Don’t Let Your Research Be Flushed Down the Toilet

The Monday Mailbox, “17 Years of Research Being Flushed Down the Toilet,” drew lots of great suggestions on ways Larry—or anyone else—can preserve your research before you are gone.

Doris Wheeler suggested the many copies approach to sharing your tree online:

I still advocate also using GEDCOM to post my tree (without images) to Wikitree, RootsWeb WorldConnect, Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, and any other place I can. The thought of losing the fruits of all that hard work is unbearable.

(Sarah V offered to help out if you wish to go the Wikitree route. Just reply to her message.) I said in my article that no one could see your Ancestry tree but subscribers. Barry M Spinner reminded me that Ancestry is available in many libraries, whose patrons will also be able to see your tree.

While some people are concerned about sharing, Carol Yocom said, “I've always shared my work gladly. There are mistakes, but most of it is well sourced.” She said posting several thousand images is “labor intensive, but I'll be damned if 45+ years of work ends up in a dumpster.” She hopes “it proves useful to others after I've collected my ticket outta town!”

Proofreader said, “It's hard to beat good old fashioned paper.” Plenty of people agreed, and again advocated the many copies approach. Mary Chamberlain said,

I think it's important to get hard copies of the tree and any source documents to as many libraries, historical societies, and genealogical societies as possible. Not just those in the area where Larry lives now, but those in areas where branches of the family once lived.

Jim Culbert said that some societies accept paper, some electronic, and some will not be interested at all.

Cat fan said,

If you can create a report with all your family research information and images,and save the document (MS Word or PDF); you can send it to the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne IN. They will print a copy for reference at the library and send you a copy.

For more information, see http://www.genealogycenter.org/Donate.aspx.

If you check with them beforehand, the FamilySearch Family History Library in Salt Lake City also accepts donations of books you’ve written. However, they are very picky. Books must be readable, very well organized family history books, rich in standard, genealogical information about people. The preferred format is electronic: a Word or PDF file. Next best is unbound, double sided printed pages. You must be the copyright holder and sign a document giving FamilySearch permission to freely make copies of your book. (I’m pretty sure this includes digital copies posted for free use on the Internet.) They do not accept family tree databases, nor collections of pedigree charts and family group sheets. (I assume that these can be elements of your well-written family history book.) Don’t think you can print out your GEDCOM, throw a hard cover on it, and send it to the Library.) Before donating, contact the donation staff at bookdonations@familysearch.org or call 1-801-240-1855.

I think if you produce a book of Family History Library quality, you should have no problem placing copies in several libraries of various types and town, county, and state genealogical and historical societies. Nancy Smith Gibson warned not to forget your local genealogical society:

I would suggest donating your research, both your tree(s) and back-up information to your local genealogical library or organization. Our local genealogical library benefits greatly from donated research, books, pictures, etc. Sooner or later, somebody either comes in, calls, or emails looking for information and we are so happy to be able to provide some detail that gets overlooked when the majority of information is digitalized. We have many volunteers who work one, two, or more days a month to organize and file. Don't forget your local organizations.

Nancy Smith Gibson
The Melting Pot Genealogical Society and Library
Hot Springs and Garland County, Arkansas

Joseph Martin additionally sent his books to some 65 family members and published about 30 articles in various genealogy magazines, “trying to assure that my 45 years of research will be preserved.”

Connie Moretti pointed out that if you qualify for membership in a lineage or heritage society like the DAR, SAR, Mayflower, and Jamestowne societies, they will preserve your application and all the documentation.

 

Regarding saving your photos and document images to FamilySearch.org: I had asked Legacy, “Does Legacy allow uploading source images to FamilySearch Family Tree?” Legacy responded: 

We would LOVE to see this but FamilySearch does not allow this, at least not yet.  We can only do what FamilySearch allows (they call the shots on what features we can have).  As soon as they give us the go ahead our programmers will make it happen.  For now, you have to upload photos manually on FamilySearch itself.

Signed,
Michele
Enhancement Requests
Legacy Family Tree

According to P Walker, Ancestral Quest is already doing it:

I imported my RootsMagic gedcom into Ancestral Quest (wasn't happy with how images were treated during the import, however, but maybe other imports, such as from Legacy and PAF would do better) and then synched those with FamilySearch Family Tree and it's really going quickly getting images up into FS and also downloading any new ones anyone has added.

It's taking longer for RootsMagic and Legacy to add this as it's not a priority of theirs right now…

The Ancestral Quest page on FamilySearch.org indicates P. Walker is correct.

As I reported last Monday, RootsFinder will soon (if they don’t already) have the capability to upload to FamilySearch Memories the photos associated with a GEDCOM.

Meldrum Explains FamilySearch Online Book Collection - #BYUFHGC

FamilySearch Family History Books was created over 10 years ago to facilitate usage, sharing, and preservation of genealogy and family history books, said Dennis Meldrum, partnership manager for FamilySearch Family History Books. Dennis spoke to the topic “Finding and Sharing Your Family’s Story in Family History Books” at the 2015 BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy.

The Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU), forerunner to FamilySearch, was organized in 1894. By 1907 the GSU library contained over 800 books. By 1920 the library contained over 5,000 books. In 1928, Boston bookseller, F.J. Wilder, wrote, “Within ten years your Society is destined to become the largest and strongest in the world…You will see in years to come people from all parts of the West and the East flocking to your city to spend days and weeks studying.”

FamilySearch Family History Books (FHB) at books.familysearch.org has 55,000 visitors a month, with 30% coming from outside North America. It has 220,000 books.

