Monday, December 29, 2014

Monday Mailbox: A Lesson About Family

The Ancestry Insider's Monday MailboxDear Readers,

In a submission to my RootsTech 2015 contest, Julie Wood shared a poignant discovery that taught her an important lesson about family. Thanks, Julie.

Signed,
---The Ancestry Insider

An Example I Intend to Follow

My name is Julie Wood. I’m a 43-year-old mother of 4 children. I became interested in genealogy a few years ago when my mother-in-law, who was an avid genealogist, became sick and wasn’t able to do the work she wanted to do.  I wanted to help her, so I began to educate myself on FamilySearch.org.

I also signed up for Ancestry.com’s free trial and that was the sealing of the deal for me. I spent every waking minute I could on Ancestry building my family tree and my husband’s family tree. I went to work, came home, and got on Ancestry. I stayed up late; I got up early.  I was obsessed and I wanted to use every minute of my free trial because I didn’t know if I’d be able to afford a paid membership. My free trial ended. I mourned.  But the holiday season came around and all I wanted for Christmas was a membership to Ancestry.com.  In the meantime, my mother-in-law passed away.

Now, armed with my very own Christmas-gift of a 6-month Ancestry membership and renewed motivation from the death, I researched my little heart out! I learned wonderful things about my blood family and the one I married into! My mother had told me that her mother’s family had immigrated to Russia from Germany at the invitation of Catherine the Great. I found immigration records and photos. I even purchased a book to read about my Volga German ancestors. I started keeping track of the Utah counties that I have ancestors buried in, and I’m up to 14 of 29 so far.

Then came a very interesting discovery one day while fleshing out the Ancestry pages of my maternal grandparents, both of whom are deceased. A divorce record. One of Ancestry.com’s hints was a record from the state of California that showed that my maternal grandma and grandpa were divorced the month after my parents were married:  September 1969. They never told anyone. They continued to live in the same home. They never let on that a divorce had happened. I immediately called my mom and emailed her a copy of the record. She gasped and immediately called her sister.  It was a startling find for all of us, my mom and aunt for obvious reasons.

But it was quite a revelation for me also. I grew up in the next town over from my grandparents in Northern California. I loved them both and have many happy memories of time spent at their house.  Grandpa taught me that if I ate the holes in the Swiss cheese, it would take my breath away. Grandma taught me that ½ cup isn’t the same as 1 ½ cups, especially when it comes to making a cake.  Grandpa taught me how much money two bits was and paid me that much to brush his hair or scratch his back.  Grandma taught me how to be generous with food and that “you should never go to someone’s house hungry.” (This rule seems to apply even if you’re invited for dinner.)

I don’t know what I’d done if they’d actually split up! My life wouldn’t be the same. I don’t regret finding the divorce record; in fact I’m glad. It makes me realize how blessed I am. I’m eternally grateful that my grandparents were able to set aside their differences and be present for their family. It’s an example that I intend to follow.

Signed,
Julie Wood

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

I had to laugh. I hadn’t even noticed.

A couple of days ago I was walking through the lobby of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building where the headquarters of FamilySearch are located. A magnificent Christmas tree stretches from ground to the chandelier of the magnificent, two-story lobby. A family member turned to me and said,

The bottom half of the Christmas tree is decorated with purple ornaments and the top half, gold.

“The person who decorated the bottom half of that tree should have coordinated with the person who decorated the top!”

Do you think FamilySearch was trying to send a subtle message as to what happens to your tree when you’re cavalier about proving intergenerational kinship? <smile>

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

P.S. To see what Mormons think of Christmas, watch a touching, three minute video at http://www.mormon.org/christmas titled “He Is the Gift.”

Monday, December 22, 2014

Monday Mailbox: Insights That Help Tell Important Family History Stories

The Ancestry Insider's Monday MailboxDear Readers,

In a submission to my RootsTech 2014 contest, Nik McOmber shared how using both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org provided insights that told important family stories. Thanks, Nik.

