Electronic Filing for Family History

Today I am going to be talking with you about how I have learned to keep my records electronically. As I have mentioned we are the pioneers of the new digital age of family research and genealogy. Going from strictly paper files to a variety of ways to store and access your information is the way of the future. The way I see it is that we cannot just depend on paper anymore and we cannot live totally without it either. The previous post gives ideas on storage of paper files. Some people suggest 3 to 5 types of storage during this big thrust forward in genealogy, computer technology and the Internet. Some choices are your hard drive, a back up external hard drive, flash drive, paper, cloud, another family member, online trees and of course, your selected software program. There are several options and possibilities.

In my paper files I store the bare essentials, family group sheets, pedigree charts, original documents of the immediate family and some things like old letters that are not available on the Internet. The rest goes into my scanning pile and then into the electronic files. I also do scan and electronically file the things that I keep in my paper files, I just don't want to get rid of the originals or the skeleton of my family history should there be any unforeseen catastrophes in the world of our devices, our clouds, the Internet, etc.

Cloud computing is a growing part of the digital age. As it has become more important for our information to be accessed on multiple devices like our tablets, laptops, smart phones, etc. we are turning to cloud computing for easier access for instantly downloading our files between devices. Cloud storage is essentially taking what is on your hard drive and placing another copy on a server someplace else off site. This is ideal for storing genealogy and family history if it is electronically stored on your computer. This is one very compelling reason to file your things electronically. If not all your genealogy, at the very least your direct lines.

Cloud storage has been available in various forms for decades. The problem was that the cost of the storage space was so astronomical it was never feasible for us as individuals. Now it has become very affordable and several companies offer a certain amount of space for free. I have heard nothing but outstanding reports on Drop Box and that is the one I am now using. It has already solved some of my mobility issues as I take my records with me to work in the Family History Center and other places. There are also other free clouds sites like Mozy and Caronite. When I downloaded Drop Box I was amazed at how easy it is. It is kind of magical really after my struggles earlier in the year transferring things between my Mac and the laptop PC.

Scanning documents for electronic filing is fairly straight forward. What I do is I put the document into the scanner and then I scan it to open in preview. Once the document is scanned and up on the screen I save it in two formats. I do this by going up to "File" on the toolbar, then selecting "Save As." At this point you choose a name for your file in a way that you can remember it. (Example below.) You might want to standardize how you create these file names in your own system. I then save it to the desk top as a PDF and as a JPG.

Once you have saved it as a PDF just go back to the "File" tab on the toolbar and select "Save As" again, leaving the same name on the file and change the format to JPG. After you do this a few time you will get into a rhythm and it is easy. Make sure your file destination is the Desk Top.

It is now available on the desktop when I am ready to file it electronically.

I would name this scanned record {Burial Record-J Walth-Golden Gate National Cemetery-San Bruno CA} I was taught to save the documents by what they actually are as opposed to giving it the name of the person first.

Then I go to Finder on my Computer which is a Mac or if you have a PC go to Windows E where your documents are stored. This is what Finder looks like on the Mac: It is the first icon on the toolbar (the two faces) at the bottom called the Dock. Double click on it to see and/or create your folders and files.

Dock

Set up a folder that is called Genealogy.

To make a new folder in any of the columns just click on that column and then go up to "File" on the toolbar's drop down menu and click on "New Folder." The new folder will appear in the column you have selected then name it. Now you can reduce the size of your current screen and to see the desk top on a Mac. (On a PC you will need to save the image to the desk top in the way you normally save to your desktop.)

Now just click and drag the file you have saved on your desk top as a PDF into the folder in your finder or Windows E. Drop it right on the folder icon and voila ~ electronic filing! Do the same for the other copy of the file, the JPG.

Next set up some Surname Folders to file the items you are scanning. These line up in alphabetical order no matter what sequence you use or when you create them. The rule I use is if I have enough to warrant a folder for a person, they get one. I don't set up empty folders I wait until I need them as I am going through all the paper I have had in their old files or recently acquired over the Internet.

As an example, if I have just one document on a cousin that has died I will just file that in our grandfather's folder (our common ancestor) until I have enough to warrant his own file. Most times I don't envision that happening as my primary focus in on my direct lines for now. The beauty of this system is you just add as you go and of course you can change it anytime you want. The main thing is it has to be something that works for you and will also make some sense to the person picking up the ball from you one day.

