Cousins~Cousins~Cousins!

This blog post should clear up a lot of confusion about cousins.  How they get their various designations is explained nicely by Beth Taylor for Family Search.

New post on FamilySearch Blog

Are Your Cousins Removed? by Beth Taylor When I was 16, I got my first summer job working in a cafeteria at Brigham Young University. The next summer, I went back to same job but found that everyone was constantly confusing me with one of the new employees, claiming we looked alike. After eyeing each other carefully at first, we quickly become good friends. As we got to know each other, we soon discovered that in addition to looking alike, we were actually related. My third great grandfather was her fourth great grandfather. But we were confused, how should we describe our relationship? You may have heard some people use phrases like “she’s my fifth cousins, twice removed,” or “he’s my second cousin, nine times removed.” What does this mean and how could I figure out my relationship to my friend using these terms? In English, there are specific terms to describe the relationships between people of the same generation, meaning people who are the same number of generations from a common ancestor. Siblings share a common parent Cousins share a common grandparent Second cousins share a common great grandparent Third cousins share a common second great grandparent Fourth cousins share a common third great grandparent Fifth cousins share a common fourth great grandparent Common Ancestor Relationship 5th great grandparents 6th cousins 4th great grandparents 5th cousins 3rd great grandparents 4th cousins 2nd great grandparents 3rd cousins great grandparents 2nd cousins grandparents cousins parents siblings What happens when you share a common ancestor but are not in the same generation? You define your relationship by determining the total number of generations that you are removed from your cousin and then combine it with your cousin relationship. Sound confusing? Let’s see it in action. Henry and Charlotte share a common ancestor, Eleanor. Eleanor is Charlotte’s 6th great grandmother (or great great great great great great grandmother) and is Henry’s 2nd great grandmother. How are they related? Let’s look at in the form of a table. Eleanor Relationship 5th great grandparent great grandparent Siblings 4th great grandparent grandparent 1st cousins 3rd great grandparent parent 2nd cousins 2nd great grandparent Henry 3rd cousins great grandparent children 4th cousins grandparent grandchildren 5th cousins parent great grandchildren 6th cousins Charlotte 2nd great grandchildren 7th cousins To put it a different way: Charlotte’s 6th great grandmother is Henry’s 2nd great grandmother Charlotte’s 5th great grandparent is the sibling of Henry’s great grandparent Charlotte’s 4th great grandparent is the cousin of Henry’s grandparent Charlotte’s 3rd great grandparent is the 2nd cousin of Henry’s parent Charlotte’s 2nd great grandparent is Henry’s 3rd cousin Charlotte’s great grandparent is the 4th cousin of Henry’s children Charlotte’s grandparent is the 5th cousin of Henry’s grandchildren Charlotte’s parent is the 6th cousin of Henry’s great grandchildren Charlotte is the 7th cousin of Henry’s 2nd great grandchildren Now that we see it visually, we can quickly determine the relationship between Henry and Charlotte. First, figure out the cousin relationship between Henry and Charlotte’s ancestor of the same generation. In this case Henry is the 3rd cousin of Charlotte’s 2nd great grandmother. Next, count the number of generations between Charlotte and her 2nd great grandmother (or between Charlotte and Henry) which is four. This is the number of generations one cousin is removed from the other cousin. Finally, combine the two numbers. This means that Henry and Charlotte are third cousins four times removed. Try it on your own. William and Catherine are related through a common ancestor, Stewart. Stewart is Catherine’s 3rd great grandfather. Stewart is also William’s 8th great grandfather. How are William and Catherine related? Myrtle is also related to Stewart. She is Stewart’s 5th great granddaughter. How are Myrtle and William related? How are Myrtle and Catherine related? John is also related but through Stewart’s grandfather, James. How is John related to Stewart, William, Catherine, Myrtle? Try it with someone in your own family. Remember my work friend who everyone though I looked like? She and I sat down, diagrammed our ancestors, and came to the conclusion that we were fourth cousins once removed. [table id=7 /] Beth Taylor | June 26, 2014 at 2:45 pm | Tags: Ancestors, Descendants, Family Relationships | Categories: Family Relations | URL: http://wp.me/p3q0yN-55Q

How to Use Record Hinting

This Post if from The Family Search Blog!

Here’s a list of Record Hints for Olive Benedict Livermore. (Livermore was her married surname.

These indexed records include Olive’s name and match her information in Family Tree. To see a record, you click Olive’s name above the record.

Where to Find Record Hints

You can access Record Hints from two places in Family Tree: In the Descendancy view on the right of the person’s name or on the person’s Details page on the right side. To see the list of Record Hints in the Descendancy view, click the Record Hintsicon.

Record Hints Icon on the Descendancy View

Record Hints Section on the Details Page

  

How to Use Record Hints

The Descendancy view is the quickest way to see which ancestors have Record Hints. When you put an ancestor in the main position in the Descendancy view, you can easily display all of the ancestor’s descendants who are in Family Tree. Then scroll down the screen looking for Record Hints icons.