Signed,
---The Ancestry Insider

Insights That Help Tell Important Family History Stories

I find that using both ancestry.com and familysearch.org to be a very effective approach to family history research and storytelling. I was writing about the son and grandchildren of William Macomber (1610-1670) and his wife Ursilla Cooper (1612-1675) of Marshfield, Plymouth Colony, becoming members of the Society of Friends and moving from Marshfield to Dartmouth in southern Plymouth Colony along with many others trying to escape the influence of antagonists farther north. There is no evidence that William and Ursilla became members of the Society of Friends, but I did find evidence that family friends of William and Ursilla were members of the Society of Friends, which helps explain why their son and grandchildren became members and moved from Marshfield to Dartmouth.

Ancestry.com has indexed and digitized vital records of various towns of Plymouth Colony, some of which are derived from records of the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends (nicknamed Quakers).

In familysearch.org it is noted that William Macomber purchased land from John Rogers in 1650, and that John Rogers wrote a lengthy description of the land to help Ursilla settle William’s estate in 1670.

In ancestry.com I discovered that after selling land to William Macomber in 1650, John Rogers purchased land in Dartmouth and was affiliated with the Society of Friends in south Plymouth Colony.

A patron of familysearch.org shared on Family Tree a reference that Ursilla Macomber was a witness to the will of Thomas Knott dated 1664.

In ancestry.com I discovered a reference that the sister of Thomas Knott was arrested for attending religious services away from the regular place of worship, likely a Society of Friends meeting.

Apart from one another the information from ancestry.com and familysearch.org do not tell the whole story, but combined, ancestry.com and familysearch.org provide insights that help tell important family history stories.

imageSigned,
Nik McOmber
The Ancestry Insider is an official RootsTech ambassadorFor more information about RootsTech, visit http://www.rootstech.org.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Beware the Accuracy of the Darned Census

Doris Wheeler, aka Howard Mueller, in the 1940 censusHow accurate is the census? Well, records say the darnedest things!

We depend upon records to reveal the “truth” about our pasts. Yet sometimes records have anomalies. Some are amusing or humorous. Some are interesting or weird. Some are peculiar or suspicious. Some are infuriating, even downright laughable.

Reader, Doris Wheeler, has first hand experience. She remembers the visit by the 1940 enumerator.

It was a big deal to have visitors to my grandparents' 3rd floor apartment in Jersey City, where I lived with them. Unfortunately, the poor man had to have been plied with drink by all the families he had visited. His record of my family rendered them unrecognizable. I was replaced by a completely fictitious young man, and my grandparents' names were changed, along with their ages and occupations—all drastically. Only the address was correct. I found them because I remembered a neighbor's name and that person was recorded correctly. I'm sad that future generations will never be able to find me. I did not exist, although I was seven years old and very much alive.

Line # 42: Should be Theodore F. Muller, age 71, b. New York
Line # 43: Should be Mary (or Marie), age 64, b. New York, Housewife
Line # 44: Should be me, Doris J. Muller, age 7, b. New York, female. There is no Howard in this family.

Yikes! That’s a pretty sober reminder that census records should never be trusted in isolation. The genealogical proof standard really is important.

Yes, “Records Say the Darnedest Things!”

(Thank you, Doris, for your contribution.)

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Ancestry.com Shares Global Family History Survey Results

imageAncestry.com has shared a study they commissioned on family history. The preface to the report states:

The aim of this report is to show how knowledge of the past has impacted the present, and how a greater sense of ‘connectivity’ has changed the concept of the modern family within the six countries in which we conducted the study.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank The Future Foundation, who carried out the research on our behalf and uncovered some truly fascinating trends. This document forms the first part of a multi-chapter report, the full findings of which will be published over the coming year.

