Vital Search Worldside

This is an Internet service providing vital records for 22 US states and many counties not countries. So right off the bat we must wonder why is is called Vital Search Worldwide?  They must have had visions of expansion that apparently never came to fruition.

This website is older and has some big minuses but also has the potential to find more information on records not found elsewhere on the bigger, more well known sites like Family Search or Ancestry or World Vital Records.  Check the examples on the lesson itself found on the link below. This is true because before we did indexing of the records which only selects certain information on a record so that they can be searched by name, the extraction programs took all of the information on the document down.  Thus you may find more information on this site that one of the big online sites.  This site (VSW) is accessible here in the library on only one of our 80 plus computers.  The computer is marked with a VS on the monitor.  It is located with most of the specialty programs computers near the scanners and copy machine.  So if you are having trouble locating a particular record for more specific information it is worth checking these collections.

The cumbersome part is the actual searching.  Some of the records are free and others are paid. The lesson explains this and what to do about it.  One of the problems with searching is that each state and the year span and the event (Birth, Marriage and Death) are all searched in different ways.

So, in my opinion, it's definitely not the first place you are going to look for records you need but perhaps as a last resort. We need to know it is here and has some unique records that we just might find in it.  And we also need to know how to use it.  Here are some things that might help you.  Every experience will be different with the aggregation of so many collections.

*It takes practice, especially to get to the less common databases on the site.

*Read "About This Database" and "For First Time Users" and Field Descriptions." They are important for this collection of records so do not skip them.

*Since there is only one computer we will need to work in twos as we figure it out together.

*The site is also encumbered with lots of ads that are sometimes hard to distinguish for the site itself.  We noticed most of what is free runs right down the middle of the screen with the paid sites on both sides which is quite distracting.

*WorldVital Records and VitalSearch Worldwide are not the same databases.  I chose our tree picture today because it is also old, dark and mysterious like this site perhaps.  Haha!  Good luck to us all!

So I guess our watch word for today is.........

Here's the url to the lesson:  Thank you, Linda!

http://tinyurl.com/ps9po67

The lesson gives you some site by site comparisons, and step by step instructions on getting started. Very important to follow along on this one.  Please let me know when you have completed this assignment.  If there are problems along the way we'll discuss next week.

Family Search Blog Updates

A way to make climbing the tree a lot easier!

Sequoia National Park in California~Pinterest

I cannot stress enough about how valuable the Family Search Blog Updates have become.  The blog can be found as a link at the bottom of the homepage and every staff member should check in weekly for the news.  In fact anyone using the site should do so.  They have stopped revising the official manual updates for the use of Family Search because so many new and exciting things are being added each week or so.  Sometimes it is even faster than that.  These enhancements just keep making it better and easier to use.  Don't miss out on the news.  Check this out from them on the blog today.

FamilySearch Online Training is a Click Away

"March 10, 2014 By Steve Anderson

One of the great challenges that face any organization that makes use of technology is providing easy to use and useful help about how to use the products the company offers. FamilySearch.org deals with this challenge every day. In our efforts to continually provide a better research experience for everyone who uses FamilySearch, we are continually adding more useful features, databases and upgrades. One of the big challenges we face is keeping our training up to date.

One solution that FamilySearch has chosen to use to address this problem is to add online training that can be updated quickly and easily. This means that we no longer create large expensive paper manuals and instruction booklets, which quickly become outdated with each new improvement.

Some of our most useful and popular training has been put online for you to use quickly and easily. Links to this training are found below. If you click on any of the training items and they don’t appear, check to make sure that your popup blocker isn’t the reason. If it is, go into popup options and allow FamilySearch popups to appear.

• The Training Material link will take you to a rich menu of training options. Simply click on the link of the item you want to use.

• The FamilySearch Family Tree Curriculum link will take you to a whole selection of training content. It provides training on how to use a computer mouse, basic beginner training, intermediate training, advanced training and the option to view training in Spanish.

• The Family Tree Quick Start Guide is a 7 page PDF File explaining how to quickly and easily get into and use some of the most basic and popular features of Family Tree.

• The Family Tree Reference Manual is a 204 page PDF file that provides extensive in-depth coverage on all features of the Family Tree. Please note that about 5% of this manual is already out of date. Within the next several months this manual will be redesigned and posted in smaller sections that will allow for faster and easier updates.

