FamilySearch Digging Up Cemeteries

FamilySearch is leading a genealogical community effort to develop technologies that leverage the power of the new FamilySearch (NFS) Tree.

Tim Cross, product manager at FamilySearch, showed three of those eye-popping new technologies at the recent BYU Family History Conference. Last time I talked about Community Reference Links. Today, I’ll show you another and next week I’ll wrap up with the third.

Cemetery Matching

At one time the Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints told its members not to include cemetery names in burial locations. It made it too hard for the Church to match duplicates.

The NFS Tree changes this. It is not only OK to enter a cemetery name, there are advantages to doing so. FamilySearch has been busy adding cemeteries to the standard location database in the NFS Tree. Currently it contains over 140,000. Specify a standard cemetery and the NFS Tree is able to exactly match the cemetery to identify all those buried there.

Cross showed a proof-of-concept or alpha release of “World Cemeteries” from Tree Seek, a product that taps into that capability to produce a directory of the world’s burials.

(What is an “alpha” release? Before a product is released to the general public, a “beta” release of the product is given to a few members of the public for testing purposes. Before “beta",” an “alpha” release is given to the developer’s own employees for internal testing. But I digress…)

World Cemeteries displays icons on a map indicating the number of cemeteries in a general area. The color of the icon indicates the number of cemeteries.

World Cemeteries Displays Colored Icons with Cemetery Counts

Click an icon to zoom in and center the map on that location.

 
Balloon with Cemetery Information

Continue to zoom until a cemetery of interest becomes visible. Click the cemetery to see a balloon with the name of the cemetery and links to resources. One link goes to a FamilySearch Wiki page appropriate for the cemetery. Another link goes to its Find-a-Grave page.

The first link, “FamilySearch Burials,” is the eye popping one.

Click on FamilySearch Burials (it requires an NFS account) and World Cemeteries queries the NFS Tree for a list of all those buried in the cemetery. I’ve shown an example to the right.

Click another link and World Cemeteries indicates which ones are your close relatives.

World Cemeteries also makes it easy to link this cemetery to your ancestors in the Tree. After you navigate to a cemetery, you can search for your ancestors and add the cemetery location to their burial information.

With a list of all the burials in a cemetery, it would be easy to add the standardized cemetery location to all of them. That would be a nice service project for a youth group, scouting unit, school, or genealogy society.

Cool stuff, isn’t it?

Imagine some future time when you get a moment to make an unplanned visit to a cemetery. You turn on your cell phone, click a button or two and your favorite FamilySearch-powered phone app digs up a list of your closest relatives interred in the cemetery. That’s something I can dig.

Genealogy Web Search

One prize in the genealogy community that is yet to be won is that of “the Google of Genealogy.” (I was thinking it would be funny to speak of the “Google of Genealogy” and the “Mother of All Googles of Genealogy.” That would make the two GOG and MAGOG. Unfortunately, humor and religion rarely mix well without someone taking offense. So I’ve opted for digression over transgression…)

In any case, the prize is yet to be claimed. Recent unsubstantiated rumor sent to the Insider point to another shot at the title by Ancestry.com.

Clues have surfaced linking web crawling by agents of Ancestry.com as early as the beginning of this year. The indications point to Google-style indexing of publicly accessible data on sites such as

• Grand Traverse County Records, Michigan
• Green-Wood, New York’s Historic Cemetery
• Western States Marriages, BYU Idaho
• Tacoma Area Obituaries, Washington
• Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War

Such a search service would be of tremendous value. Using Google for genealogy searches is hampered because Google first gathers text from across the Internet with little regard for semantics. Then it tries to figure out semantics afterwards. Semantics refers to the meaning of the text, such as what is a name, what is a date, what is a place, and what is the relationship among these. The Google of Genealogy would index genealogical information for which the semantics were already known. In other words, the website has already identified names, places, and relationships.

This is a concept whose time has come. We’ll keep a couple of eyes open watching for further progress in this area. If you see anything, let me know.

Stay tuned…

Mailbox Monday: Community Reference Links

Dear Ancestry Insider,

How does this differ from Ancestry.com's "Web Links" that are available (though not prominently) to subscribers on Family Trees? There, too, one links to other websites referencing the individual.

Nolichucky Roots

Dear Nolichucky,

I'm giving you my understanding of what I’ve been told. But this is an emerging technology. I may have misunderstood, or the technology may change before you, the public, ever see it.

I should clarify that Ancestry.com Family Trees are also available to non-subscribers, for free. But I digress…

Let me illustrate how Community Reference Links would differ from web links. Let's say that you have a Nolichucky Smith in your Ancestry.com Family Tree.

Imagine someone finds a record about him on FamilySearch and attaches it to the new FamilySearch Tree (once that is possible). You would automatically get a shaky leaf in your tree. You could attach the record from FamilySearch to Nolichucky in your tree. Something similar happens to all the Nolichucky Smiths on all participating websites.

You find the 1880 census record for Nolichucky Smith on Ancestry.com and attach it. The link shows up on Nolichucky Smith in the new FamilySearch Tree and so forth.

Community Reference Links are worthwhile for pay websites—and this is important—because non-subscribers must still pay to access the linked records. Pay websites get a source of highly targeted potential subscribers. Click-through rates will outperform any other source.

Community Reference Links are good for you, an end user, because you find out whenever anyone finds a record about your ancestors. You find out what websites have those records. You can make more informed decisions about website subscriptions. You find free records and photos.

So you see, Community Reference Links operate more like shaky leaves and member connections than website links.

-- The Insider

Broken Links

Dear Ancestry Insider,

The Community Reference Links you discussed sounds really great except for one big problem. Web links don't always remain constant. Webmasters seem to have a propensity for redesigning things periodically and when they do, sometimes the URL for a particular object changes. This results in the infamous broken links often seen on web sites that have a lot of off-site connections. Unless and until this problem is solved, I will continue to download everything I can to my own storage facility where I know I can find it.