Report Highlights:

- In 2014, more than one in three (36%) online adults used the internet to learn more about their family history – double those in 2008 and forecast to double again by 2025.
- 67% feel knowing their family history has made them a wiser person
- 72% say it has helped them to be closer to older relatives
- 52% discovered ancestors they hadn’t known about

I have my doubts about one claim made in the report. Ancestry.com claims to have digitized 15 billion records. According to their catalog, three of those 15 billion come from user submitted family trees. Another bunch was submitted by FindAGrave volunteers. Ancestry.com didn’t digitize those at all; they obtained them from their users. The catalog shows they obtained over a billion records in their “select” series from FamilySearch. With 800,000 in their public records databases and nearly a 100,000 in the social security death index, plus other electronic indexes, there’s no doubt they’ve purchased over a billion database records. I could be wrong, but I think the proper claim is that they’ve published 15 billion records.

It’s a fascinating read and very valuable information for potential competitors. This has the potential of really helping individual genealogists in many countries. Hats off the Ancestry.com for their willingness to help not just themselves, but the global community. To see the report, visit “Ancestry Global Family History Report 2014” on slideshare.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Findmypast Making Progress Digitizing PERSI Articles

PERSI is available on Findmypast.comI came across a list of periodicals that Findmypast has added to its PERSI collection.

According to the FamilySearch Wiki,

The Periodical Source Index, or PERSI, is the largest subject index to genealogy and local history periodical articles in the world. Created by the staff of the Allen County Public Library Foundation and the ACPL’s Genealogy Center, PERSI is widely recognized as a vital tool for genealogical researchers. PERSI indexes articles in 11,000 periodical titles (including 3,000 defunct titles) published by thousands of local, state, national and international societies and organizations, arranging 2.25 million entries by surname or location and 22 basic subject headings.

While indexing all these articles, PERSI doesn’t actually include them. Researchers must subsequently find a copy of the periodical. Fortunately, PERSI includes a list of institutions holding the respective titles. Or one can pay a small copying fee and get copies of articles from the Allen County Public Library.

You’ll recall that Findmypast added the PERSI index to their website back in February 2014. As part of that partnership, Findmypast is digitizing indexed articles, which increases the value of PERSI by several orders of magnitude. While I hope Findmypast can negotiate posting of recent periodicals, the list indicates that thus far they have not done so. All currently posted articles are from magazine issues for which the copyright has expired. Still, the list is pretty impressive:

You may wish to check it out. Even without a subscription, searching PERSI on the Findmypast website provides useful pointers toward indexed articles.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Insider Ketchup

Ancestry Insider KetchupI’m trying to take the rest of the month off for Christmas, but news keeps happening. I have no time. Time to quickly ketchup…

Laura Bush and Daughter Speaking at RootsTech

From the RootsTech press release:

RootsTech 2015 attendees will get to hear firsthand how one of the nation’s most famous families celebrates their family across generations.  RootsTech, the largest family history conference in the world, announced today that former First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna Bush Hager will be the keynote speakers during the Friday morning general session on February 13, 2015.

For more information, see the article on the FamilySearch blog.

Ancestry.com Explains Missing DNA Ancestry

I hear people all the time complain that their Ancestry.com DNA report excludes countries of known ancestry. Ancestry.com’s Anne Gillespie Mitchell recently explained some of the reasons. Read “Ask Ancestry Anne: Where Is My Native American DNA?” on the Ancestry.com blog.

LDS Church History Department Collaborates With FamilySearch

The Deseret News LDS Church News recently shared news of a partnership between FamilySearch and the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Using the power of FamilySearch.org and the scholarship of The Joseph Smith Papers Project, descendants of early Church members can now connect to original source documents where their own progenitors are mentioned,” said Elder Steven E. Snow, Church Historian and Recorder, according to the article.

The article gives a link to a page on FamilySearch.org where members can go to see if there are any links for their ancestors: https://familysearch.org/josephsmithpapers#. You can also search on the Joseph Smith Papers website at http://josephsmithpapers.org/. Check the list of people at http://josephsmithpapers.org/reference/people#a.