FHB contains many compiled family histories. In 2012 managers questioned the value of family history books compared to vital records. FHB did a statistical analysis to determine the average number of names on a page and how many already existed in FamilySearch Family Tree. They found that the average book contained 11.5 names per page and only one-third were in the New FamilySearch tree (now Family Tree).

Back when the library microfilmed books, it would not keep them. As FHB has scanned books, most have come off the shelf, some for copyright reasons. FamilySearch lawyers have said that a library’s fair use rights allows scanning copyrighted books so long as only one person is allowed to view the book or its copy at one time, and access is restricted to the library or a family history center or an affiliated library. Consequently, once scanned, copyrighted books are removed from the library, but are preserved in case FamilySearch ever has to show that they own a copy. Only one person can use the digitized book at a time unless the author has given permission otherwise, or the book is not protected by copyright. Even though FamilySearch could legally do so, it does not digitize copyrighted books whose author or publisher has requested their books not be digitized.

FHB has 14 digitizing operations throughout the United States. They have 36 production scanners, with over 150 volunteers who work more than 90,000 hours each year. FHB has just 5 professional staff.

Opportunities to volunteer are available at many locations. Volunteers don’t have to work full time. You need basic computer and internet experience. Good eyesight is critical.

• The largest scanning center is in West Valley, Utah. There FamilySearch has two full time missionary coordinators and over 50 church service missionaries working part time.
• There is a need for a couple of volunteers in Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
• They need a couple at the Midwest Genealogy Center at the Mid-Continent public library in Independence, Missouri.
• They need a couple at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
• They need a couple now in Syracuse, New York at the Onondaga County Public Library and will need another in January.
• They need volunteers in Pocatello, Ogden, and (maybe) San Diego.

In 2014, FHB had 16.9 million images, 185 million names, and 67,700 books. That was a 69% increase over 2013. The main goal for 2015 is to improve the user experience. They want to get a new book viewer. On FHB today, you have to download an entire book. By contrast, on Internet Archive you download one page at a time, which gives a much quicker user experience.

Dennis demonstrated how to use the FHB website. I’ve already written about that. See “FamilySearch’s Electronic Books - #BYUFHGC” on my blog.

FamilySearch’s Record Search does not currently search FHB. Record Search depends upon fielded information. FHB book indexes are every-word indexes that are not fielded. FamilySearch is performing a pilot where several stakes are creating fielded indexes so they can be searched in Record Search. Record Search will then be able to reliably find people mentioned in FHB’s digitized books.

FamilySearch’s Electronic Books - #BYUFHGC

Dennis Meldrum and Tim De Graw gave a session titled “What is Happening with FamilySearch Books” at the BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy back on 29 July 2014. With FGS hitting so soon after BYU, I’m only now getting to it.

Meldrum announced that FamilySearch had exceeded 150,000 books in their electronic book collection! (I see the total is now over 166,000.) That is amazing. In addition to family, local, and county histories, the collection contains directories, how-to books, medieval genealogies, Bible records, cemetery records, vital records, biographies, periodicals, yearbooks, and gazetteers. Only books are included in the collection. Generally, that means it’s going to have a title page and an author.

FamilySearch is digitizing these books to make them readily and freely available, and to preserve them for future generations. And it is not just digitizing FamilySearch’s own collection. Here is a list of its partners. (I’ve shown how many books have come from each, according to the FamilySearch Books website.)

• Allen County Public Library (Fort Wayne, Indiana) - 21,954 – There are eight full-time missionaries scanning there.
• Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library (Provo, Utah) *
• Brigham Young University-Idaho David O. McKay Library (Rexburg, Idaho) *
• Church History Library (Salt Lake City, Utah) *
• FamilySearch Family History Library (Salt Lake City, Utah) - 123,495 *
• Houston Public Library Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research (Houston, Texas) - 4,454
• Internet Archive (various institutions)- 20,931
• Mid-Continent Public Library Midwest Genealogy Center (Independence, Missouri) - 4,075

* I’m guessing the book count for the Family History Library includes these partners as well as some family history centers, including Mesa, Arizona; Ogden, Utah; and St. George, Utah.

As of the time of the conference, FamilySearch was soon going to add additional partners: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Larsen-Sant Public Library (Preston, Idaho), and Onondaga County Public Library (Syracuse, New York). In addition to partner sites, they also have scanning centers in Las Vegas, Nevada; Oakland, California; Orange, California; Pocatello, Idaho; Sacramento, California; and West Valley City, Utah.

Book scanning has been possible only through the many hours worked by 190 volunteers. (They are always looking for replacements, as volunteers serve for less than two years. Contact books@familysearch.org.) At the time of the conference, volunteers had already put in 135,000 hours this year, scanning 84,000 books, or about 16.8 million pages. FamilySearch was using 38 book scanners. Two of the types cost $15,000 and $35,000 apiece.

Family history books are quite valuable. There are about 11.5 names per page, 60% of which are not already in Family Tree. Names are linked together into lineages. They also contain stories and photos. De Graw showed the picture of an ancestors he found, Sophia Dutton DeGraw Boren.

It’s easier than you might think to find these gems. FamilySearch’s book collection allows full text searching of all 166,000 books. Begin your search at http://books.familysearch.org. Search for a name, an author, a place, or a title. Use Advanced Search to add additional criteria: subject, periodical title, or reviewed materials. (That later category refers to titles marked by the history department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

Use the filters along the left margin to filter by material type (book, periodical, etc.), library collection, author/creator, and language. (As I am writing this, there are 6,000 German books, 3,500 French, 1,900 Dutch, and almost a thousand Danish books. There are books in Norwegian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Finnish, Icelandic, Hungarian, and 16 other languages.)