Let's say here I am looking for a photo on Jim's grandfather, Andrew Ferrera. So I go to and click on Genealogy first, then Andrew Ferrera and then since I have set up a folder or file for photos, I click on that file.


When I click there the photo is displayed. Less than two seconds and I have what I am looking for. Not bad! And it is completely portable, mobile and out of sight when I do not need it. No big bulky files and home storage issues and no lugging copious amounts of stuff to and from the Library. What's not to love?

To make this easier to envision if you are not that well versed in saving documents to your computer as you begin (I sure wasn't)...just think about it like an outline. You start with a main topic and then just keep adding branches of it as you keep refining it. You create a path from Genealogy to a Photo (or any other document) of your ancestor in that way. It gives you such immediate access to anything you need quite simply once you have your files set up and your documents filed appropriately.

One step at a time we can do this.
Some of the steps are uphill
but it is good for the ♥

Just as a note of interest, if you are wondering why to save your scan in both formats. Here is my simplified version of the answer. A PDF (Portable Document Format) cannot be altered by another person, is easily sent and read by any other computer regardless of the operating system used. Here is my teacher's more complete answer for you/brainiacs and techies out there. A JPG (Image format) can be altered or manipulated with a photo altering program like Picasa, iPhoto, or Photoshop, etc. You would use this to improve the photo or scanned document for legibility.

"Technology is always changing. Whether you save an image file on your computer as a PDF or a JPG (or any of the many, many other image formats), there is always the possibility that what you see on your computer monitor today may possibly not be visible there tomorrow. You've every now and again got to get updates for the software on your computer, to make sure they can read what you've saved (AND BACKED UP). And every now and again (maybe every seven years) it's a good idea to save a new copy of each image in the newest version of the software for that particular format.

And yes, "PDF" (which means "portable document format") means what you see on your computer is exactly what you'll see on any other computer and exactly what anyone else will see on any other computer. It's not only good for saving documents (images, texts) that you do not want to have changed by anyone on purpose or accidentally, but that will be forever unchangeable (except, of course, by those who have software that can change it, in which case they'll have the ability to make superficial changes but not fundamental ones).

And JPG images -- and other formats used for images (.tif and .bmp being the two main other ones) -- can be manipulated in some programs (Photoshop, Picasa, and the like). By "manipulated" I mean cropped, colors changed, colors removed, "Photoshopped" (to add images into it, such as an image of Arnold Schwartzenegger's bicep onto an image of my upper arm), and the like).

Either one can be easily transmitted to others (by email or disc), but the larger the size of the PDF or JPG digital file, the slower the transmission. If the file is 10 MB or larger, it starts to run up against the limits of some people's email programs and might bounce back to you without getting delivered. Both PDFs and JPGs (and others) can be downsized, too, though in each case the more drastic the downsizing of the digital file the more likely there will be an observable decrease in the quality of the image." SKE, Used by permission.

So that is all there is to this electronically filing as far as I'm concerned. I am sure there are quicker and more efficient ways to do it but this is what works for me and I am satisfied that I can locate my sources, information and things I want to save on each person in just a few seconds. No hassles once put into its own little place. Also I feel our kids are much more likely to want this type of file transference rather than boxes and boxes of unorganized stuff. It makes it more probable that they will keep the relay going.

One last thing...I am not saving tons of photos of people in these genealogy electronic folders. Just maybe one or two pictures and the rest will be passed along in boxes and boxes and boxes to the posterity unless Jim and I get them all scanned in our life time which is unlikely! After all we've got places to go and people to see and there are a lot more of them (the posterity) then there are of us! Sorry kids!

One step at at time we can do this!

Organizing your Paper Files

This blog has now begun to serve two purposes. One, I am journaling my path from carbon paper to the digital age. I have found my time and season to give Family History and Genealogy a new place in my life and my heart and I want to record the process.

I am also now trying to use it to help others learn how to go about doing this based on my own experiences and what is working for me. So there is a mixture of narrative and "how to" sections in the blog.

So if you are interested in the narrative about the organizing, etc. you can read these past two posts and I think they will also contain some important tips and aspects of organizing your genealogical material.

http://alegacythatmatters.blogspot.com/2011/09/phd-in-genealogy.html

http://alegacythatmatters.blogspot.com/2011/10/5-things-i-have-learned-about.html

If you want to just jump right to the nitty gritty start here with your reading.