For more information read the article on the Deseret News website or on the FamilySearch blog, see "Did Your Ancestors Interact with the Prophet Joseph Smith?"

Monday, December 15, 2014

Monday Mailbox: What is Going On Here?

Ancestry.com historic person marketing pageDear Ancestry Insider,

Recently, when I performed a Google search for family names, links appeared which lead to the person in Ancestry.com "Historical Person Search" results like the example to the right.

So far, I have NOT been able to

  • see the actual source of this information (which is often incorrect)
  • go to the source
  • go to the member tree that might be the source

HOW ARE THESE "Historical" records generated??????

AND NOTE  the suggestion in the section titled “Ready to Discover Your Family Story” inviting me to start with my own name, from which they will find my tree for me. 

Given that LIVING people are supposed to be "PRIVATE" what is going on here?

From,
Jean F Milne

Dear Jean,

Have you noticed in Google that when you type in a person’s name sometimes you get links to a bunch of websites giving you a little bit of information about the person and offering to sell you more? Maybe even perform criminal background check? For example, among the Google search results for [william george pentland] are those from beenfound.com, surnamedb.com, peoplefinders.com, and canada411.ca. Well, I think that Ancestry.com realized that they could attract more people to their website if they did the same thing. They have built pages like the one you saw and let Google index them. The page contains sells information about the features that might attract new users.

Ancestry.com indicates the source for your example is “10 records, 10 photos and 28,051 family trees.” The vital information and relatives are synthesized from the 28,051 family trees. If you’ve viewed shaky leaf hints from family trees, you’ve seen these synthesized records. Combining records of William from 28,051 family trees is too much work for a human; they must use machine algorithms. And machines frequently make mistakes. The ten records are the results of searching their historical record collections and are shown in the section titled “Top Record Matches For…” The ten photos are similarly the results of a search of their photo collections, which seem to be dominated by those submitted by users.

As for the “Ready to Discover Your Family Story” section, I assume Ancestry.com is using their standard tree building engagement process. It starts engaging you by prompting you to add information about yourself. Next it engages you a little more by asking for information about a parent and then a grandparent. With each piece of information supplied you are more engaged and more likely to continue the process. At some point you are prompted to supply an email address so you can save your results. Without hardly thinking about it, you have an Ancestry.com user account and member tree. Now you are almost fully engaged. Ancestry.com teases you with record results you can partially see. For just a little money you can see the full records and add the information to your tree.

Some people see an invitation to search for an ancestor rather than starting with themselves.Like any good company, Ancestry.com tests alternatives to see what provides the most engagement. For example, in your example some people see an invitation to search for an ancestor rather than starting with themselves. It’s possible that Ancestry.com may have given me this alternative because it knows that I already frequent genealogy websites.

I’m pretty sure Ancestry.com uses the same rules for privacy on this page that it does anywhere else. That’s why you are led to create enough of a tree to get you back to generations for which Ancestry.com has records. Living individuals in trees are kept private.

Katy Perry by Joella Marano
Katy Perry
Photo by Joella Marano.
Used under license, unchanged.

You probably already know this, but the notion that all living individuals are kept private anywhere on Ancestry.com (and FamilySearch, for that matter) is false. Many entities, government and otherwise, legally release information about living individuals and that information often shows up online.

Signed,
The Ancestry Insider

Friday, December 12, 2014

Darned Records: Always Check Adjacent Images

Front side of a California marriage recordWe depend upon records to reveal the “truth” about our pasts.

Yet sometimes records have anomalies. Some are amusing or humorous. Some are interesting or weird. Some are peculiar or suspicious. Some are infuriating, or downright laughable.

Yes, Records say the Darnedest Things.”