• The FamilySearch Learning Center is a library of several hundred classes and video presentations that teach you how to use various FamilySearch features as well as how to do research on a wide variety of genealogical topics.

• The FamilySearch Research Wiki is a collection of over 76,000 research article covering some area of genealogy and family history research. These articles are written and updated by experts from around the world.

These are the most commonly used training tools we offer. We try our best to keep these training tools as up to date and as easy to use as possible."

Steve Anderson is one of the regular bloggers and always gives get tips for improving our use of the website.  They all do.  Make a commitment to read it once a week!  You won't be sorry.  Bonnie

Family Search New Feature-Source Tracker

This is another of the blog posts from FS Blog.  This was written by Tim Cross 

It’s Now Easier Than Ever to Track Your Ancestors in the US Census Records

"March 4, 2014 By Tim Cross  Family Search blog

FamilySearch introduces a new tracking feature that is now available for Family Tree. This feature is called the Source Tracker. It allows you to see which individuals from your tree have U.S. census records attached to their Family Tree record. It also shows you which census records are missing for an individual and helps you locate them within the census data sets.

To get to the Source Tracker:

1. Go to CreateFan.com
2. Click the Login now to create your chart button
3. Log in using your FamilySearch account information.
4. Click the button for the Source Tracker option
5. Click Create Charts button

Nightmare Software Part 2

This group of tree represents to me the way I often feel when I am immersing myself in a forest of things I need to learn. I get on the path and the hike seems like it should be easy enough but inevitably I run into some fog.  The farther into it I get sometimes the more dense the fog.  I am not a big fan of learning curves is something that just occurred to me as I was writing this.

In analyzing that, it is not because of the work involved but because of the confusion I often feel when I am trying to make sense of something.  I am never content to just learn the mechanics of something I want to know the hows and whys also.  So my struggle is not only the mechanical aspects of a process but the "big picture" I want to have to sustain it.

When Jim was teaching us about the ProScanners 2000 last week he said something that really struck a cord with me.  He said essentially...People either love or hate the scanners depending on their experiences while using them.

They can work for a few hours doing a marvelous job of scanning and editing until the image is perfect and then simply go ballistic when they cannot figure out how to save or print their work.  At that point they are so fed up and tired, they just want to throw up their hands, quit and go home.  He further stated that the machines a have a few idiosyncratic software hiccups that if the person had known would have changed their entire experience.  It's our job as staff to make sure they get that information before they do actually give up in disgust and leave.

For me that is exactly how just about everything I learn in genealogy or technology goes down.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have thought I understood what I was supposed to do, studied it and noodled it through, even practiced it a few times.  Just when I think "I've got this" something will happen that stops me dead in my tracts.  I can see the finish line but there is a fog, a hurdle or an obstacle that will not allow me to proceed because I don't know how to navigate that one little place.

It is usually a step I didn't see when someone tried to teach me and sometimes something completely unforeseen that will close the toll booth for me with that bar coming down that holds me back.  But unlike that toll booth situation...I do need to back up regardless of what it does to my tires and take another look at it.

That is the hard part when you'd rather just blast thought that flimsy, wooden arm that separates you from your finish line and forget the whole blankety-blank thing and escape into your comfort zone. Then what really frosts me is that I just spent a bunch of time that accomplished nothing and I still don't know how to do something important in my journey!  But maybe that "accomplished nothing" phrase is not correct.

I think it is at precisely this point that a lot of people just walk away from something they are trying to achieve.  It is at that exact moment that we need to forge ahead with all we have.  We have learned  99% of what we needed and now just a few little idiosyncrasies in our thought processes  stand between us and what we really want.  It is that last little surge that propels us to understanding~when we are so tired and frustrated and lacking in motivation that we need to push as hard as we can against that restraint.  It is only when you have forged ahead and push through the fog and rounded the learning curve on the path that you fully recognize this.  That big push is what separates those who learn it and those that don't.  The truth is we have to get out of our comfort zone.  I simply hate that, but it is true. 

This principle applies to everything as we try to progress.  I think all of us are good at this in certain areas and still struggling or have even given up in others.  It makes me want to revisit some of the things I have struggled with and abandoned and look at it again.  It seems a little foolish to quit when the finish line is in sight.

That one last big push is what is needed to remove the obstacle in front of us.  It is the price we have to pay to get to the other side of the challenge.  Once we do the fog lifts, the barriers are remove and the path is straighter around that learning curve.  Finally we can see where we are going and it is worth it.

