A large number of records is available online and is growing quickly
- Ancestry.com > 8 billion names,
- FamilySearch > 3 billion names. FSI million names a day.
The more of you that participate, the quicker we can index the 2.5 million rolls in the vault. At current rate, it will take
...100 years. We'll have the films digitized in only ten. What would happen if we doubled the indexers? It would cut the indexing time from 100 to 50 years. And if we doubled again? It would take only 25 years. That starts to sound really nice.
Now demoing Record Search: http://pilot.familysearch.org
- Footnote 40 million docs,
- World Vital Records 2 billion names.

Help (assistance) in your pajamas:
Now showing UK 1851 Jurisdictions project. Check it out at http://maps.familysearch.org . Searched for morpeth
Mentioned http://forums.familysearch.org/ .
http://labs.familysearch.org has links to new stuff.

Q. Schedule for Utah/Idaho NFS rollout?
A. We expect to be done before the end of the year.
Q. Where can we find all the website addresses?
A. Links to everything we’ve covered are available on either http://www.familysearch.org or http://labs.familysearch.org
Q. I'm in Draper and just got an e-mail stating that within a couple of week my stake would start using New FamilySearch. Can you comment on the meaning of this e-mail?
A. We just sent that e-mail to all remaining districts.
... You'll get an e-mail with the exact date about one week before your [stake] goes live. Don is now done.

This article is one in a series of session reports from the recent 2009 Salt Lake City Family History Expo taken from my live tweets of the event. Please see my Tweeting Presentations Policy for further information, including the formatting guidelines I attempt to follow and instructions for correcting errors. Additions are shown in italics.

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