Sort the results by relevance, date, popularity, author, or title. In the future, you will be able to sort the unrestricted books together.

Use advanced search features: wildcards, quotes, AND, OR, NOT, and parentheses.

Unfortunately, some books are still protected by copyright so they can not be viewed outside a family history center. Even less fortunate, the messages communicating this are not well worded:

• “You don’t have sufficient rights to view requested object. Access denied” – This message means the book must be viewed at a family history center or the Salt Lake Family History Library. These books are also subtly marked with an icon over the cover thumbnail.
• “Item is currently in use by another user. Somebody else is currently using this book, and only one user can use this book at a time. Please check back for availability in 60 minutes.” – You should get this error only at a family history center. If you get it elsewhere, then the system is misbehaving.
• “Unauthorized Access,” or some other variation – This is common when a book had to be withdrawn. There may have been a quality issue, or FamilySearch discovered it didn’t have rights to post the book.
• “404 error” – You can get this error if you try manually editing the URL.

There are other problems trying to use FamilySearch Books and FamilySearch is planning on addressing them. There are some browser and device issues. FamilySearch is addressing them by changing to a viewer like Internet Archives’s. This is planned for Q4 or Q1. Until then, if you have rendering issues, upgrade your browser or try a different browser, upgrade your Adobe Reader or try a different PDF viewer. Another problem is limited in-book manipulations. They plan on adding them (although they didn’t mention what they are). Searching within a book is pretty limited today; they plan on implementing more robust in-book searching. Today, searching historical records doesn’t tell you about matches in books; and record hints don’t include matches in books. FamilySearch hopes to fix these limitations. While not a problem, per se, the books.familysearch.org page is pretty dull and of limited functionality. FamilySearch hopes to beef it up, with digital donations, collection highlights (unique books), and updates.

Meldrum and De Graw ended with an invitation to submit your books for publication on FamilySearch Books. To quote from the syllabus:

Your family history books can be added to the Family History Book collection. If the book is copyright we need written permission from the copyright holder (normally the author). This permission is given on the Authorized Gift Form. You can get a copy of this Form by emailing books@familysearch.org.

FamilySearch can accept books in either traditional hardcopy or electronic format.

Ancestry.com and ProQuest Announce Generalities

Last Friday Ancestry.com and ProQuest announced the expansion of their partnership. This week is the American Library Association 2014 annual conference in Las Vegas, so it’s an opportune time for library vendors like ProQuest to make announcements. The announcement was long on generalities and short on specifics, however. Perhaps they were hoping to announce something more substantial and it wasn’t ready in time. The announcement states

ProQuest will be distributor of both existing products, including Ancestry Library Edition, and future Ancestry products. The agreement also allows for significant content and feature improvements to ProQuest’s HeritageQuest Online. These enhancements will be developed in the coming months and powered by Ancestry.” (Italics added.)

The word both makes me think there was to be a second Ancestry.com product distributed by ProQuest. The idea of Ancestry.com adding content to HeritageQuest Online is interesting. I wonder what they would add that won’t conflict with the Ancestry Library Edition product.

The Ancestry Library Edition contains most of the content available on Ancestry.com. As I recall, the content not available is that which ProQuest charges for separately. (See my 2007 article, “The Ancestry Library Edition.”) It also lacks personal features such as member trees and DNA tests. If you don’t have an Ancestry.com subscription, check your local library to see if they have the library edition.

I noticed in the press release that for the first time, Ancestry.com called themselves just “Ancestry” instead of “Ancestry.com.” I wonder what that means. In December last year Ancestry.com filed for a trademark with just the word “Ancestry” next to their trademark leaf design. They already have one for “Ancestry.com” next to it. The United States Patent and Trademark Office tentatively rejected part of their request: they want to use it with their DNA test kits. But this doesn’t have anything to do with dropping “.com” from the way they speak of themselves. And I digress…

You can read the complete text of the Ancestry/ProQuest announcement on the ProQuest website.

Temporary, Free Ancestry.com Subscription for Schools

In my coverage of the FGS Conference’s Librarians’ Day I mentioned lesson plans available from Ancestry.com to help teachers. It turns out that the lesson plans are not the only thing available from Ancestry.com. They have a Classroom Learning Grant that provides three months free access to Ancestry.com’s institutional subscription.

“We provide lesson plans to help you integrate historical records into the classroom and teach students how to manage research projects, approach critical thinking and gain communication skills for life,” said Kim Harrison, Ancestry Library Team senior account executive.  “The lesson plans all have been author by a K12 teacher,” she said.

Lesson plans include:

• 1940 Census Lesson
• The Census and the Constitution
• The Census and the Depression
• Autobiography
• Biography
• Immigration over Time
• Civil War
• Military Lesson (Civil War)
• Personal Side of War (American Revolutionary War)
• War of 1812 – Privateers
• Mobilization for War (WWI)
• Battles (WWII)
• Local History is Your Community History
• Historical Crime
• Haunted House
• Suffrage Movement
• How Life Influences Art
• African American Congressmen Lesson
• Trail of Tears Lesson

Harrison says beginning the application process is simple. “Write to us to request the application/document.” Write to ancestrylibraryteam@ancestry.com. They will give you a little more information and a grant application.

Strange New World at #FGS2013

You may recall my discovery of a strange new world on the cover of the FGS Conference brochure. (See “The Ancestry Insider is an #FGS2013 Ambassador.”) When I visited the Allen County Public Library while at the conference, I found the source of the picture. Sure enough, it is a strange new world.

