Monday, August 1, 2016

Insider Ketchup for 1 August 2016

Insider KetchupThe BYU conference has kept me busy and there are more articles coming all this week and next. Not much time to cover regular subjects! Time to ketchup.

FamilySearch tree bulletThe Salt Lake City Family History Library is holding a weeklong, free, United States research seminar. It will be held 22-26 August 2016 and is geared for beginning and intermediate genealogists. It will cover U.S. regions and records, techniques, strategies, methodology, FamilySearch resources, Family History Library collections, FamilySearch catalog, historical records, research wiki, and more. Seating is limited to 120 attendees, but all classes will be broadcast as webinars. Remote attendees will not be able to participate in hands-on activities nor will they receive the printed syllabus. You should register whether you are attending in person or online.

To learn more and to register, visit https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/United_States_Research_Seminar.

Bullet Ancestry.comAncestry.com has filed their SEC quarterly report. I would have liked to have read it and given you the highlights, but didn’t have the time. You can read a copy on the Ancestry corporate website.

FamilySearch tree bulletFamilySearch has issued their “What’s New” for the month of July 2016.

  • The Memories Gallery now sports a list view. I’ll say a little more about it on Thursday.
  • The Family Tree person page memories tab has a separate button for attaching a memory from the Gallery.
  • Once a memory is attached to a person, the person’s name will appear on the memory page as it appears in the Tree. Long ago I complained that persons in memories and persons in the Tree had separate names. You had to enter the name twice. This seems to be one step to unify the two name spaces.
  • In Memories, the closely related persons view is now the default and can be sorted by first or last name.

You can read the entire article on the FamilySearch blog.

Bullet Ancestry.comAncestry has announced that they will hold an Ancestry Day on 23-24 September 2016 in Tacoma. On Saturday presentations will be made by experts from Ancestry. The cost is $35 plus extra if you wish to purchase a box lunch. Friday presentations will be made by experts from the Washington State Archives, Washington State Library, Legacy Washington, and the Washington State Historical Society. The cost is $15 and seating is limited to 225 people. For more information and to register, visit the event registration page.

FamilySearch tree bulletThe Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and FamilySearch have signed an agreement to allow FamilySearch’s book collection to be discoverable via the DPLA’s website. The DPLA is like a library catalog of freely viewable online documents, books, photographs, maps, and so forth from many libraries, archives, and museums across America. They call themselves a portal rather than a catalog because they have a rich search experience that includes timeline, map, format, partner, and subject. Other partners include the New York Public Library, the National Archives, and the University of Southern California Libraries. Read the full announcement on the DPLA blog.

Bullet Ancestry.comAncestry tells me that a lot of work will be done on fixing RootsWeb this week. I should have a status update for you next week.

FamilySearch tree bullet

Registration is now open for RootsTech 2017 hotels. The Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek, the Salt Lake Plaza Hotel, the Hilton Salt Lake City Center, and the Radisson Hotel Salt Lake City Downtown are offering reduced rates to RootsTech conference attendees. RootsTech 2017 is 8-11 February 2017 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Learn more on the lodging page of the RootsTech website.

Bullet Ancestry.comAncestry recently added new U.S. naturalization papers from 26 states. Search the citizenship and naturalization category on Ancestry.com. Read a seven page naturalization research guide from Ancestry.

FamilySearch tree bulletI received a message from bigfootpilot@familysearch.org telling me to update the Google Chrome Extension for the FamilySearch Pilot Tool. You should update it if you are experiencing long wait times after submission.

Bullet Ancestry.comAncestry has acquiesced to requests from some users who dislike the auto-generated histories that appear at the top of the LifeStory pages. You can now disable the histories for everyone in an entire tree. Tree owners had objected to the auto-generated histories because they were sometimes inaccurate and reflected poorly on the owner. Read the announcement on the Ancestry blog.

FamilySearch tree bulletFamilySearch announced in mid-June (yes, I am that behind in my news stories) “completion of the Freedmen’s Bureau Project, indexing the names of millions of African Americans collected directly following emancipation.” Nearly 19,000 volunteers indexed nearly 1.8 million names. Read the news release on the Newsroom page of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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