John

Dear John,

I have found someone else whom I think the world of. Oops. Wrong dear John letter. I digress…

John, you are so right. CRLs is not an attempt to solve the issue of broken links. I would continue creating your own copy of anything you want to keep.

While solving broken links is not the focus of CRLs, breaks would undermine the value of the link community. FamilySearch is giving the problem some thought. One line of thinking is to place vendors under contract to honor forever any links the vendor submits to the community. Another approach would be to require URLs with some sort of embedded identifier. The identifier is used to automatically mend broken links.

Thanks for the feedback.
-- The Insider

 

Apologies to you who already read these comments online. Comments and my replies are edited for length, style, or clarification.

We, the Community

Tools and community connect to create great power, said Gordon Clarke in his Salt Lake Family History Expo presentation. Clarke is the FamilySearch Affiliates Manager.

“Many hands make light work,” quoted Clarke. “But have you heard, ‘many eyes make good conclusions’?” Community shared trees are one way people can connect. And the new FamilySearch Tree is not the only shared tree in town. Many online trees are available. Clarke highlighted several that also have the ability to exchange data with the new FamilySearch tree.

Clarke made the point throughout his presentation that “FamilySearch is just a drop in the bucket in the world. There is plenty for everyone to do.”

Clarke manages FamilySearch Web Services. Web Services allows multiple websites and desktop programs to interact in a standard way. “Partnering with FamilySearch makes it possible for multiple parties to be compatible,” said Clarke.

The Community Reference Links web service is an emerging FamilySearch technology that allows anyone to contribute information to the online community via links rather than making copies. “If you keep your information in one place and share it via links, then you avoid problems where genealogical data gets copied around without your ability to make corrections,” said Clarke. Photographs don’t have to be copied from one place to another. You access photos where they resides. Community Referencing Links are finding application in cemetery research, photograph and document sharing, and identifying others researching the same ancestors. (Stay tuned for a full report about Community Reference Links from Tim Cross’s BYU Genealogy Conference presentation.)

As Clarke puts its, “We are smarter than me.”

Killer Cool! Wow!!!

Just heard about a killer cool presentation from the BYU Family History Conference. Wow. That’s all I can say. Wow!

 
Tim Cross example of Community Reference Links

Tim Cross showed three new eye popping services being developed by a genealogical community of cooperating partners led by FamilySearch.

These are innovative and astounding applications leveraging the new FamilySearch Tree (NFS).

Community Reference Links

Community Reference Links is an emerging technology that enables you and the rest of the genealogy community to hook together everything about your ancestor that is on the web. This includes artifacts, photographs, and stories that pertain to an ancestor. Cross showed a “proof of concept” application showing this capability.

Cross’s demonstration is still accessible (as I write this) at https://genstone.org/links-test/person.jsp?personId=K2QQ-QCH. You can see a screen image pictured to the right.

At the top left of the page is a link to the focus individual on NFS.

 
Focus individual in the new FamilySearch Tree

Below that are links to various information and artifacts around the Internet. One is a link to a person page on Footnote.com.

Person page on Footnote.com

Another links to a grave on Findagrave.com.

Memorial photo from Findagrave.com

Finally, the page has links to several photographs on Family Photoloom.

 
Photographs on Family Photoloom

These community references are called links because the artifact or content isn’t copied. Web pages, photographs, and other artifacts remain where they are.

I should reiterate that this is a proof of concept, only. When—or even if—it will see the light of day is impossible to predict. This is such a simple, powerful concept, I can’t imagine it not coming to fruition. If FamilySearch should somehow stumble and fail to productize this service, I think other vendors will move forward without them.

Next time I’ll show you two more eye popping services. Does anybody else see a problem with this? Three eye pops. Two eyes. Maybe you’ll see two more, and maybe you won’t.

Mailbox Monday: Future of the NFS Tree

Future of the NFS Tree
Credit: Ancestry Insider, July 2008
Tree on the Peter Whitmer Farm

Dear Ancestry Insider,

THANKS for this great informative post. A real service to the genealogical research community. (And why should FHD hire someone to write this kind of news releases, when you do such a fine job?) I'm a retired copyeditor so I feel qualified to say that.

One question: "Someone" wrote a few weeks ago that nFS will be rolled out to "everyone" gradually by temple districts, as it was for LDS members. Reading your post carefully, I don't see any indication of that. Can you clarify?

Thanks again. Cheers,
Dolly in Maryland
(non-member, a FHC volunteer for 39 years & counting)

Dear Dolly,

First, let me send a capital THANKS right back at you. Our family history centers (FHCs) could not function without wonderful volunteers such as you. FamilySearch and all our patrons are indebted to our wonderful community volunteers.

I spoke with a member of the new FamilySearch (NFS) Tree hardware team the other morning about the rollout. His team is looking forward to it with great excitement and trepidation. FamilySearch really has no way to know exactly how much the general public will load the system.

That is why the Tree must be rolled out gradually. Rather than temple district, the rollout will probably start with a few, select invitations. Ron Tanner didn’t comment on the rollout method at the Family History Expo, but I seem to someone saying publicly that that would begin this year with just a few targeted invitations. After that, I’m guessing that FamilySearch will do something along the lines of Google’s rollout of Gmail.

As the capacity of Gmail increased, Google gave some existing users a few invitations that could be given to friends. If Gmail remained stable with the additional users, more invitations were distributed among current users. In this way Google had great control of the speed of the rollout. That is something that FamilySearch needs as well.

Does anybody remember better than I how that whole Gmail rollout worked?

Thanks for writing,

-- The Insider

P.S. I assume you already have your own account with access to the NFS Tree. As a 39 year, current FHC volunteer, you qualify for current access.

Fixing the Tree

[I created the following letter by combining and liberally edited two letters (here and here). Consequently, it may no longer reflect the views and opinions of the original author. Sorry about that.]