New Family History Library Concepts, Director

The Salt Lake City Family History Library has a new director and new concepts are coming for the library and FamilySearch family history centers.

These were two of the topics covered in the FamilySearch blogger dinner and briefing held Tuesday night before the start of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) 2013 annual conference.

Diane C. Loosle is the new director of the Family History Library. “Not only is she the first female director of the library, she is one of the most qualified and capable to ever serve in this position,” said Don Anderson, FamilySearch Senior Vice President.

Loosle says one of her top priorities is to take the Family History Library and its 4,700 family history centers and make them discovery centers for people of all ages. “We need to offer fun experiences and activities for the entire family that will increase love, appreciation, and understanding of their ancestors,” said Loosle.

“The Family History Library and our centers…will be more youth and family oriented,” she said. “They’ll be multimedia rich and interactive and try and introduce people to family history and discovering their story in a really fun and engaging way.”

Paul Nauta, FamilySearch public affairs manager, said we’ll hear FamilySearch talking about “heart turning experiences.”

Nauta showed an example floor plan for a “Family History Discovery Center.”

“We will, in the next 12 months, launch probably three if not five of these very interactive discovery centers,” he said. “We can’t tell you where. Stay tuned.” (As I recall, those who attended the BYU conference heard Dennis Brimhall mention two possible locations.)

One feature of discovery centers is an oral history studio, according to Nauta. Patrons reserve the studio for one hour to interview a relative or recite their own history. They pay $8, which covers the price of the flash drive they receive with the recorded interview. FamilySearch does not keep a copy of the interview, but provides the capability as a service. They are working on site features that would allow future interviews to be saved onto the FamilySearch website.

Three oral history studios are already in operation. According to the FamilySearch wiki, one is in San Diego, one is in Riverton, Utah, and one is in Logan, Utah.

Another new service of family history centers will be photo scanning, said Nauta. Agreements have already been made with equipment providers to supply scanners. The scanners will digitize a stack of differently-sized photos and upload them to your FamilySearch account. You can then go back, tag the people, and attach them to Family Tree.

“You can’t attract a younger audience and offer the same experiences,” said Loosle.

Diane Loosle is a 19-year veteran of FamilySearch. She began her career as a research consultant, then led patron services initiatives, the development of the FamilySearch Wiki, and free training content on FamilySearch.org. She is an accredited genealogist and holds an MBA.

According to Nauta, more information about discovery centers will be given later in the week in a presentation by Merrill White. You can bet I’ll be there to cover the presentation for you. Stay tuned.

For Librarians Only

The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) 2013 annual conference was preceded Tuesday by an event called Librarians Day. Librarians Day is held before most FGS, NGS (and many ALA) conferences.

Kris W. Rzepczynski gave the keynote presentation, “Collaboration is Not Just a Buzz Word: Building and Preserving Your Collections.” Rzepczynski works for the Archives of Michigan where his self-described title is “Point Person for All Things Genealogy.”

The Michigan State Library once possessed one of the nation’s top ten genealogy collections. It was almost lost.

The collapse of the auto industry in the state of Michigan affected the entire state. When economies go backward, culture and art institutions, including those genealogical, are an easy target for budget reductions. In 2009 the governor eliminated the State Department of History, Arts, and Libraries. In 2010 the governor ordered a reduction in the scope of the state library and the divestiture of the non-Michigan portion of its genealogy collection.

In the midst of this crisis the Michigan Genealogical Council organized “Hands Around the Library,” an event showing support for the state Library of Michigan. (See Shirley Gage Hodges’s article about the event.)

Curt Witcher of the Allen County Public Library lent his support by testifying to the Michigan Center for Innovation and Reinvention Board about the tourism and economic benefit of a genealogical collection.

In 2012 a collaboration was worked out whereby the Archives of Michigan would take the library’s non-Michigan genealogical collection, the Abrams Foundation Historical Collection. The grand opening of the collection was held at the Archives of Michigan on 5 January 2013. Both the library and archive are located in the Michigan Library and Historical Center, keeping all the records under the same roof (albeit with different operating hours).

Rzepczynski related some of the lessons learned through this crisis and its resolution:

• Maintain friendships with local genealogy organizations.
• Provide a unified voice dispelling misinformation.
• Evangelize the value of your genealogy collection with the public and with policy makers.
• Have an online presence.
• Utilize social networking. (See the Archives of Michigan at seekingmichigan.org, @seekingmichigan on Twitter, and Michigan Genealogy on Facebook.)

Through this, the Archives of Michigan ended up with the best of two worlds: original records and published sources.

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Okay. Maybe this post is not entirely for librarians. Rzepczynski mentioned a couple of collaborative projects they have underway with FamilySearch that are of general interest.

FamilySearch has 1.6 million records online in its collection, “Michigan, Death Certificates, 1921-1952.” The Archives of Michigan will publish this index along with images on its website (seekingmichigan.org). Images cannot be published until 75 years after death, so initially images will be published through 1938. Each year another year of records will be published.

Perhaps the number one genealogical resource at the Archives of Michigan is their collection of naturalization records for most counties of Michigan. They are partnering with FamilySearch to index them. The Archives of Michigan will then publish index and images on SeekingMichigan.org.