Naw, it's not me.  Well, um maybe it is.

You'll have to decide.

Software Nightmares!

A Cherry Tree!

I cannot tell a lie~Software makes me crazy sometime!
For that matter so does Hardware!

For the past year I have had a software nightmare on my hands.  I adore my Mac but I do not adore the software developers for the Mac when it comes to keeping track of your genealogy in a windows world.

I am so-so on Reunion software for the Mac but the fact that they do not even show up at the genealogy conferences and have shown no apparent interest in syncing to Family Search Family Tree does not bode well with me.  I am sitting here at my desk surrounded by four devices.  I want to streamline this somehow.  iMac, iPhone, iPad, and PC laptop.  I have put my information on Family Tree, some of it on an Ancestry Tree and some of it in My Heritage as we are getting ready for the smart matches and records matches coming this year due to the strategic merger with FS/FT.

All of this seems to be a huge undertaking just to be able to keep my records that I know are 100% accurate someplace.  Oh I forgot to mention we have PAF, Legacy, Ancestral Quest version 14, and a disc for Roots Magic in the closet...all windows based personal software promising a Mac version "soon!"  Are you beginning to see the nightmare?

As much as I love the Internet I do not trust it completely.  Most experts agree that it is not wise to keep all your information only online on a database like Ancestry or My Heritage or even F/S Family Tree. The software program of your choice guarantees that you can always have access to your hard work and information assuming you back-up regularly.

This is probably a good place to interject that you should never use just a flash drive as your back-up.  Some of those little devils can get lost or corrupted and ...zap you have nothing left but a broken heart. Have more than one for sure and back up to an external hard drive as well as your computer, and possibly a cloud or two.  You can never be too cautious at this stage of the game in genealogy and technology.  The work is too hard to ever want to redo it.  Every once in awhile I like to print a report with everything on it as well from a software program.  And don't forget to keep some paper files of the very essentials at least.

I would imagine in a few years this won't be necessary but keep in mind we are at the doorway with all this technology and we just want to be certain we have our bases covered.

So I was frustrated because I knew I needed a perfect copy at home and didn't have one since Family Search/Family Tree went live.  I wanted to somehow use my Mac with a parallels program but that got too complicated.  I didn't want to be running two operating systems on my machine.  I checked into a program called Crossover at the Rootstech Conference and it was reasonably priced but offered no tech support.  So if there was a problem no one was there to help.  How is this good?

So I finally decided to revert back to the laptop for my software much to my chagrin.  I chose Ancestral Quest as my permanent official backup until that permanency is undermined by the next better idea.  So the first thing I had to do was find someone to help me update all that and connect it to Family Tree for syncing.

Saturday I came into the Library and met with Rich, or Mr. Genealogy as some of us refer to him. He was absolutely amazing and has helped me get everything where it belongs.  He spent a lot of hours going over my stuff and ever determined we are ninth cousins!  It feels so good to be all backed up and secure again.  Ancestral Quest says they are hoping for a Mac version by this coming fall.  That might be about the time I need to replace my desktop computer.  We'll see where it goes from here.  But for now...all is well.  Rich Mc C.  is a wonder person and so willing to help.

Sometimes I feel I wouldn't know a thing were it not for people like Steve E... and Rich Mc C.  So giving and helpful.  I want to be like them as soon as I know enough for it to matter.

Back up!  So important!

RootsTech 2014

RootsTech 2014 

Check out this carpet!

This conference was truly amazing!  Everything was handled with exact precision and the technology was fun.  When you registered you stood in a short line and as you approached the person signing you in.   You typed your name into the computer and up popped all your information so they could print your badge in an instant and give you all your materials and off you went.  Very efficient, smooth and lightening quick.  They gave you a booklet with the 160 classes being offered and had a bank of computers to print out any syllabus you wanted in advance at no charge or you could download them all on the Rootstech site at your convenience.

They anticipated 10,000 people and planned accordingly.  I never did hear for sure the number of registered attendees and heard everything from 8, 000 to 14,000.  Saturday was a special day for youth and one day attendees and there were 4,000 teens there in addition to everyone else. 