Dear Ancestry Insider,

Occasionally I check the old FamilySearch site for certain ancestors. For one search I did today there are 7 IGI entries, 1 Ancestral File entry, and 2 Pedigree Resource File entries. The 10 entries contain liberal numbers of errors.

I am confident (abstractly, not having access to nFS Tree) that there are several copies of the target person in the Tree, probably all with wrong spouse, wrong parents, wrong marriage place, wrong place of death. Hence merging (which I do understand) will diminish server load but probably not increase truthiness.

My point is that the source materials for the nFS Tree are derivative, secondary, and lacking citations; these sources do not give much guidance for accuracy.

I am glad that the correction-of-conclusion process is heading in a more streamlined and rational direction. The elephant in the living room is that countless numbers of religious rites have been performed based on erroneous genealogical assertions. Surely the submitters have an emotional attachment to their mistaken submissions, this over and above the sheer weight of error-riddled trees on the web and their mistaken sources.

I hope a robust correction process will be able to prevent the 'wiki-war' phenomenon.

Signed,
Pseudo-G. L.

 

Dear Pseudo-G. L.,

Today, one cleans up multiple copies of a person by combining them all together in a mishmash that preserves each and every single assertion from each and every single source. In your example, the resulting person would have ten copies of the name, even if some were identical. Every birth date from all ten sources would be present. Likewise for the other facts. The person could theoretically have 10 different mothers and 10 different fathers. The person could have ten times the number of children they actually had—or more if some of the 10 sources had too many children.

Fortunately, today a contributor can correct information they contribute. Unfortunately, the contributors of most of the IGI, Ancestral File, and Pedigree Resource Files are unknown or have yet to claim their contributions. And unfortunately, only the contributor can correct or remove erroneous information. Fortunately, one can dispute it. Unfortunately, once disputed, even the contributor can not fix it.

In the NFS of tomorrow, sources (such as the IGI, AF, and PRF) are extracted and exist independently. Anyone can “fix” any problem in the tree.

Keep in mind that in "our tree," "fixed" is determined by the community. It happens like this: You or I applies "your fix" or "my fix." If no one objects, it becomes "our fix." If someone objects, they undo the change and engages the fixer in a discussion. When consensus is reached, you apply "our fix."

Once a discussion is underway, it is bad form to apply or re-apply "your fix." Doing so can result in temporary suspension.

When consensus can not be reached, the decision goes to an arbitrator who decides "our fix." I worry that FamilySearch product managers are operating under the assumption that in any disagreement, genealogical practice and standards dictate a clear, best decision. I believe in many situations even the best genealogists can disagree. I believe it will be necessary to allow contributors to appeal an arbitrator’s decision to a panel of arbitrators.

You are quite right that a robust correction process, arbitration as it is called, is the only thing that stands between success and anarchy. FamilySearch owns the first task: create an arbitration process that works. We, the community, own the second task. Able genealogists must step forward and donate time as arbitrators. That will determine whether the Tree becomes the greatest genealogical tool ever created or the greatest genealogical failure.

Signed,

-- The Insider

Finally

Dear friends,

Please have a wonderful holiday! As you labor on your genealogy today, try not to slow the Internet down too much while I’m laboring on my genealogy. :-)

-- The Insider

My Favorite Aunt Arlene

Arlene Haslam Eakle (say “E-cull”) is the favorite aunt you always wished you had. I love the mixture of home-spun wisdom, professional knowledge, and bravado that makes her a favorite aunt. If you don’t follow her blogs, you will want to check it out.

At the Salt Lake Family History Expo I attended her class, “Close to Home: Genealogy Resources in Northern Utah and Southern Idaho.” The topic is near to my heart, since five generations of my family of every single line lived in that area.

Family History Centers (FHCs) in the area have more than microfilm. In her presentation, Eakle went city by city telling us the records available in each. For example, the Cache Valley Regional Family History Center at 50 North Main Street has genealogy volumes on their shelves that are out of print and available no where else. They also have an extensive card index—the old kind written on real cards.

“How long they will continue to operate this way, I don’t know. But they have specialized materials that the Salt Lake Library doesn’t have.” Since FamilySearch is scanning Idaho Falls FHC paper-based materials for access over the Internet, the future is uncertain.

The state of Utah has created an online library. It is at http://pioneer.utah.gov . Accessing  fee-databases requires your library card and a code from your public library. Contact your local library for the code. She like the HeritageQuest scans of the U.S. census since it was indexed by native English speakers. It gives a second copy independent of Ancestry.com. Search results are organized geographically, state by state and county by county.

Eakle herself has a library. How she got it is quite a story.

British Isles researcher, George Sherwood, accumulated a lifetime of information. His collection contains transcripts of many records, and in some cases the original documents. He told Eakle that he had made adequate arrangements to preserve his files after his death.

“What he didn’t tell me,” said Eakle, “is that he had willed it to me.” Upon his death she learned that she had inherited a 6.5 ton collection.

“When the semi truck showed up in our driveway, my husband said, ‘Oh my. we’re going to have to buy a building.’ ” The Eakles purchased a 10,000 square foot library and founded a library. Since then she has happened upon many other collections and added them to her library.

It was a fine presentation. Thank you, Aunt Arlene.

Zero to Search Success in Sixty Seconds

The room was packed. The room monitor did a great job of ushering late comers to the few free seats. Anastasia Harman was presenting this session at the Salt Lake Family History Expo on 27 August 2010.

I must say she ignored very nicely the person who took a cell call in class. (He-lo-o!) I tell my classes that I don’t care if they leave their cell phones on as long as they let me answer their phone should it ring. I’ve only answered one call. But I digress…

Harman told attendees that to understand Ancestry.com search results, you should know the five different record types among Ancestry.com’s nearly 30,000 titles. (Is that a new term? “Titles?” They used to call them “databases.” I like it. Good change. But I digress…)

One type of title has indexes and images. The indexes were hand entered, field-by-field.Another type has indexes but no images. These have value because as indexes they tell you what archive to contact to get the original record.