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Librarians Day is sponsored by ProQuest. Bill Forsyth addressed us during lunch (which ProQuest supplied). I’d like to mention a couple of online resources he mentioned. One is a document titled, “Key differences between Ancestry.com and Ancestry Library Edition.” The other was a set of lesson plans produced by Ancestry.com for teachers. It is tied to national standards. ProQuest has made the set available for download as a ZIP file. Unfortunately, the URL I wrote down does not work and Ancestry.com has not posted and linked to the lessons on their site. Perhaps ProQuest or Ancestry.com could leave a comment to this post giving a working URL. Ancestry.com has a page on their website that links to an example lesson plan for biography. But that’s the extent I could locate.

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Librarians day was held at the Allen County Public Library, who cosponsored the event. To subscribe to their informative monthly ezine, Genealogy Gems, go to their website (www.GenealogyCenter.org), click on E-zine, and fill out the form. Subscribe to their blog at www.GenealogyCenter.org/community/Blog.aspx. Follow news and program reminders by becoming a fan at www.FaceBook.com/GenealogyCenter.

Monday Mailbox: Ancestry.com Results Differ

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I am presenting a lecture to a library next month regarding the difference between the Library and Home edition of Ancestry.com. I was at the library and used my personal account and the library account to see what was the difference. What I got was much more surprising!

[Insider note: Pam searched for James Wilmington and viewed the results summarized by category to see a breakdown of results by database. She found the Ancestry Library Edition did not include results from the following databases:

• Du Pont romance: a reminiscent narrative of E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company
• Heads of Families at the first census of the United States taken in the year 1790: Massachusetts
• History of Harrison County, West Virginia
• Maurice Times (Maurice, Iowa)
• North Carolina Heads of families at the first census of the US
  taken in the year 1790
• Southwest Virginia historical records
• State census of North Carolina 1784-1787
• West Eau Claire Argus (Newspaper)]

At first, I thought the Library edition had more records, 1552, than the Home edition, 1245. I came home and thought, let me try that one more time. I did the same search and there was a higher number, 1584.

[Insider note: The following databases returned zero records the first time Pam ran the query on her Ancestry.com account. The second time she ran the query, she got the correct number of results.

• 1901 Census of Canada
• 1906 Canada Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta
• New York State Census 1892
• New York, State Census 1915]

I always thought I got strange results when I search at the library and sometimes at home. Today, I caught it!! Often, if I get a zero result list, I redo the search. And, I am always right because I would get different results. I realize computers are not perfect…cough…cough…but, could Ancestry also have issues? <g>

Hoping you may have some insight on this. I am going to tell the librarians and patrons to always use both library and the home edition if they have it. In addition, never believe the results, especially when you get zero!

Pam

Dear Pam,

Gosh. Has it been five years since I reviewed the Ancestry Library Edition? (See “The Ancestry Library Edition.”) The Library Edition is distributed by ProQuest. ProQuest has products of its own that duplicate some of the content of the Ancestry Home edition. To protect these other products, the Ancestry Library Edition excludes content that competes with them. Certain newspapers and books are excluded, including the ones you identified.

Databases coming and going in the Home edition is more interesting… and problematic. I don’t think this is a case of the Home edition not working at the library. Ancestry.com doesn’t know when you are at home. (If they do, we’re all in trouble!) Try the query again at the library with your Home edition. I think you’ll find it works fine.

I think what you saw was a failure of the Ancestry Ra system. Back in January 2010 I wrote about Ra. (See “Ancestry.com Bloggers Day: Data Center Tour (Part 2).”) A failure in Ra could explain databases going away and then coming back.

Loads of generic servers are divvied up to handle requests to particular groups of Ancestry.com genealogy databases. One group might be birth, marriage, death databases. Another group might handle military databases, and so forth.

Note that the databases left out the first time you ran the query are all census databases. That’s what makes me suspect Ra. The results from a group of census databases may have been left out.

If this is what happened, and Ancestry failed to inform you, then people have to heed your warning to “never believe the results, especially when you get zero.”

Thanks for sharing your experience,
--The Insider

FGS: Librarian’s Day

Librarian’s Day at FGS Conference
Photo credit: Kim Harrison

I’ve mentioned that Wednesday, the first day of the FGS conference, has a special audience: genealogical society officers. Well this year (and most years) the first day of the conference was also Librarians Day. As you are doubtlessly aware, many libraries have genealogy collections. Librarians day is designed for librarians, archivists, and other information professionals serving family history researchers.

I wasn’t able to attend the entire day, but the program looked great. The opening keynote was Dr. Edwin C. Bridges, director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, who spoke about “Is Alabama History as Rich and Interesting as Greek or Roman History?” Laura Caldwell Anderson, archivist for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; Jim Baggett, head of the Department of Archives and Manuscripts at the Birmingham Public Library; and Elizabeth Crabtree Wells, special collections librarian and archivist at Samford University, discussed Birmingham resources for librarians and their patrons.

The luncheon speaker was William J. Forsyth, directory of product management for ProQuest. ProQuest is the Librarian’s Day sponsor and sells a variety of subscription services to libraries, including Ancestry Library Edition. (I sometimes wonder if FamilySearch.org would get more attention from libraries if ProQuest offered a FamilySearch Library Edition. But I digress…)

In the afternoon Amy Johnson Crow spoke to the topic of “The Importance of Your Genealogy Collection’s Website.” Crow is a genealogical content manager at Archives.com.

“It is not enough to have a website,” she said. “You have to have a good website.” Crow went on to quote Voltaire: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” and warned participants, “I never said you had to have a perfect website.” Crow also advised tat attendees provide great content and site navigation. “Content is like chocolate,” she said. It has to be rich and it has to be satisfying. “Whatever content you have, it has to be good. It has to be meaningful.” She offered the Ohio Obituary Index as an example. The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center (not a NARA presidential library) offers this index of 2.1 million obituaries. The index gives enough information for users to identify an ancestor. Then it gives a link allowing users to order a copy of the obituary. The index has brought the Hayes Center a tremendous amount of traffic and attention.