Experienced researchers know to look forward and backward when viewing images online or on microfilm. A coworker told me about a recent experience. He was helping a friend view California county marriage records.
The reverse side of a California County marriage records contains additional information.My coworker was familiar with these records and knew to check the next image to see the back of the form. The back contained this additional information:

  • Bride and groom’s marital status and number of the marriage
  • Bride and groom’s occupation and industry
  • Parents and their birthplaces
  • The bride and groom’s birthplaces and residences are sometimes given with greater specificity.
  • Much of the information from the front is duplicated on the back. If illegible on the front, it might be legible on the back.

Having learned the principle, his friend applied it to British Columbia marriage records and made a more serendipitous discovery. Only the fronts of these records were present. There was no apparent reason to check the next image.

Interfiled among the marriage records he found a letter from their rector, certifying banns.But when he checked, he found interfiled among the marriage records, someone had slipped in a letter from their rector, certifying banns of marriage had been read. Had he not checked the next image, he would have missed this cool document.

Darn you if you don’t check the images before and after the one with your record!

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Ancestry.com Releases Historical Insights

Example historical insight from Ancestry iPad app: Mormon TrailAncestry.com released a cool new feature last week for its Apple app: Historical Insights. In their blog, they wrote:

So how does it work? In some ways, insights are like hints. While we can’t be positive that your family member experienced a certain event like the San Francisco earthquake, we use information you’ve added to your tree and historical records to determine whether your relative might have been in the city in 1906 when it occurred. And like hints, you have the ability to accept an insight and keep it in a person’s profile or ignore it.

User feedback was pretty positive. Either they loved it, or they wanted it on their non-Apple device. Ancestry.com wrote their intention to add it to their website app. Nothing was said about any other mobile device.

In my brief look at the feature, I was impressed. In the example to the right, Ancestry.com detected an ancestor who lived in Illinois in 1840 and Utah in 1850. It surmised (correctly) that he had immigrated on the Mormon Trail.

Some hints have pictures, some don’t. All have the barely legible not-quite-white text on a lime green background. (I’m always mystified that interface designers are more concerned about aesthetics than legibility. But don’t get me started…)

The success of the feature will depend on two things: can they assemble a large enough store of historical facts to make the feature worth their efforts, and can they present pertinent hints to the right people. For one of my ancestors who left Vermont, they mentioned the volcano eruption that caused the year without a summer. That’s a good call on their part. That’s an important events that many people don’t know about that precipitated a large number of people to leave Vermont. For another ancestor they mentioned that he was living in Kentucky where they may have witnessed “the night the stars fell.” That’s another cool event, but they need not associate it with Kentucky. It was visible across the entire country. They did make some bad calls. My American born and died ancestors were almost certainly not affected by the discovery of gold in New South Wales and may not have been affected by immigration precipitated by wars in Europe.

This is a great feature. It has the potential of becoming a strategic tool that could bust through brick walls. I hope they continue to hone it into an important tool for understanding why our ancestors did what they did.

For more information, see the announcement on the Ancestry.com blog.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

New FamilySearch Indexing Program Delayed

New Indexing Program from FamilySearchLast week FamilySearch spokesperson, Jennifer T. Smith, announced that the release of their new indexing program has been delayed. As an old software engineer, I know this happens. Software always takes longer than expected.

At RootsTech 2014 FamilySearch showed a preview of the indexing program and forecast availability in the second half of the year, perhaps as early as August. (See “#RootsTech – New FamilySearch Indexing Program.”) In late August FamilySearch indicated they hoped to release the new software this year. (See “Magnifying Volunteers’ Gifts: A Progress Report” on the FamilySearch Blog.)

Smith wrote that “In August, [FamilySearch] invited several hundred individuals from around the world to participate in the beta (test) version of the browser-based indexing program.” I see that on 7 November 2014 FamilySearch posted a beta invitation on their blog, but I can’t figure out who it went to. On 20 November 2014 FamilySearch expanded the scope of the beta to indexing group administrators and stake indexing directors. They shared a link on their blog to the program with instructions on how to try it.