For printed, non-fielded records—newspapers and books—Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used to create indexes. Anastasia only mentioned the last two types: member contributed records and image first records.

Anastasia likened different search strategies to automotive transmissions. There are manual transmissions and automatic transmissions. Manual transmissions are the ones where you use a search box and type in your search terms. (Is “box” new, official terminology? I like it when anything you wish to talk about has a name. As your mother taught you, “everything has a name and when you’re done playing, you should put every thing back in its place.” But I digress…)

Automatic transmissions are searches where you enter your ancestors in a tree and let Ancestry.com do searches for you. You don’t have to set around and wait, however. You can click Search from a person page in the tree. “To me this is a big time saver,” said Anastasia. The system fills out the search box with everything you know about the person, including spouse, parents, children, and all locations.

Manual searches have three “gears.”

1. Global searches pick off the low-hanging fruit out of all the records on Ancestry.com.

“If you take anything else away from this class, never look at every one of the 27 thousand some odd matches.”

2. A collection or category search narrows the search to records of a specific type or collection.

3. Lastly, search an individual title. The search box contains fields specific to that title.

So, gentlemen, start your search engines. And please, do not use your cell phones while you drive.

Want to see more of Anastasia? Click here to watch her appearance on the Martha Stewart show.

FamilySearch In a Corner

As I explain in my charter, FamilySearch releases a lot of information to the public, but only in out of the way corners. That’s where I come in. I try to be in those corners. This past weekend one of those corners happened to be the Salt Lake Family History Expo.

(I told a coworker that attending Ron Tanner’s presentations is the only way a FamilySearch employee can find out what FamilySearch is working on. But I digress…)

Tanner was off his best game—but only a bit. “Two weddings in two weeks,” he explained. Between tales of Jelly Bellies, birthdays, weddings, and the DMV, Tanner was able to slip us some juicy news nuggets that you won’t hear anywhere else.

Here’s the new news:

• Records from Record Search are being transferred to the Historical Records area of the FamilySearch Beta. The data transfer, containing 447 collections and 600 million names, should be completed by the end of the month. (We all assumed he meant September.)
• Historical records from the current www.familysearch.org will be transferred after that.
• All new collections will go directly to the FamilySearch Beta.
• Ancestor discussions were recently added to the new FamilySearch tree. The length of discussions will soon increase from the current limitation of 500 characters.
• The filtering of Historical Records search results will be improved soon, along the lines of Record Search.
• The Family History Library Catalog search on FamilySearch Beta will be dramatically improved by the end of September.
• Disputes can no longer be added to the FamilySearch Tree. Soon, all the disputes on an ancestor will be moved into a discussion called “Legacy Disputes” and deleted from details.
• The new FamilySearch Asia rollout is set for a couple of months from now. Tanner showed us a photograph of the rollout map and told us we could see the original by visiting FamilySearch headquarters in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City. Ride the elevator to the 4th floor. The map is in the lobby.
• beta.familysearch.org will replace the current www.familysearch.org website by the end of this year. The new website brings together FamilySearch Beta, RecordSearch Pilot, the Wiki, FamilySearch Indexing, Forums, the Family History Library Catalog, and all other collections and content from the current www.familysearch.org. Specialized websites such as consultant.familysearch.org will continue to be separate.
• The general public can begin preparing for access to the new FamilySearch Tree by registering now for an account on the FamilySearch Beta. When the Tree is ready, they will be given access using that same account.
• Some time after this year the new FamilySearch Tree will become “Family Tree” on the new website.

The Ultimate Future

Tanner reiterated his vision for the future of the new FamilySearch Tree. However, changing product managers—generally considered a healthy practice—can change the course of a product. Just three weeks ago product assignments were adjusted, giving Tanner complete responsibility for the Tree.

Tanner admitted that the current design didn’t go far enough from changing “my tree” and “your tree” into “our tree” since it maintains “my conclusion” and “your conclusion.” The many alternatives that exist today under the Details page will be pulled out. In their place, the system will have links to the original sources of the information. These include Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource File, and the other sources used to populate the Tree.

The tree will allow only one conclusion. This will solve the IOUS problem that slows down the system and makes it impossible to merge all copies of a person. “Combine and Separate” will be replaced with “Merge.” I’ve stated before that I don’t think FamilySearch has any corporate memory in product management. It remains to be seen if Tanner can avoid Merge pitfalls.

Tanner’s future direction is to change the Tree so that anyone can correct it. Anyone can contribute to it. Anyone can contribute artifacts to it. Anyone can change the information that you contributed to the Tree—maybe for the better. When someone changes your contribution, you’ll be notified and given the ability to undo the change. Ancestor Discussions will allow contact with others.

Tanner said his pet feature was Community Requests. You can post a request for a volunteer to lookup a record, take a gravestone picture, or translate a language you don’t read.

Most importantly, his stated goal for the Family Tree is that it be so genealogically correct that even the best of genealogists will want to use it.

Tanner was asked what the timeline was for these features. “Before we die or slightly thereafter,” he quipped, artfully avoiding being painted into a corner. Stay tuned…

Background Color Counts

The background color of a blog website affects how clipart appears. Below, I show how clipart looks on four different backgrounds: white, black, light-brown, and FamilySearch blue.

On White

A white background is used on almost all free clipart. When clipart with a white background is used on a website with a different color background, a small white box appears around the clipart.

Transparent, For Light Backgrounds

Some clipart supports different color backgrounds by using a transparent background. However, most are designed for a light background, and clipart appears gritty or dirty if used with a dark background.

Transparent, For Dark Backgrounds

You shouldn’t reuse images from commercial websites without permission.  The few times you do, you might find images with transparent backgrounds that are designed for use on dark backgrounds. Like those designed for dark backgrounds, they can suffer from dirty edges.