1. Go to the Descendancy view. (On the pedigree, in the upper left corner, on the View button, click the down arrow, and click Descendancy.) By default, you appear as the person in the main position.

2.  Move an ancestor to the main position. Use one of these three ways:

• If the person is already displayed on the screen, click the name. On the summary card, click Tree.
• Click the Expand link above the person who is currently on the main position. A small pedigree appears. If the person you want is on the screen, click the Select button under the person’s name. To choose an ancestor even more generations back, repeat the process (click the Expand link, and click the Select button for the ancestor).
• On another view, find the person, put him or her in the main position, and then click the Descendancy view. (To put the ancestor in the main position in the other view, click the name, and on the summary card, click Tree.)

3.  To see the Record Hints icons for all of the ancestor’s descendants, scroll down the page. Click all of the arrows that point to the right (>). This displays all the spouses and children and their Record Hints icons.

4.  Click a Record Hints icon.

The system displays a list of records that match the information for your ancestor.

5. Review the records for the person.

• To review one record at a time, click your ancestor’s name above the record.

To see more information about all the records, click Show All at the bottom of the list of records.

The information from Family Tree is at the top of the screen. The other Information is from the indexed records. If the information in the indexed record matches your ancestor, click the Review button on the right side.

6. Compare the information in the indexed record with the information in Family Tree.

On the left, you will see the person in the indexed record and on the right, the person in Family Tree. If the indexed record has extra information that isn’t in Family Tree, you will see a + Add link after the information.

 If the indexed record matches the person you are looking for, attach the record:

7. To add the new information to Family Tree, click + Add.
8. In Reason to Attach Source, add the reason you feel this is a record for the person in Family Tree.
9. To add the source to your source box, click Add Source to Source Box. The system adds a check mark and adds the source to your source box.
10. Click the Attach button. The system attaches the record to the person in the tree.
11. If the indexed record does not match the person you were looking for, click the Not a Match button.

Attach the Source to the Other People in the Record

Once you attach the source to the original person you looked for, the attach links for the other people in the indexed record are displayed.

• An Attach link means the system found a possible match in Family Tree.
• An Add link means the system didn’t find the person in Family Tree. (Click Add to add the person to Family Tree. Details will be given in “Add a Person to Family Tree” in What’s New on FamilySearch, June 23, 2014.)
• A Detach link means the record is already added as a source to the person in Family Tree.

1. To attach the source to the person in Family Tree, click the Attach link.

On the left, you see the person in the indexed record, and on the right, the person in Family Tree. If the indexed record has extra information that isn’t in Family Tree, you will see a + Add link after the information. The reason statement you already created appears in the reason box.

2. To add the new information to Family Tree, click + Add.
3. If you want, change the reason statement.
4. To add the source to your source box, make sure there is a check mark by Add Source to Source Box.
5. Click the Attach button.
6. If there are more Attach links, click each link to add the source to those people in Family Tree.

Congratulations! With one icon, one sentence, and a few clicks, you’ve found a record for your ancestors and added it to their sources in Family Tree.

Ron Tanner | June 23, 2014 at 6:05 am | Tags: exclude | Categories: Consultants | URL:http://wp.me/p3q0yN-57K

Ron Tanner Speaks Out On Record Hinting

A ray of sunlight has been added to your tree!

Hinting is Here: We Search for You by Ron Tanner FamilySearch has just released a powerful new hinting feature that actually searches our vast record collection for you! We look at your records in FamilySearch Family Tree, compare it to information from our indexed records, and bring back the most likely matches. Our goal is that, on average, 95% of the records we suggest to users will be correct matches (keep in mind that this won’t be true on every person in the tree). After a user reviews a hint, they will be able to attach it to FamilySearch Family Tree and, using the enhanced match functionality, we will help them compare and attach it to other people in the tree. This process will provide documented information to qualify existing people in the tree for temple work and it will also help add new people to the tree who need temple ordinances. As someone with a family history calling, you will no doubt be asked about this new feature so we wanted to introduce it to you. However, we are rolling this out to general members through an email marketing campaign inviting less-experienced users to use the hinting feature first. For an experienced genealogist they could use this feature to pick their family tree clean in a matter of hours. That is why we would like to encourage you and any family history buffs to use this tool as an opportunity to teach family, ward members, and friends the joys of this great work, and help them find and submit names to the temple! Here are what early users are saying about hinting: All I have to say is “WOW” !!!!!!! When the Lord does something, He does it BIG. As I sit here at my computer tonight, my room feels full of my ancestors and the excitement they are feeling has me in tears. I am a convert of 58 years as of last Feb. 5th, 2014, and have been working on family history all of these years. I can’t thank you enough, our wonderful Family History Team, for what you are doing to make this wonderful and important work go faster. How blessed I feel to be a member of this the Lord’s True Church and to be a part of this work. With much love. - K Taylor I think the “hinting” is awesome. I have tried several of my ancestors and found information that I did not have before. You guys are terrific. Keep up the good work. You are updating and developing new stuff almost faster than we can learn them. - G. Flanagan Thanks for letting me participate in the hints beta. It proved invaluable to me in the first few minutes. I’ve been looking in the Massachusetts Birth records for my dad’s birth record and haven’t been able to find it. It showed up in the hints and I could see that his last name was spelled Ostman instead of Eastman. Evidently my grandparents hadn’t yet changed the spelling of their name from the Swedish (Ost with the 2 dots over the O means East in Swedish) and I didn’t think to look for that spelling. Thanks very much for this wonderful tool! - E. Eastman Fantastic - I found my parents’ marriage certificate that I have been searching many years for! - P. Palmer. To help others use this feature log in to FamilySearch.org and go to an ancestor page. The Record Hints box is on the top right side of the page! So, help others try hinting today!