Smith provided reasons for the delay. “As we reviewed the feedback and prioritized the suggestions we received, it became clear that further improvements were needed. Based on this information, we have decided to delay the release of the new program,” she wrote.

For more information about the new indexing program, see my previously mentioned RootsTech article or “The New Indexing Program: Even More Features to Look forward To” on the FamilySearch blog. For more information about the delay, see “The New Indexing Program: Feedback Provides Insight” on the FamilySearch blog.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

RootsTech Announces Techie Contest with $25,000 in Cash Prizes

RootsTech Innovator ChallengeRootsTech has announced that it is offering $25,000 in cash prizes to encourage development of cool new family history apps and technology. “The contest will culminate with a hybrid Shark Tank, America’s Got Talent-like live event where judges and thousands of viewers will decide the winners,” said Paul Nauta, FamilySearch spokesperson. The event will occur 13 February 2015. “A panel of five genealogy, technology, and business gurus will judge four finalists from around the world in a showdown at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah,” said Nauta.

The first prize award is $10,000, second prize is $7,000, and third prize is $3,000. The People’s Choice award, determined by audience voting, will be $5,000.

A marketing research firm studied potential product ideas by conferring with 11 senior executives of family history organizations. Three were from Ancestry.com, one from MyHeritage, one from BrightSolid, two from FindMyPast, two from FamilySearch, one is from the Federation of Genealogical Societies, and one was the managing director (i.e., president) of FamilySearch. The study showed that the older, niche target of record-oriented genealogists and historians represent just 1% of the potential market. As the current market is worth $4 billion, the potential market is $400 billion.

The Ancestry Insider is an official RootsTech ambassadorThe potential market consists of people who are “generally younger, digital, tech savy, socially connected, mobile and experience driven,” according to the study. They are unwilling to invest the time and effort in traditional research like searching for names and dates, but still want to experience what traditional researchers want: “content that fosters joyful, shared and satisfying family history experiences that bond generations.”

For more information, read the FamilySearch announcement and visit the RootsTech Innovator’s Challenge website.

Monday, December 8, 2014

RootsTech Contest Winner: Finding the Hidden Record

The Ancestry Insider's Monday MailboxDear Readers,

We have a winner! I’ve selected Dusty Gorman as the winner of a free pass for full 3-day admission to RootsTech 2015 (a $239 value). You’ll find Dusty’s winning entry below. In coming weeks I’ll share a few other entries as well. Dusty, look for a message in your in box with your registration promo code.

Signed,
---The Ancestry Insider

Finding the Hidden Record

My great great grandfather, Reinhold, traveled to America with one of his older brothers, Carl, from Sweden in the late 1800's.  My great aunt, in her younger days, spent time working on our Swedish family history.  She tried to find the ship manifest for Reinhold and Carl and was unsuccessful.  Back then it required a stamp, envelope and patience to get most genealogy records.  Years later my mother and her sisters decided to research the Swedish family history.  I remember the trip they embarked on to go to Salt Lake City to visit the library.  Though they found many records, the ship manifest remained hidden.  They published what they found for the next family reunion and got busy with life. 

Almost twenty years later in 2007 I got bit by the genealogy bug.  I too started to research our Swedish family history.  Two years after I started researching I was looking for that missing ship manifest.  I knew it had to exist, there had to be some record of them entering the country, otherwise I wouldn't be in the United States.  My mother and her sisters had found the ship manifest for the lag of the journey between Sweden and England.  Because of the record they found I could make a logical guess as to the approximate time period they boarded a ship in England bound for America.  I had all these theories coming at me.  Maybe they stayed in England for a while to work, maybe they did not arrive in New York, maybe they arrived directly in Tacoma, maybe in California.  Places to use to search for the ship manifest were many.  I could use the Ellis Island website, I could use the Castle Garden website, I could use Ancestry.com, I had many more options to choose from then my great aunt when she tried to find the record.  I tried every which way I could think of to search the indexes.  Just a first name, just the last name (the one they used in Sweden and the one on the ship manifest showing their journey from Sweden to England), just the country and many more with no luck. 