It is also possible for the image to totally disappear, as the FamilySearch logo below does on a white background.

I haven’t mentioned photographs. Photographs work with any color background when edged with a border that contrasts with the background.

I strongly recommend using a white or a very light background. I didn’t always use a white background on the Insider Website. I’ve enjoyed the change so much, maybe I’ll lighten my teeth next!

Finding Previous Articles

Ever want to find a previous article on the Insider’s website? My website, like so many other blogs, provides three ways to find old articles.

1. Search

Type search words in the box at the upper left corner of the page.

                        

Of course, Google can be used. The Ancestry Insider provides a handy, integrated Google search. Look for it in the right sidebar, part way down the page.

Some of you may not know it, but you can also search within an article (or any part of a web page) using the Find feature of most browsers. Press Ctrl-F, type in your search words, and press Enter. You may then be able to click Previous/Next to find additional occurrences.

2. Index

An index is available, also part way down the page, in the right sidebar.

 

3. Table of Contents

Click a triangle to see its sub-items. Click again to hide them. Click an article to display it. Click a year or month to display all its articles.

 

Use these methods and you’ll always be able to find that interesting article from the Insider’s past.

Salt Lake Expo This Weekend

If you’re at the Salt Lake Family History Expo this Friday and Saturday, come by and say hello.

If you come, be forewarned. The event web page has separate links to the Expo Agenda and the Expo Program. The two list different times and places for my presentation.

The Program is correct as far as I know. I am presenting on Saturday at 1:00pm in room 400. “Blog Your Way to Genealogical Success” is aimed at the super-beginner. You will walk out of the class able to create your own blog or website.

If you’ve already attended this class, a good follow on would be “Finally, A Society Website Anyone Can Manage” (Friday, 3:00pm, 200B). This class is taught by Robert Raymond, who collaborated with me on my presentation. While couched in terms of a family history society website, his class is applicable and compatible with sites created in my class.

Mailbox Monday: Community Trees

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I have done a lot with Beta, Pilot, nFS, Forums and Wiki. This Community Trees thing has generally puzzled me. I wish there were more blog posts and analysis of it online. I teach about family history, but I have avoided teaching about this because it seems too complex. For example, will it become part of the new version of FamilySearch.org? How? Will it be searchable under the Trees option on the homepage? That would make sense.

I can understand the usefulness of keeping source based trees separate from each other and from nFS because where the connections end and begin can signify that group as families coming from a specific record set. If I understand it correctly, the purpose is to provide an easier method of research, skipping the historical record stage for us because you are doing that part and documenting it. It is a lot like Extraction which was put into the IGI, but the sources are cited better and the people are more connected within sources right?

Please share everything you can about the project. I'd love to see a new blog post letting us know it is not dead. I have not seen one since November 2009.

Signed,

Enduring Legacy Genealogy

Dear ELG,

The Community Family Trees project is alive and kicking. FamilySearch’s Raymond Madsen made a presentation about it just last week at the FGS conference. Collection updates on the Community Trees website further indicate the living nature of the project. In this month alone there have been three new and two updated collections. (See more updates below.)

Madsen said when “many individuals whose ancestors come from a specific locality reconstitute all of the families for the whole area, they have created a Community Tree.” Such family reconstitution, as it is sometimes called, is much more advanced than extraction. Family reconstitution involves both extraction and matching multiple mentions of individuals across different records to reconstitute all familial relationships within a community.

As to when, how, or even if, Community Trees will be added to beta.familysearch.org, I don’t have an answer. Madsen mentioned the project currently uses third-party software for the website. Judging from the beta website’s inadequate handling of Ancestral File trees, I think it may be some time before the beta site will be able to host Community Trees.

It is funny that you should mention extraction and the IGI. Earlier this month I suggested to FamilySearch management that for many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, family reconstitution would be an excellent successor. Most wish to be connected to their ancestors, but few possess the skills necessary to accurately match multiple mentions of ancestors across multiple records. I’m convinced that by the middle of the century, family reconstitution will be standard practice at FamilySearch.

Sincerely,
-- The Insider

Community Trees Updates

August 2010

England: Norfolk Visitations, 1563. UPDATED 11 Aug 2010

Pacific Islands: Tonga, Tongatapu, Matangiake: Oral History Project. New 5 August 2010

United States, Tennessee, Campbell County Community Tree. New 12 Aug 2010

United States: Utah: Greeks in the West. Updated 10 Aug 2010

United States: Wyoming, Lincoln County: Star Valley. New 5 August 2010

July 2010

Canada: New Brunswick: Southampton: Millville Communities Family Tree. UPDATED 30 July 2010

Canada: Nova Scotia: Antigonish Catholic Diocese. Updated 9 July 2010

Europe: Royal and Noble Houses (predominantly German). UPDATED 15 July 2010

India: Moga, Punjab District. UPDATE 16 July 2010

Wales: Medieval Records Primarily of Nobility and Gentry. Updated 15 July 2010

June 2010

Africa and Orient: Knowles Collection: Jews of Africa and the Orient. NEW 28 June 2010

Americas: Knowles Collection: Jews of the Americas. NEW 28 June 2010

British Isles: Knowles Collection: Jews of the British Isles. NEW 28 June 2010

Caribbean: Knowles Collection: Jews of the Caribbean. NEW 28 June 2010

England: London: Residents of London. UPDATED 10 June 2010

Europe: Knowles Collection. NEW 28 June 2010

Italy, Cosenza, Aiello Calabro. UPDATED 11 June 2010

Liechtenstein: Balzers, St. Nicholai. NEW 25 June 2010

Scotland: Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae. Updated 10 June 2010

Earlier 2010

British Isles: Peerage, Gentry and Colonial American Connections. UPDATED 2 April 2010

Canada: Quebec and Maritime Provinces. NEW 4 Mar 2010

Europe: Royal and Noble Houses (predominantly England and France). UPDATED 4 Mar 2010

Iceland: Iceland Historical Family Trees. UPDATED 9 Apr 2010

Pacific Islands: French Polynesia: Bora Bora island, Society Islands. January 2010

Pacific Islands: French Polynesia: Fatu Hiva island, Marquesas Islands. January 2010

Pacific Islands: French Polynesia: Hanaiapa Valley, Hiva Oa island, Marquesas Islands. January 2010

Pacific Islands: French Polynesia: Hao atoll and Amanu atoll, Tuamotu Archipelago. January 2010

Peru: Community Family Tree. Updated 23 Apr 2010

United States: Connecticut: Colonial Families 1650-1850. 15 Mar 2010

Mailbag Monday: Magnifying Images

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your feedback last week on desktop tree managers and on magnifying images.