Organizing what you already have:

Once I got back to Family History in earnest again, the first thing I needed to do was actually open my green treasure chest from 30-something years ago.

This was a box I used to carry back and forth to the Oakland Genealogical Library back in the day of carbon paper, actual paper card catalogs, and lots of microfilm that needed to be ordered for records we can now often find online. My treasure chest was dusty, musty and contained lot of various things in manilla folders, organized by surnames. What I found when I opened the box were these tired files crammed with all manner of stuff with dried, cracking, often detached labels in various places.

I also had a Book Of Remembrance that looked like this. All these records were painstakingly, sought and found in the library, hand-printed and then typed by our ward typist, for all the record submissions to Salt Lake City. They had to be checked and rechecked for accuracy, as every time you would recopy the chance for making mistakes, transposing numbers of dates, etc. increased. They made their way to Salt Lake to meet the deadline imposed by the people in charge.

They would eventually become The Ancestral File. Hopefully, if you have a similar story, your ward genealogy teacher stressed the importance of documenting your work by citing your sources, or all your hard work would be nothing more than a nice road map for those that followed you, only to research the same information again. Even though the sources were not included in the Ancestral file, if you still have your pedigree and group sheets you submitted the sources should be on there in your Book of Remembrance.

Genealogy without sources and citations
is nothing more than a possibility.

Please repeat many times and internalize this idea. It is gospel in the world of genealogy, I promise you. If you want your name to be held in high esteem by generations past, present and future. Do it and the document it!

Check out the discoloration of the pages in my
Book of Remembrance already.
It's probably a combination of acid from the plastic
and the paper itself, oil from my hands, moisture and dust.

I am happy that I started our family history work years ago. I am even happy that I had the experience of doing this work the old-fashioned way. I am really happy I was the pioneer in our family. Starting from scratch had some definite advantages, that virgin, fertile ground for our family history and research was wonderful. I was blessed to have a teacher that drilled accuracy and documenting into my head from day one. Now I do not have to go back and reprove everything I found because I gathered it myself.

I have begun the work of verifying a lot of things by saving and adding new documents that are now available online and that is a joy. What once took years can now often be found, with a little know how, in a few minutes. Seriously, I find great joy in being a pioneer in this and to more fully appreciate where the Lord has brought this work in just a few decades. The technology, the generation that has been born with the technology gene already installed, this is nothing short of a Major Miracle. It is staggering really.

What a privilege to be a part of it. Just as the pioneers made the long and arduous trek from Nauvoo to Salt Lake facing many obstacles along the way, we are now making our pioneer trek into the digital age. Just as the first pioneers walked and walked and walked and struggled and learned and grew along the way...we too are doing the same. This is pure joy to witness! From an eternal perspective one day I think we will understand even more fully why being reserved for this day and being called "a chosen generation" is applicable.

How I Organized my Paper Files

We do not have file cabinet space so for now I just have two portable boxes for my files. They have hanging file folders that I purchased in variety packs with different colors. I also purchases colored manilla files to go inside and some labels. I also bought some acid free sleeves to preserve the old documents a little better. You might also want some circle dots in a variety of colors. That is really all you will need.

I think these red boxes will be sufficient for all the paper files I plan to keep during my life time.

Jim's family files are yellow, mine are blue.

These are some of the kinds of documents and of the things you will need to find and keep but a lot of them can be gathered and filed electronically cutting way down on your paper filing and using so much space.

There are also artifacts and heirlooms that must be considered. One thing is to be sure and take pictures of them and include in your electronic files. If you have a family bible that has genealogical information you might want to scan the pages and also file the electronically at some point. Bibles are considered a primary source for genealogical information. This is very important to remember. Many of your posterity might like to see a digitized version of the Bible.

For me these are the main reasons for having paper files:

To keep the original documents you have received and paid for or have been given by relatives. BUT you also need to scan them and save electronically.

The paper files are perfect and necessary for your original documents and copies of your family group sheets and pedigree charts, etc. Family Group Sheets and pedigrees are a very important aspect of keeping your records. What would happened if for some reason we lost our electronic files? Keep a paper copy for your sanity.

Remember we are pioneers of the digital age. We need to keeps more than one copy. In some cases with our flash drives and computer hard drives and public trees or what have you, we have lots of copies. Better than way than to lose the one.