Everything was spacious and spread out so that it never felt crowded to the point of being annoying. There were just enough people to heightening the excitement and electricity in the large and spacious Salt Palace venue.  When there were long lines for food it was handled with speed and people moved quickly through them.  You also had the option of a catered sit down luncheon every day or you could bring your own.  I brought my own lunch two of the three days and then went to a concession stand one day with only two people in front of me.  There were hundred of tables for eating so it was really convenient.  They had tables of ice water all over the place so you could grab a quick drink or fill up your own bottles.  I encountered no lines even in the restrooms.  They made thousands of people comfortable.  Impressive.  They even had a concert one evening featuring Vocal Point and a lovely dessert reception...all included in the price of the conference.  That was so nice because no money had to be exchanged and no lines for that either.  Can you say..."Perfect experience in every possible way?"  Family Search gets 10 stars on this one.  

View of the Exhibit Hall from the second floor.
This is where a lot of the little video spots
that I have included on the YouTube Link
 below were recorded.  

The Exhibit Hall was nothing short of spectacular.

A genealogist's candy store to be sure!

If I am alive and breathing I will not ever

 miss this conference in the future!

And I haven't even mentioned the classes or the keynote speakers each day yet.  One thing I particularly loved was that so many bloggers were there and presenting classes.

They did not leave out the Mac users!

http://sassyjanegenealogy.com

People like Josh Taylor, Ron Tanner, James Tanner, The Legal Genealogist-Judy Russell presented, and even the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond was there and one of the keynote speakers.  She is definitely a family historian and a great cook.  You can find her at http:// thepioneerwoman.com Some of the best were not there because of various other commitments like Dick Eastman who was recovering from surgery.  The variety of topics covered was phenomenal.  I just cannot say enough about it.  Can you tell I was enthralled with it for three solid days?  

All of that aside, the very best part was the enthusiasm and the buzz amount all the attendees.  It was electrifying.  The spirit of family history and families in general was over the top.  This is the one thing you cannot pick up by live streaming or a syllabus or someone else's recounting of their experience and the biggest reason I don't want to ever miss it again. Come blizzards or high water...I want to be there.  

Here is a place where you can watch a few short segments to hopefully experience a little of that. Note especially the little animated video Family Search made. It is #2 in the line up in this series of shorts.  It was shown several times during the conference and at the beginning of each day.  

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGng78LVGBHGHLmMETrbjE5cR5MUzwfY1

Go to the rootstech.com website to stream the 15 classes that were recorded.   (All recorded sessions will be translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages by 1 April 2014 according to the lds.org website.)   Rootstech.com keeps a nice archive from previous Rootstech conferences as well.

I particularly liked Josh Taylor's management of online resources.  Some people are just beyond amazing in their methodology. Also noteworthy was Ron Tanner's presentation on things coming in the future for Family Tree. And if you are a tablet user check out Lisa Louise Cooke on Becoming and iPad Pro for Your Genealogy.

It was lovely really.  These people are my people!  If you want to go next year Book A Room at the Shiloh Hotel right across the street from the Salt Palace entrance or the Plaza Hotel by Temple Square soon.   Many attendees did this before they left.  Or you could convince one of your children to move there just a few blocks away where you could sit by the fire and have this view from the living room window.

 Next Year's Rootstech 2015 ~ February 11-14, 2015.

Just do it!

Scanning Microfilms and Microfiche

Our Tree of the Week!

This week Jim will be teaching about the ScanPro film and fiche scanners.  These are quite popular in the library and are digital scanners that can capture an image of a film or fiche.   It can then send it directly to the printer, or can be saved to your flash drive.  It can also be captured by the scanner to be saved in a temporary file on that desk top of the computer attached to that scanner.

It is hoped that this will be valuable information and training for all staff for their own use and especially for the patrons here at the Oakland Family Search Library that need help with the machines.  We should all be able to approach these machines being confident that we can use them. We should not rely solely on just one person on the staff that knows how to use them, but rather be confident ourselves that we can help a patron when they need it.

Films and Fiche are still very important resources and we should always remember to use our Athena catalog to know what is available in the OFSL and also the Family Search Catalog for films available in the Salt Lake and other libraries in the system.

The two scanners we have are at this time are slightly different as the "buttons" on the two machines are not configured identically.  This should not cause any problems but is unnecessary. Measures are being taken to correct this and you will be notified when this is fixed.

From Bonnie: "ScanPro 2000 film and fiche scanners. Lesson #28" Click here to view (Bonnie shared these files using Dropbox. Enjoy!)