I noticed on Ancestry.com that you had the ability to browse ship manifests page by page, line by line.  I thought okay I will try my search this way.  By that time I was realizing that indexing could have errors.  So I used the ship manifest my mom and aunts found and came up with a two month period that I would search for the ship manifest.  Even though we had no clue which port they came in through I started with New York, by that time I had been given the opportunity to visit New York and Ellis Island and had fallen in love with the city.  So I started going through the New York ship manifests.  I realized very quickly that many ships came into New York on any given day.  So I decided to focus my search.  I decided to only go through the ship manifests that originated in England and only look at the passenger names that came from Sweden.  I figured these were logical assumptions I could make and would make my search easier and quicker, but honestly I was just losing patience. 

Late one night I was sitting in front of my computer going through the ship manifests, my eyes were beginning to cross and I was about to give up.  I was beginning to think I was nuts for searching for the record this way.  There had to be an easier way to find the record.  And that is when it happened.  I stumbled across the record.  I could not believe it.  Three generations had looked for the record and finally it had been found!  I wanted to shout from the roof tops, but given that it was so late I decided to be nice and not wake the neighborhood. 

Stumbling across the record drove home several things.  At the time I was still a newbie genealogist and I am glad I learned it when I was still considered green.  The record was indexed incorrectly, but that was not the only problem.  There was also in error on the record itself.  The record had the brothers coming from GERMANY.  You may be wondering at this point how I found them if I was only looking for passengers coming from Sweden.  I have to say it was pure luck.  They were on the top of the page.  I happened to glance over at the names while the page finished loading.  I learned to be careful with your assumptions in genealogy, that indexing could have errors, that records are just as likely to have errors, to always be persistent when searching for records and, most important, I learned that you have to have patience in genealogy research. 

Sometimes records want to stay hidden, we have to dig deep to find them.

The Ancestry Insider is an official RootsTech ambassadorFor more information about RootsTech, visit http://www.rootstech.org.

Friday, December 5, 2014

“Keep Me. Protect Me. Share Me.”

This was a fun find. I recently came across the inspiration for FamilySearch’s Photos campaign. FamilySearch adapted a Kodak commercial, pretty much verbatim. Script is the same. Setting is the same. Cinematography is the same. Dialogue is the same. The shots are the same. Music is similar. Actors are similar. Bands of white and corporate color above and below the video is the same. Don’t worry; I contacted FamilySearch and they say they got all the necessary permissions.

Adult: This way… This way…
Child: Whoa. This place is huge…

Child: How many pictures are here?

Child: Millions?
 image

Adult: More

Child: Billions?

Shipley Munson cameo in FamilySearch ad


Adult: Listen. Can you hear them?
Child: Hear what?
Adult: Just listen.
Child: I can’t hear anything.

Adult: The pictures! They’re talking!

Child: The pictures are talking?
Adult: Yah, but you have to be quiet. You have to be very, very quiet. And you can hear them.
Child: What are they saying?
Adult: They’re saying “Keep me.”
Child: They’re saying “keep me?”
Adult: Protect me.
Child: Protect me?
Adult: Share me.
Child: Share me.
Adult: Keep me. Protect me. Share me. And I will live forever.


Child: I can hear them.
Child: I can hear them too.


Child: This place is cool.
Child: What’s this place called?
Adult: We call it [Kodak][FamilySearch]. Where families live forever.
Child: [Kodak.][FamilySearch. Cool.]
Child: Keep me. Protect me. Share me.

Kodak ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdWwqAI6x9A
FamilySearch ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reZ5nNhztYI