What I have done is separated Jim's ancestors from mine by color in one box. My red boxes are not that different from my green moldy treasure box but the files are being cleaned up and restored and preserved more carefully and scanned for electronic filing. It is a process and is no where near done. The important thing is that I have a simple and logical system that works for me. It is small enough to be portable and easy to grab in case of a fire, or whatever. Someone else could figure it out pretty quickly when I am gone.

Doing family history is a bit like running a relay race. You have to be able to pass the baton to the next person in a simple efficient manner. If they cannot grasp what you are giving them it become hard to carry on. Make it simple. I have used the labels and written surnames on them and the head of the household on my direct lines. If you have quite a few lines it is wise to add the birth date of the father of the family and even a place of birth if you desire. This gets helpful when you have a lot of fathers passing on the same name to their sons, a very common practice.

You can color code the family if you wish...here is an example.


Some people do a number system 00001, 00002 or a system of tracking the descendancy with a code for paternal and maternal like pmpmpmpmmp indicating father, father, father, mother, father, etc. You start with yourself and work back, ie; mppp would be my paternal great grandfather. This is a nice and easy way to trace the line through the males and females back through the generations. For now I use it but I can always revise this at a later date if I find I need numbers or whatever. The important things is to get a system set up you think will work now and start using it. You can always tweak it as you go.

Dick Eastman on Rootstech Wrap-Up 2012

RootsTech Wrap-up ~ Used by permission via his Newsletter

Speech-enabled by ReadSpeaker No sound?

Saturday was the third and final day of RootsTech 2012. The third day was a continuation of the first and second days. Great presentations were made and the Exhibitors Hall was as busy as ever.

The first session of the morning featured a focus on the RootsTech Contest Winners. The third place winner turned out to be two winners in a tie: the "20 Minute Genealogist" created by a team at the BYU Computer Science Department and "Facetree" by Ellie Rasmus. Second place was awarded to Brooke Schreier Ganz for "LeafSeek."

The grand prize winner was Jimmy Zimmerman with "NoteFuser."

All of these applications qualify as winners. You can view more about the winning applications by clicking on the highlighted terms above.

The keynote speech of the day was delivered by Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com, accompanied by four of his colleagues from the company. The phrase that stuck in my mind was near the beginning when Tim referred to "this ridiculously successful conference." Indeed, that was true. Ridiculous or not, RootsTech 2012 was very successful.

I never obtained the final attendance numbers but it probably was about 4,400 to 4,500 attendees. Not bad for a genealogy conference!

Much discussion about the operations of Ancestry.com followed, especially the abnormal load placed on the Ancestry.com servers the previous evening during the first episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?"

I have written several times about the growth of mobile applications for use in genealogy. The Ancestry.com executives seemed to verify the predictions:

• The Ancestry.com app for smartphones has been downloaded 2 million times
• Smartphone users have contributed 2 million hints to Ancestry.com
• 1 million photos have been uploaded from mobile devices
• a high percentage of the mobile users do not use traditional access from desktop or laptop computers to access Ancestry.com
• 12% of all visits to Ancestry.com are by mobile devices
• Designing apps to display information on tiny screens forces the web designers to squeeze focused information into a tiny screen. As a result, the designers must focus on what is most important to display on the first screen with supplementary info on secondary screens. As a result, Ancestry.com probably will build many new products on mobile access first, then later expand the products to larger screen devices. The result will be a focus on placing the most important info on a less-cluttered first screen.
• Genealogy has typically been a solitary pursuit within the family. The wave of the future, especially with the use of mobile devices, will encourage collaboration within the family.
• Ancestry. com presently employs about 300 software engineers with plans to add another 80 this year. Recruiting is a major focus of the company.