Dick Eastman wrote about another way to magnify images. Use the techniques in “Increase or Decrease Web Page Text Size” to magnify both text and image size.

Gratefully,
-- The Insider

 

Website Facelift

Dear Ancestry Insider,

Woah, weird facelift. Liked the old one better. Very hard to read. Its like its on geriatric version or something.

-- Anonymous*

Dear Woah,

Problems in the design of the Insider website were bugging me into action. As you noticed, I tried a completely new look. Your feedback led me to revert back to the old design.

Now I’m curious. Can you remember what made the weird design so hard to read? Colors? Font choice? Font size? Line spacing? Margins? Changes to the right sidebar? The ugly masthead?

BTW, nothing changed for those of you that read the Insider via e-mail or news reader.

For those that saw the website change, do you have any feedback?

Sincerely,
-- The Insider

FamilySearch’s Many Websites

In the years since FamilySearch introduced www.familysearch.org, their offerings have splintered into a dozen mostly disconnected websites. I look forward to the time that FamilySearch combines all these offerings into one. In the meantime, like me you may appreciate a handy list of links. Bookmark this article or look for it at http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com .

FamilySearch Websites

• FamilySearch.org – The old, current, classic
  • Family History Lesson Series*
• FamilySearch.org Beta – The once and future king
• Community Trees
• Contact FamilySearch
• Forums
• Historic Books
• Indexing
• Labs
• Record Search Pilot – Historic Records
• Wiki

Church Links

Websites for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

• FHC Director's Online Guide
• Leadership Lessons*
• Leadership Videos*
• Consultant E-mail archive
• Consultant/Leader Registration
• New FamilySearch Tree (NFS)
• NFS Rollout – Asia (former Utah/Idaho)
• NFS Training Website

Temple and Family History manuals for members of the Church

• Member's Guide (36795)
• Consultant's Guide (36797)
• Instructor's Guide (35804)
• Administrative Guide (04397)
• FHC Operations Guide (34051 and 34792)
• Family Record Extraction Administrative Handbook (30985) – FREP/UDE are retired, FSI is still applicable
• Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 2 : Section 9

*This isn’t a separate website, but a link I like to have handy.

New Wiki Design Debuts at FGS

FamilySearch debuted a new look on its Wiki for its series of state research outlines. The wiki series replaces the printed outlines formerly available at the Family History Library and Family History Centers.

Spotlighting the hosting state of this year’s 2010 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference, FamilySearch showed off the Tennessee outline. Comparisons between the old printed outline and the new Wiki page shows the dramatic increase in functionality.

The old, printed outline	The new, Wiki page

 

“The pages are beautiful and contain a wealth of valuable information,” said Charles Reeves Jr., cartographer and TNGenWeb county volunteer.

Originally 40 printed pages, the Tennessee research outline has grown to more than a thousand pages, according to FamilySearch’s Nathan W. Murphy. The information is separated into topics for ease of use and printing. Web links make it quick and easy to move from topic to topic.

Unlike the printed outlines, the Wiki can be revised at any time by anyone. Local experts, including you, are invited to contribute your expertise. No formal invitation is necessary. Just jump in and add your knowledge.

Professional genealogists benefit by contributing to the Wiki. Contributions highlight their knowledge and establish their standing as experts. Contributors are invited to create a user page, as did Tennessee contributor, Nathan W. Murphy. While soliciting is not allowed, user pages showcase your credentials and give prospective clients an easy way to make contact. (To create your user page, first add something to a page. Then click the history link. Your username appears in red next to your contribution. Click it and select the option to create your page. Users investigate page experts by looking at contributors to the page, where they can click your username to see your user page.)

See the Wiki for yourself. Start from the Tennessee page at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Tennessee .

Mailbag Monday: FamilySearch History Book Count

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I just have a question. The BYU family History books site used to have about 60,000 books digitized and searchable online. Now it has just 17,000. Were they removed or just moved to another web site? Was it a copyright problem?

-- Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

I looked into this and found out that BYU ran out of server space. According to a spokesperson, they temporarily removed a large number of note card records of Philippine immigrant workers in Hawaii. Each card appeared as a separate book. The huge number of cards made it appear as though there were more books than were actually present. On a positive note, book scanning has continued despite the inability to put them online. Once the space issue is resolved, the backlog will all come online.

Sincerely,

-- The Insider

FamilySearch and Ancestry.com Announce 2011 Technology Conference

At a press briefing held today, 13 August 2010, 2:00 pm MDT, FamilySearch made the following announcement:

New RootsTech Conference to Bring
Technologists Face-to-face with Genealogists

SALT LAKE CITY­—Technologists and genealogists from around the world will gather at the first annual RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 10-12, 2011. The new conference, hosted by FamilySearch and sponsored by leading genealogical organizations, aims to bring technologists and genealogists together to help deepen understanding of current technologies and discover new ideas in applying technology to genealogy.  Learn more at rootstech.familysearch.org.

“When the users and creators of technology come together, innovation occurs,” said Jay Verkler, president and CEO of FamilySearch. “The RootsTech Conference will accelerate that innovation through panels, discussion groups, and interactive demonstrations.”