Curt B. Witcher, the Genealogy Center manager at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, spoke to the topic, “Sources and Resources: Mining the Gold from Genealogical & Historical Serials.” (Private message to Curt: Sorry about the lousy photograph. I’m a terrible photographer.)

Periodicals contain hidden sources, locality-specific tips, and all kinds of history. “Doing the history eliminates the mystery,” says Witcher. Long bibliographies contain unmined gold. If an article about a topic contains a long bibliography, look through it for other potential sources. “I think it is really exciting for our customers to pull together records about a locale,” he said. “Where does history live? Down at the locale.” There are several ways to find articles of interest. The Allen County Library’s Periodical Source Index (PERSI) is a large subject index to articles written in genealogy and history periodicals. “I think subject indexes have a place alongside every-name indexes,” he said. PERSI is available on HeritageQuest and Ancestry.com.

If you’re a librarian and wish to attend Librarian’s Day, they are scheduled before ALA, NGS and FGS conferences.

Select RootsTech Presentations Available Online

FamilySearch announced today that select presentations from this year’s RootsTech conference are now available online.

The available sessions are:

• Jay Verkler – “Turning Roots, Branches, Trees into Nodes, Links, Graphs”
• Click to view
• Click for bio
• See “Jay Verkler Opens RootsTech Conference” for my report
• Barry Ewell - “Digitally Preserving Your Family Heritage”
• Click to view
• Curt Witcher - “The Changing Face of Genealogy”
• Click to view
• Click for bio
• See “RootsTech and the Changing Face of Genealogy” for my report
• Brian Pugh - “Cloud Computing: What It Is and How It Has Been Used . . .”
• Warning: This is a very technical session
• Click to view
• I didn’t write-up my notes from this session in my Insider Ketchup article. It was and is my intention to do an easier-to-understand explanation article. However, don’t stay tuned for it, and don’t hold your breath…
• Thomas MacEntee - “Virtual Presentations Round Table”
• Click to view
• Panel members: Thomas MacEntee, Lisa Louise Cooke, Marian Pierre-Louis, Geoff Rasmussen, Pat Richley-Erickson, Allison Stacey, and Maureen Taylor
• Brewster Kahle - “Personal Archiving and Primary Documents”
• Click to view
• Click for bio
• See “RootsTech Keynote Speaker Archiving and Preserving...” for my report
• Elder Richard G. Scott – Question and answer session for family history consultants
• Click to view. (This link didn’t work for me.)
• Click for bio
• See “Richard G. Scott: Some of the Finest at RootsTech” for my report

For my other reports on RootsTech 2011, see:

• RootsTech Conference Opens
• FamilySearch Technology Booth
• RootsTech Expo Hall is a Winner
• RootsTech ‘An Amazing Accomplishment’
• RootsTech: Future Directions in Search
• RootsTech Ketchup

To read the complete announcement from FamilySearch, see “Relive RootsTech 2011,” FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : dated 11 March 2011, accessed 14 March 2011).

Insider Ketchup: 1 February 2011

I have no time. I’m way behind on articles. Time to ketchup…

FamilySearch January Blogger Seminar

FamilySearch recently hosted a bloginar. It was like an online “Bloggers Day” event like Ancestry.com used to have. The tidbits I came away with are:

• You know I’ve long ridiculed the name “new FamilySearch.” Right away I started calling it New FamilySearch (capital N) or simply NFS to differentiate it from the various new FamilySearch websites. Later I switched to “the new FamilySearch (NFS) Tree.” In the bloginar we learned that the silly name has finally been replaced with something sensible: FamilySearch Family Tree.
• FamilySearch is not closing down family history centers. That rumor is untrue (although there are plenty of rumors that local ecclesiastical leaders are closing centers under the false notion that centers are no longer needed). There are microfilms that FamilySearch does not have permission to digitize. There are microfilms that FamilySearch can digitize but can’t make available to the public at large. For these and other reasons, family history centers are still necessary. In fact…
• Some time later this year you will be able to order microfilm online to be delivered to your local family history center. The system has been in use in Europe for some time, but kinks are still being worked out in the states. The international site is http://film.familysearch.org .
• You won’t be able to order every microfilm, however. As microfilms are digitized and published on FamilySearch.org in Historical Record Collections, the film will be withdrawn from circulation. I bet that causes wailing and gnashing of teeth. And I bet some at FamilySearch are clueless why this would be so.
• FamilySearch, operating as the Genealogical Society of Utah, has replaced most of its microfilm cameras with digital cameras. FamilySearch is poised to begin publishing digital camera images at a much faster pace than it could process microfilm for use in family history centers.

  They’re Baa-ack!

Who Do You Think You Are? is back for a second season, starting this Friday night on NBC. Vanessa Williams kicks off this season. Watch this show to make it a success so we can interest more people in genealogy.

I’m going to start a rumor, here and now. Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first. Ancestry.com is a major sponsor of WDYTYA. I wonder if it was cheaper for Ancestry.com to buy ProGenealogists rather than pay for WDYTYA research. That, in turn, seems to have killed Expert Connect.

“The Generations Project” was also renewed for a second season. FamilySearch is a sibling of sorts to Generations producer, Brigham Young University. While you don’t have much chance of getting on WDYTYA, the Generations Project spotlights regular people. Visit their website to apply.