The Ancestry.com executives also gave a peek into the future:

1. City directories with more than 10 million images are now available on Ancestry.com. In the past, these directories have been difficult to find and difficult to search. Semantic extraction has always been a problem in semi-structured content, such as city directories. There has been no easy way to differentiate between names of people, place names, street names, advertisements on the page, and other content. However, the Ancestry.com engineers have found intelligent methods to extract different types of information from the City Directories. The changes are already partially implemented with the remainder of the changes to be added in the coming months.
2. Ancestry.com has already indexed half a billion records and those records are already online on Ancestry.com. The list will soon be expanded with obituaries and other content.
3. Census records - The engineers at Ancestry.com found that new users had great difficulty understanding the data presented in census records. A high percentage of new users never scrolled to see the right side of the census page where all the details are. The new viewer highlights an individual in one color and all other family members are highlighted in a different color. All other entries on the page remain in monochrome. The software to properly detect the appropriate lines turned out to be rather complex, especially in pages that are faded, torn, or otherwise difficult to read. The new viewer software is presently in use on the 1911 U.K. census and 1930 U.S. census and will be rolled out to all census products. Present implementation is to be considered "version 1.0" with additional improvements to be added in coming months.

Tim Sullivan added some other comments that I thought were worthwhile. This is not an exact quote, as I can't type that fast, but it is close to Tim's words:

Please be patient with us. We are constantly working on improving things. At any given moment, things might be a bit buggy or in change. But give us your feedback and then be patient while we make improvements and add bug fixes and the result will be that we will all benefit.

The goal is to create a frictionless user experience. No online site today is "frictionless" and it will not be easy to do in the near future, but that is always the long-term goal. We want to allow people to ignore the process and to focus on the information instead of the mechanics involved.

All in all, Tim's words made a lot of common sense. The entire keynote session was an interesting insight into the company's plans and motivations.

The remainder of the day continued in much the same manner as the previous two days. One possible exception is that the Exhibits Hall appeared to be a bit busier and noisier than before as most attendees realized it was "today or never." The vendors I talked with all seemed to be happy with sales.

All in all, the final day of RootsTech 2012 seemed to be as successful as the previous two days. I saw a lot of smiling attendees.

One final announcement was made: Next year's RootsTech conference will be held about a month later in the year: RootsTech 2012 will be held March 21 though 23. If you would like to attend a great conference, mark your calendar now.

Dick Eastman on Rootstech Day 2

RootsTech 2012 Day #2 ~ Shared by Permission via Eastman Newsletter

RootsTech continued today with events and presentations similar to the first day. The day started with an informal keynote speech by Josh Coates, CEO of Instructure, an education-focused software company. Mr Coates also is the founder of Mozy. He also has a long list of impressive technological and entrepreneurial accomplishments, including Utah Entrepreneur of the Year, vSpring Capital Top 100 Venture Entrepreneur, and one of MIT Technology Review’s Top 100 Young Innovators. He spoke on "Exabyte Social Clouds and other Monstrosities."

Indeed, Josh Coates' presentation was very informal. And just how informal was it? I have attended dozens of conferences and have listened to many keynote speeches. However, this is the first keynote I have listened to where the speaker was barefoot! Take a look at this "blow-up" of part of the above picture:

Actually, being barefoot worked well for Josh Coates. As a young entrepreneur dressed casually, being barefoot seemed to fit the image he wished to portray. His talk was also "no frills." He talked a lot about the value of social networks and also about the huge drop in the price of disk storage. Today, for the first time in human history, every person can store every detail about his or her life, should he or she care to do so. This could be a bonanza for future genealogists! A video of Josh Coates' presentation is available at http://www.rootstech.org.

Prior to Josh Coates' presentation, Joe Godfrey, Director of Product and General Manager of Archives.com, spoke about the 1940 U.S. census records that will be released in about two months. Archives.com will host the 1940 U.S. census images starting on April 2. Hundreds of thousands of genealogists will be hitting the web site at 9 AM. In the past, when web sites have released major new collections of highly popular genealogy records, each site's servers have usually crashed within minutes due to the heavy load of hundreds of thousands of genealogists attempting to access the records, all at the same time.

Archives.com plans to handle the load on April 2 and in the first few weeks thereafter by using cloud computing with hundreds of virtual servers running in parallel. Indeed, any person with moderate technical skills can create hundreds of shared virtual servers within minutes to handle most any load. As the load is reduced in later weeks, the number of servers sharing that load can be reduced a few at a time. The company providing the service (Archives.com in this case) doesn't need to purchase hundreds of servers in advance and prepare them for a short-term workload of only a few days or weeks. Instead, using (rented) virtual servers in the cloud is much more cost-effective as the company only pays for the resources actually used, not for servers sitting by idly waiting for a future spike in workload.

Indeed, cloud computing serves many needs, not just the handling of workload spikes.