Josh Taylor, Director of Education and Programs for the New England Historic Genealogical Society, says the time is right for such a conference.  

“The collection of technologies present at the last National Genealogical Society Conference in Salt Lake City was so impressive that we see a need and opportunity for a strong annual technology genealogy conference to pursue solutions for the unique challenges facing genealogists,” Taylor said.

The RootsTech Conference is designed to foster innovation by bringing technology users and creators together in a meaningful way. Thousands of genealogists who use technology in pursuit of one of the most popular hobbies in the world will discover how new and emerging technologies can improve and simplify their activities. Genealogists will be treated to technology prototype demonstrations, interactive workshops, and opportunities to test innovative new product and service concepts. Technology providers will get the opportunity to demonstrate product concepts face-to-face to their customer—the family history enthusiast—and better understand their needs.

“Technology is driving a revolution in family history,” said Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com. “We’re excited to participate in the RootsTech Conference, and we see it as a great chance to explore with genealogists how technology can help them even more in the future.”

The RootsTech 2011 conference will be hosted by FamilySearch and sponsored by Ancestry.com, New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), Brigham Young University, and other leaders in the genealogy community.

“Brigham Young University is pleased to participate in this conference, which brings together the Conference on Computerized Family History and Genealogy and the Family History Technology Workshop under the same umbrella. We think this creates a new and unique national forum for genealogists, software developers, and researchers to move genealogy forward,” said Christophe Giraude-Carrier, Associate Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Science at Brigham Young University.

Technology creators will discover new and existing technologies and techniques to help their development practices and also see how they can be applied to the unique discipline of genealogy. Anticipated themes for the conference include: using social networking to collaborate as families and societies, data backup and digital preservation, using multimedia, records and media digitization, how to use cloud computing to deploy reliable, scalable systems, handwriting recognition and automated transcription, mobile computing devices and applications, GPS mapping, and much more.

FamilySearch Indexing Tips

Several years ago the Ancestry Insider published a series of tips for FamilySearch Indexers. Here is a list, to make it easier to check out the entire series. Improvements in the indexing program outdate some of the illustrations, but the concepts are still relevant.

Lookup List	13 September 2007
Birth Year Quiz	19 September 2007
Birth Year Quiz Answer	27 September 2007
Keyboard Shortcuts	4 October 2007
Adjusting Highlights	24 May 2008
Hiding Columns	1 June 2008
Handwriting Help	5 June 2008
Account for all the bumps	12 June 2008
Open E	20 June 2008
1900's American Handwriting	14 July 2008
Handwriting: the Palmer Method	15 July 2008
The Palmer Method in New York City	17 July 2008

 

Sorry if some of the links in these articles lead to pages that no longer exist. If you have the inclination, leave a comment indicating the links that don’t work and the URL that should replace the old link.

FamilySearch Indexing by the Numbers

Records Indexed Annually

• 200 million – New goal for 2010. Each record must be keyed twice and revisited a third time when the first two are not the same.¹
• 169 million – Original goal for 2010.¹
• 118,140,160 – Records indexed this year as of 2 August 2010.²
• 117,094,600 – Records indexed this year as of 30 July 2010.¹
• 100,795,360 – Records indexed this year as of July 2010.³
• 32.5 millions – Records indexed this year as of 11 March 2010.⁴
• 140 million – Records indexed in 2009.⁴

Total Records Indexed

• 356,081,200 – Total records indexed as of 30 July 2010.¹
• 343,421,000 – Total names indexed as of 6 July 2010.⁵
• 339,782,331 – Total records indexed as of July 2010.³
• 383,944,092 – Total names indexed as of 9 March 2010.⁶

     Source: FamilySearch Wiki⁷

• 700 million – Reported number of records indexed since 2006.¹ Given the other numbers, I wonder if this number includes indexing projects done before FamilySearch Indexing.
• 14,395 – Records indexed by the week’s top indexer, Dhoytbrown22554.²
• 17,593 – Records arbitrated by the week’s top indexer, Saradepagazamonroy.²

FamilySearch Indexers

• 46,017 – Active volunteers in 2010 as of 11 March 2010.⁴
• 95,000 – Active volunteers this past year.¹
• 87,537 – Active volunteers in 2009.⁴

• 354,328 – Registered indexers as of 30 July 2010.¹
• 340,041 – Registered indexers as of 6 July 2010.⁵
• 297,869 – Registered indexers as of 9 March 2010.⁶

     Source: FamilySearch Wiki⁷

---

Notes

     1.  “FamilySearch Indexing Statistics,” FamilySearch Indexing Update, August 2010, e-mail newsletter, received 30 July 2010; online archive (http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=6a13a38a955e01499f3215f48&id=e3c381af01 : accessed 5 August 2010).

     2.  “FamilySearch Indexing,” Facebook organization page, Facebook (http://www.facebook.com : accessed 4 August 2010).

     3.  “FamilySearch Indexing Statistics,” FamilySearch Indexing, Indexing Update, July 2010, e-mail newsletter; online archive (http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=6a13a38a955e01499f3215f48&id=68aca7dbdb : accessed 5 August 2010).

     4.  GaleK, “Thank You, Indexers!” blog post, FamilySearch [beta] (http://familysearch.org : dated 11 March 2010, 3:28pm).

     5.  FamilySearch Support to [Ancestry Insider], bulk e-mail, 6 July 2010, “[Ancestry Insider], please help us arbitrate records for FamilySearch Indexing;” online archive (http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=6a13a38a955e01499f3215f48&id=935b90cde5 :accessed 5 August 2010).

     6.  FamilySearch Support to [Ancestry Insider], bulk e-mail, 9 March 2010, “[Ancestry Insider], please help us arbitrate records for FamilySearch Indexing;” online archive (http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=6a13a38a955e01499f3215f48&id=0e4227ee84 :accessed 5 August 2010).

     7.  JensenFA [Fran Jensen], “Update on FamilySearch Indexing 2010,” wiki article, FamilySearch [beta] (http://familysearch.org : dated 27 April 2010, 17:39).