Source Pushing~Good or Bad?

A Well-Rooted Tree

The fairly new process of the big genealogy online sites of searching and finding and giving us records has been termed "Source Pushing."  Actually Ancestry has been doing it for quite awhile with their shaky leaves.  But it is becoming more sophisticated with new search technologies from My Heritage being employed and Family Search is right up there neck and neck in the race.  In fact,  we not only have Record Search on the Person Details Page of Family Tree but lately they have been beta testing Record Hinting and it is even better.  So when that is launched soon we might even be nudging our way out in front.

I have been doing some of the beta testing for Record Hinting and I have to say it is very impressive. See the recap of my first impressions at the bottom of this page.

It is going to have wide reaching good effects on moving the work forward with sources and citations right there at our finger tips. However, and it is a big however...we will have to be very careful with it.  The reality is there is no free lunch in genealogy and family history work, even when it is handed to us on a silver platter.  

There is no magic button to be pushed to interrupt what you find on the documents.  That is still going to require some very careful analysis of what is being presented with Source Pushing.  That is possibilities only, not the sure thing.  Source Pushing is a hand up, but it is not a panacea.  We will still need to know about our family before we can confirm yes or no on the programs.

So just a word of caution when working on your own things and especially when working with new and inexperienced patrons. Assumptions that are unfounded can lead to exactly what President Hinckley was trying to alleviate.  Duplication of all the work, including temple work. Nothing could defeat the purpose of Family Tree more than that.

Nothing is ever going to replace the well-trained thoughtful human mind when it comes to this or any other kind of work that requires analysis and pondering and problem solving abilities.   And there are not too many documents that stand alone in helping you come to know and love your ancestors either.  So is Source Pushing good or bad?  It is both.   It's mostly good with the potential to be bad if not used correctly.

Here is the excerpt from the OFSL Newsletter from June 8th from my experince beta testing of Record Hinting.

"Here is my first impression after beta testing a new feature about to be released on Family Search/Family Tree:  It is called "Hinting" and is found on the Person Details Page in Family Tree.

1.  It is very similar to Record Search also found on the Person Details Page. It is also there to help you find records for your ancestor. At this time it does not appear to be replacing Record Search but is an additional research tool.  

2.  Visually it is very nice and less busy than Record Search.  The results will likely be a lot more accurate than some of the random things that come up on Record Search.  When using Record Search the program initially searches only by name and the first date you have entered so a birth date or christening date.  So you will typically get census records and other records that can be identified by a minimal amount of information supplied by you. In order to refine your search for other dates and places you need to go to the left hand side of the page in Record Search and add more information. 

Hinting on the other hand seems to do a lot of that for you by applying more filters initially behind the scenes.  It recognizes what you have already found and finds some things that are missing automatically for you.  The most I have seen in the Hinting Box were 5 or 6 records.  Most have two or three.  Some have none. 

3.  The ones that have no Hints seem to be the ones where you have already attached all the records in FS on the Person Details Page for your person via Record Search or Tree Connect or creating your own sources.  

4.  It reminds me of the old adage "The rich get richer." The more you have worked on your tree and your families, the better you know them, the quicker and easier this is to use.   Also the more records you add the better the filters there are for FS to find even more records.  There is a high percentage of accurate records brought right to you with a lot less effort.  The more you have the better it gets.

5.  It looks like the US will be made easier by using this Hinting feature.  However at this point the outcome on my foreign born ancestors are not helped as much. 

 As an example, my Welsh born, Thomas Rees, produces two census records within his life time in the Hinting box.  Both are Welsh records and neither one of them are him.  By the time these 1880 census records were enumerated he has already been in the America for several years.  He married in 1871. Many records were produced for him here like that marriage record, records in Pennsylvania, records in Missouri including his death and burial records. He had several children that can be found on US Census records.  

Still no records appear for him even when all that information is on the Person Details Page in his Hinting Box.  Maybe that is by intent during this beta testing period for foreign born ancestors, but I don't know.

6. This is going to be a good and helpful feature for all of us.  It can be especially nice for people just getting started who have no research background.  It will give them a hand up and a feeling of accomplishing something right away.  That hopefully will give them a desire to return and find out more about their family.  

7. Here is a good thing about it that I noticed about the Hinting feature.  It was so easy that I wanted to put all the records in my ancestors' Person Details Pages. I don't remember having that feeling when I was adding them one by one and the searching took so much longer. "