Volunteers can volunteer to perform indexing at http://the1940census.com.

Once the keynote session was over, the exhibits hall opened and then the presentations and unconference sessions began soon after in nearby rooms. The sessions ran all day. A sample of titles includes:

• Deep Linking and Deeper Linking: How I Get the Most out of Existing Search Applications
• Can You Hear Me Now? Voice Recognition Software and Genealogy
• A User’s Perspective: Developing a Universal Metadata Structure for Genealogical Content Providers
• New Avenues in Genetic Genealogy
• Google Search 2012
• Building High-performance Web Services With SCALA
• A Robust Open-source GEDCOM Parser
• ...and much more.

A full list of today's presentations may be found at http://rootstech.org/schedule/sessions#day=1

I wandered the exhibits hall with my camera and would to share with you a few of the pictures I took. You can click on any image below to see a larger picture:

The Mini Lab was busy all day, as seen in the following picture:

Here is a picture of Pierre Clouthier of Progeny Software wearing a nifty looking vest. I wrote aboutthis earlier at http://goo.gl/0xUxk. You can see what makes the vest so special in the following picture:

Pierre is displaying his ancestry on the back of the vest.

BillionGraves.com has an interesting display booth:

You can read my latest article about BillionGraves.com at http://goo.gl/Oetp1

ReadyMicro has an interesting book scanner in late development. It should be available for purchase in a few months:

Here is the prototype of the book scanner:

ReadyMicro also produces a nifty microfilm-to-digital scanner:

In the picture below, Matt Wright displays the souvenir that is available to every attendee: a RootsTech t-shirt. That's a nifty picture on the t-shirt!

I'll be back at RootsTech in the morning to take some more photos of the third and final day.

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Dick Eastman on Rootstech Day 1

RootsTech 2012 Day #1 Shared by permission via Eastman's Newletter

The RootsTech conference kicked off this morning in Salt Lake City with more than 4,100 attendees. No, that number is not a misprint. More than four thousand one hundred genealogists pre-registered. However, when I walked past the registration desk in mid-morning, I saw a long line of people waiting to purchase tickets at the door. Unofficially, I was told that the number of attendees had risen to more than 4,400 by late afternoon. That number certainly will rise further during the next two days of the conference.

RootsTech is now by far the most popular genealogy conference in North America.

At last year's RootsTech, I wrote that the opening session was like a rock concert with noise, hubbub, and excitement. This year's event struck me as more like a country and western performance: loud and exciting, but not quite as raucous as last year. Nonetheless, this year's session felt very comfortable, as you would expect at a country and western concert.

After introductory remarks by several people, today's keynote speech was given by Jay Verkler, past CEO of FamilySearch. Jay talked quite a bit about the genealogy audience, especially changes expected in that audience in the future. Of course, FamilySearch wishes to serve that audience well.

Jay painted an interesting picture of genealogy in the year 2060. World population will increase from today's 7 billion to approximately 9.5 billion people. Most families can learn about individuals born in the 1900s without visiting libraries and archives; all they have to do is ask older family members. Individuals born in the 1600s or earlier are often difficult to locate, due to a lack of records. As a result, most of today's genealogists spend the majority of their time researching a relatively small number of ancestors born in the 1700s and 1800s.

Statistics from Jay's talk include:

• Roughly 6 billion people were born between 1750 and 1900
• Roughly 14 billion people have been born since 1900
• By 2060, about 20 billion will have been born since 1900
• Most of us already have personal memory, records, and even photos of most of these later individuals.

This focus on ancestors born in the 1700s and 1800s will continue, even as the population increases and as the Internet makes records available to more people. We will continue to focus on the 1700s and 1800s, with occasional research on earlier or later generations. While the number of genealogists will increase with the growth of our population, they will all be studying the same rather small set of ancestors from the 1700s and 1800s.

Jay made a comment that sticks in my mind: "Genealogy must be a collaborative experience." After all, our ever-expanding number of genealogists is focusing on the ame pool of ancestors. FamilySearch is developing new software tools and methodologies to assist in this collaboration. One change is that genealogy is changing from an activity done by individuals to a group collaborative effort.

Some other announcements made in the keynote speech include:

• A second archive location is to be built to create a digital duplicate of the records presently stored in the Granite Mountain near Salt Lake City. The new location has not yet been announced.
• A new GEDCOM is being developed by FamilySearch. The new GEDCOM standard is being called GedcomX.