  Ancestry.com iPhone/iPad App

You all probably make me as an iPhone kind-of guy. To be honest, I don’t have an iPhone or an iPad. This new Ancestry.com app, however, is too much. I gotta get me one of these! Learn more on the Ancestry.com website.

Super Bowl Indexing Sunday

A Canadian man is organizing a grassroots campaign to use Super Bowl Sunday to break the single day FamilySearch indexing record. Ken Sisler wants everyone to index as they watch the game, or don’t watch the game, as the case may be. He has created a Facebook Event to help promote the effort.

Prior to 2011, the record—1,867,808 names indexed in a single day—had stood since February 2008. But last month a new record, 1,884,616, was set on Sunday, January 9th only to be broken the following Sunday when 1,955,890 names were indexed. The momentum carried through into Martin Luther King Day when the record was broken yet again. Super Indexing Sunday must surpass 1,982,999 to set a new record. Go team, go!

 

Consume at your own risk

The rest of this ketchup has been sitting around since before October 2010. Be careful. Consume at your own risk. It may be rancid.

 

  Ancestry.com seems to be doing a good job of competitive analysis. There new tree views are similar to the new FamilySearch tree’s. See “Member Trees: A New Way to View Your Ancestry.com Member Tree.”

  Ancestry.com has given in on another point which made long-time subscribers reject their 2008 New Search. See “Ancestry Search: Searching using Birth, Death and other Life Events.”

  Funeral home industry promoters have a website called iMortuary.com. Hoping to draw visitors, they've informed various bloggers about an online graphic containing interesting facts. What they don't realize, is that their nation-wide directory of funeral homes is, of itself, a draw for genealogists. For more information, read “Grave curiosities.”

  Ancestry.com New Photo Upload Tool The old photo upload utility was buggy, difficult to use, security sensitive—and lightning fast. I was sad to see it go.

Ancestry.com released a cool new feature called Suggested Records. When you view the index page for some records, Ancestry.com will suggest other records that might refer to the same person. This new feature is good both for Ancestry.com haters and subscribers, alike. Ancestry.com takes the efforts of paying subscribers—saving records into their personal trees—and leverages it to make money by providing suggestions to other subscribers. I call this the Amazon Model. (I notice back in October 2007 I said to stay tuned, meaning I would explain later what I meant. Well, stay tuned…)

FamilySearch has released a DVD of Jay Verkler’s NGS conference keynote, “Coming of Age,” including the video tour of the Granite Mountain Record Vault. If you didn’t happen to pick up a copy at the FGS conference, you can order one online at http://store.familysearch.org for $4.50. The “Celebration of Family History” from NGS is also available for the same price.

But if you just want to watch the video clips, you can find them on FamilySearch’s YouTube channel.

Ancestry.com took a page from the FamilySearch playbook and establishing Ancestry.com Labs. The mission of Ancestry.com Labs sounds much like FamilySearch Labs.

Ancestry Labs is a place where we post experimental projects to gather user input. This is a part of the site that will allow us to test new ideas and concepts, give you a preview of what we’re thinking for the future, and allow us to hear feedback directly from you.

The projects we place in this area are likely to be early prototypes, and although some of them may make their way into the main Ancestry site, some may not. Please explore our current projects and share your feedback.

The first project on Ancestry Labs was PersonView. Check it out at www.ancestry.com/labs. Read more in the announcement from Tony Macklin.

The FamilySearch/Ancestry.com census partnership bore additional fruit on the Ancestry.com website. Ancestry.com announced the release of the improved 1910 census images provided by FamilySearch. Ancestry.com is releasing the new combined index in pieces. The first set of states was released simultaneously with the improved images.

Following the announcement of the partnership, FamilySearch issued a statement clarifying access to indexes and images. See “Indexed Records to Remain Free on FamilySearch.org.” The statement announced that free access to the images would be available to “FamilySearch members” in 2009. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Now we’re into 2011 and it still hasn’t happened.

Do you think Ancestry.com is shaking in their boots worrying about FamilySearch putting them out of business?

FamilySearch took a page from the Ancestry.com playbook and held its first Blogger Day. (OK. That ketchup was rather old and rancid. But I wrote it four months ago, and still needed it to balance the item earlier about Ancestry.com taking a page from FamilySearch’s playbook.)

I panned Ancestry.com’s Find Famous Relatives feature. (See “Relative Finder, Ancestry.com Style.”) Ancestry.com has added a more useful feature. The “View Relationship to Me” feature calculates the relationship of anyone in your own tree to yourself. Since the quality of the data in your own tree is within your own control, the feature doesn’t suffer from the garbage in the Ancestry.com One World Tree. Now if they would add a relationship calculator for any two individuals in your tree, they will have caught up to where PAF was many, many years ago. For more information, see the announcement on the Ancestry.com blog.

I’ve been asked what a system origin of “EASy” means when it appears in some historic records on the FamilySearch beta. For an example, see the record for Anna Pereira, baptized 19 Mar 1783 in São Luiz Rei, Mostardas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in the “Brazil Baptisms, 1688-1935” collection. According to the FamilySearch website, EASy stands for Extraction Administration System. This is the system used prior to FamilySearch Indexing.

Old and crusty mustard:

• See footage from the stack areas inside NARA where the public doesn’t get to go. “Finding Your Family at the National Archives” is an NGS Video Presentation.
• The Mid-Continent Public Library has partnered with FamilySearch to produce some online training. See http://www.mymcpl.org/genealogy/online-presentations 

Once again, I barely made a dent in my backlog. It seems like I do this every time. Come to think of it, am I reliving this same day, over and over again?