Ancestry.com Acquires Genealogy Research Firm

Ancestry.com announced another acquisition Friday. Ancestry.com is acquiring ProGenealogists, Inc. in a move that it describes as “extending the Ancestry.com reach across the genealogy value chain.”

ProGenealogists has been in business for 15 years old. The company has built a consortium of associates, professional genealogists, who provide genealogical research to individual clients and other organizations.

Ancestry.com engaged ProGenealogists to research celebrity genealogies for the NBC television program, “Who Do You Think You Are?” Company president, Natalie Cottrill, appeared in the Sarah Jessica Parker episode.

WDYTYA is returning to TV on Friday, 13 August 2010, albeit with reruns. But I digress…

People have already started to speculate what this announcement means for the Ancestry.com Expert Connect service. Some wonder if Expert Connect will be taken over by ProGenealogists or if it will be cancelled outright.

According to a quick glance at the Expert Connect website, the service hooks users up with trained experts that can provide custom research, answer questions, lookup records, translate records, take cemetery photos, and milk cows.

[Spoken to person offstage:] What? No milking?

Sorry folks. I’ve just been informed that the experts do not milk cows. I’m not quite certain which service the cow photo is illustrating.

August 2010 New FamilySearch Tree

FamilySearch updates its new FamilySearch tree (NFS) around the middle of each calendar quarter and the time is approaching for the next update. Documents released by FamilySearch indicate several changes in the upcoming release.

Disputes

The oft criticized Dispute feature continues its slow death. (Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attach especially negative connotations to the feature name itself because of a statement they attribute to Christ.) The previous NFS release introduced the Discuss feature. According to FamilySearch:

The dispute feature is being removed from the system. As a first phase, you can no longer add a new dispute. You can still see disputes that were previously entered. Eventually, all of the disputes in the system, including their notes, will be moved to the discussion boards.

While you can not add new disputes, you can still edit or delete your own existing disputes.

Expanded International Support

Russian and Italian join the English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language editions of the new FamilySearch tree.

Templates allow the entry of names and personal information for different languages and cultures. In addition to the templates for standard, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic, and Latin, the new release adds templates for Mongolian and Asian (Thai and Cambodian).

Tutorials Overview

Seven tutorials replace the current 10 overviews:

• Viewing Information about your Family
• Combining and Separating Records
• Displaying Correct Information
• Adding Missing Individuals
• Doing Ordinances for Deceased Ancestors
• Using Help
• Conclusion

Preparing for Public Release

Not mentioned in the FamilySearch release statement, a change in illustrations was obviously a step towards release of NFS to the general public. FamilySearch replaced an image of the Salt Lake Temple with a generic photograph of an ancestral family.

 

Mailbag Monday: Genealogy Program Choices and More

Salt Lake Family History Expo

Dear Ancestry Insider,

A couple quick questions - I took a long at the outline - many open TBA spots - how does one decide to attend (if from out of town) when so much is up in the air one month before conference?

Also checked out the blog you referenced - how do you get pictures (when clicked on) to open in another window full size? *

Dear TBA,

Good questions, both.

As I write this, my session doesn’t show up on the presentation schedule. More is filled in than when you first checked. I must agree with you; it makes it difficult to make a decision with so many open slots.

A blog author can decide what happens when a visitor clicks on an image. The three most common options are:

• Open a larger copy of the image, either in the current window or a different window. For an example, see “Salt Lake City 10th Ward, 1851” on the Ancestors of Wickliff Clayton Raymond example website. Click the map and a larger, more legible copy opens in the current window. As you mention, the author can also have the image open in a different window.
• Do nothing. An example is the image of “Ireta Pitcher Raymond.”
• Link to somewhere on the Internet. When I wrote an article about receiving the Family Tree Magazine 101 Best Websites for 2010 award, I linked the award image to the article on their website. I sometimes link to articles on my own website.

I invite your capable co-readers to explain how to use your browser to enlarge an image when the blog author hasn’t supplied a larger, more legible copy.

Yours,
-- The Insider

What Genealogy Program Do You Use?

Dear Ancestry Insider,

So AI, what are you using these days to manage your trees on your desktop?

I have been using TMG 7 for some time now, but have become intrigued with Legacy 7 of late.

~ Jesse

Dear Jesse,

You might guess my choices reflect my editorial focus (FamilySearch and Ancestry.com).

I have enough family members doing genealogy that we have an “archivist” who is willing to maintain a master copy of our desktop genealogy database. We use one of the FamilySearch Certified desktop genealogy programs. Yes, I know there are online trees that make it more convenient to share a tree among physically separate individuals. Suffice it to say that inertia plays a big role in the practices of large, physically distributed families.

That’s not to say that we aren’t doing any online collaborating. We have an Ancestry.com Public Member Tree for sharing photographs, biographies, and scanned documents. I would not be surprised if the number of scanned source documents in our tree is surpassed by only a few other trees. (Photographs are another story; I think there are dozens or hundreds of people that have uploaded more photographs.)

As these documents quickly spread across the Internet, I’m sure we’re killing more than one genealogical myth… whether we get the credit or not.

Someone will ask about the New FamilySearch Tree (NFS), so let me tell you my current approach. I ignore the bad data… for now. FamilySearch talks about a future time when it will be easier to keep corrections from being undone. If the correct data is not present, I add it. Why wait? Just as I can’t currently delete the bad data added by others, they can’t delete the good data added by me.

I even add sources in situations where persistent myths exist. Sure, I’ll wait for a better citation system before I enter citations to uncontested data. Why not wait?

I hope your co-readers will ring in with their feelings about desktop genealogy programs. Click Comments at the end of this article. (Please don’t use Reply; no one else will benefit from your response besides me.)

Thanks for your question, Jesse!
-- The Insider

(Letters are modified for editorial style and to fit in your television screen.)