Vault Vednesday: Open House

The public were invited to tour the awesome caverns of the Granite Mountain Record Vault (GMRV) starting 4 December 1963. After the open house, the vault would be closed to the public.

Storage vaults were constructed between about 120 and 350 feet into the mountain. Each of six vaults is about 200 feet long, extending 27 feet wide, and reaching over 15 feet high. The tunnels were lined with heavy corrugated steel and concrete was pumped in to fill the space between the steel and the granite tunnel walls.

NGS Conference Church Library Open House

The Church History Library is a state-of-the-art archival library for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It just opened in June 2009. See fascinating demonstrations of the latest conservation methods for photographs, sound recordings, and aging books. The archive uses high-density, climate controlled storage vaults for old manuscripts, photographs, maps, books, Church records, and other artifacts.

The tour is included in your conference registration for no extra cost. For a sneak peak of what you will see on the tour, click this link and then click the play button.

Early bird registration must be postmarked by 8 March 2010. There are just 36 days left.
Pre-registration must be postmarked by 12 April 2010. There are just 71 days left.
The conference begins 28 April 2010. There are just 87 days left.

This is another in a series highlighting the Granite Mountain Record Vault (GMRV) and the NGS Family History Conference coming to Salt Lake City, 28 April—1 May 2010.

---

Sources

      Dexter Ellis, "Inspection Tours Set for Records Vaults in Canyon," Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 30 November 1963, Church News section, p. 3, cols. 2-5; digital images (http://news.google
.com/newspapers : accessed 25 December 2009). 
     "Church Invites Public To Visit Cottonwood Genealogy Vaults," Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 2 December 1963, p. B 5, cols. 6-8; digital images (http://news.google.com/newspapers : accessed 25 December 2009). Also see “Deep Vaults to Protect Church Files,” Los Angeles Times, 2 December 1963, p. b15; and “Plan to Show Record Vault of Mormons,” Chicago Tribune, 2 December 1963, p. C16.
     "Vault Toured By Church, Civic Leaders," Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 3 December 1963, p. 12 B, col. 1; digital images (http://news.google.com/newspapers : accessed 25 December 2009).
     The Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Records Protection in an Uncertain World, 16 p. brochure ([Salt Lake City, Utah: self-published, 1973).

Visiting the Family History Library? Dine at the JSMB

Starting Monday, you’ll have to use a new ramp to enter the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSMB) parking garage. More on that later. Right now, I’m hungry.

Construction of the City Creek project has severely limited dining choices for Family History Library (FHL) visitors. Several choices not too far from the FHL are the restaurants in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building:

The Roof Restaurant is Utah's premier gourmet buffet. With a selection of international and domestic cusine [I think they meant cuisine] prepared daily by our head chef, and an inspiring view of Temple Square that can't be beat. Open nightly for dinner. [Located in the northwest corner of the 10th floor of the JSMB. This is the most expensive “cusine” in Salt Lake City.]

 

The Garden Restaurant is open for lunch and dinner with American cuisine that includes pasta, gourmet salads, hambugers [I hope they meant hamburgers], and our chef's special entrees. The casual garden atmosphere and affordable pricing [as opposed to the Roof] make it a great dining location for groups or families! [Also on the 10th floor, but in the southwest corner. Avoid sunset and ask for a table with a view of the Temple.]

 

The Nauvoo Café is a downtown Salt Lake City, Utah hotspot for hot breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Known for its famous hot-carved sandwiches and succulent pot pies, The Nauvoo Café is sure to satisfy your taste buds. And the affordable pricing will satisfy your budget. [“Affordable” is true, relative to the other three. Utilizing a cafeteria style line, this place has the fastest service—if the line isn’t too long. First floor of the JSMB, on the west side.] (Source)

 

Enjoy exceptional home-style fare as you dine amidst the history that surrounds you, in Brigham Young’s personal residence, The Lion House, in Downtown Salt Lake City. Offering a selection of entrees that rival the best home cooking, The Pantry Restaurant features authentic recipes that have been passed down through generations. [Located East of the JSMB, go down the alley just past the Church Administration Building. The entrance is towards the back of the building. The home-style cooking is accentuated by the slightest suggestion of the smell in your grandparent’s basement. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; just how many people can say they’ve eaten in Brigham Young’s root cellar?] (Source)

It’s a good idea to drop by the FamilySearch Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and pick up a 10% discount coupon—good at any of these four restaurants.

Important: Parking Entrance Change

Now back to the parking garage changes.

Beginning Monday, 1 February 2010, the old entrance to the JSMB parking garage will close and a new entrance will open. The new entrance ramp will be in the middle of the street, like the entrance to the the Conference Center parking. (They call it an "in-street parking ramp.") To enter the parking garage, you must be going west. The entrance ramp begins at or near the intersection of State Street and South Temple Street.

The Church Administration building backdrops the sign for the new entry ramp

 
A four-wheeler temporarily blocks the new
entry ramp to the parking garage of
the Joseph Smith Memorial Building
(visible on the right).
The old ramp will close permanently.

At the bottom of the ramp, you'll make a right-hand turn to enter the parking garage. (Once the City Creek underground parking is open, a left-hand turn will take you into it.)

When exiting, you'll leave the garage and make a right-hand turn to go up the exit ramp, again heading westbound. The exit ramp surfaces (like a theater vomitorium) towards the intersection of Main Street and South Temple Street.

Parking under the JSMB is limited, and is among the more expensive parking downtown. However, if you eat at one of the aforementioned restaurants, you can get your parking ticket validated.