GEDCOM already is a multi-usage standard:

1. It is an exchange standard to exchange data between different computer programs
2. GedcomX will have an API
3. GEDCOM is also a reposotory of sorts, data is often stored in GEDCOM format

Today's GEDCOM is a repository for conclusion sharing, not a research tool

The new GedcomX will have:

• Links to external information as well as embedded information
• Ease import and export
• Importance of semantics (what is the behavior of a given word?)

Robert Gardner and Dave Barney, software engineers from Google, have been working on improving Google products for genealogical research. The two were introduced to the RootsTech audience and they gave a very brief description of their projects:

• A large amount of genealogy information is available online today but little of it is findable by search engines
• Microdata is an HTML5 standard mechanism for embedding machine-readable data in a web page
• Schema.org provides a collection of schemas but doesn't work well with genealogy data
• Historical-data.org extends Schema.org to preserve historical information
• Historical-data.org provides clear labels and semantic information

The two then went on to describe a Chrome web browser extension that displays pedigree information in an easy-to-understand format, readable by the human eye, complete with links to the sources. The browser extension is available today.

At the end of the keynote session, roughly 4,000 genealogists descended on the exhibits hall simultaneously. It was very crowded. I couldn't get much accomplished in that crowd so I left for mor than an hour. When I returned, things had settled down and I started talking with many of the vendors.

I saw a number of new vendors at RootsTech 2012 that I had not seen at conferences before, although perhaps not as many new vendors as at last year's event. I'll include pictures in a separate article.

Of course, one of the major attractions of RootsTech is all the presentations on technology-related topics. Today was full of such presentations. I cannot list them all here but you can find them at http://rootstech.org/. You can also see videos of many of today's events at the same web site.

Here are a few of the pictures I took today. You can click on any image to see a larger picture:

Think this room looked crowded? it has 3,000 to 4,000 seats and was the scene of today's keynote speech.

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The Mini Lab was available to all conference attendees. Anyone could take several software programs for a test drive, check email, visit web sites, or perform other computer tasks.

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I had to laugh when I saw the Unconferencing Sign-Up Board. It is probably the most low-tech device seen at this conference about high technology. However, it worked well.

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brightsolid had a large booth at the conference to celebrate the company's entry into the U.S. genealogy marketplace.

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The familySearch book scanning tent. Perhaps they were expecting rain inside the Salt Palace!

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Good reasons to scan books! All books scanned at RootsTech 2012 will soon be available to everyone in the FamilySearch web site.

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Darrin Lythgoe proudly shows off the new Version 9 of The Next Generation web-based genealogy software.

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Wouldn't you like to have this printer in your living room?

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I don't see this at many genealogy conferences! This is part of the relaxation area in the exhibits hall.

I'll (Dick Eastman) be back at RootsTech tomorrow for Day #2 and hope to write about the things I see and hear there.

Family Search

Finding Love in your Family Search!

Family Search is the website sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is the "Go To" place to begin your online search for your ancestors. It can be found at familysearch.org

Often when we click on any website and see a search box we want to just start there. This is putting the cart before the horse on Family Search. One of the most helpful things we have found is to resist that at first and really look at and learn what is available on the site. Doing this first will save you lots of time and angst later.

There are many websites that offer search capabilities to assist us in our search for our family's vital records and other information. Some are commercial and a few are non-profit. We should try to learn about as many as we can. As an example, Ancestry has over 8 billion records and 33,000 record collections, about 4 times as many as Family Search has at this time.

But the consensus seems to be that Family Search is the first stop and what you find there can be more accurate as there are at least three people checking the indexed information before it goes into the data bases. We recently learned that Ancestry often outsources a lot of their digitizing to India which can present some language barrier problems. Also Family Search is free whereas Ancestry.com is $300+ per year.

You can go to any LDS Family History center and use Ancestry.com and several other sites for free. The Centers' locations and hours of operation can be found on the toolbar on the home page under Family Search Centers. There are more than 4500 of them around the world for your use free of charge. Anyone and everyone is welcome to use them and there is always someone there to help you with your individual questions.

The homepage of family search is a treasure trove of very helpful information to learn about before you start searching. Just this week they have added some very important features. This website is changing and being updated with new records and information daily. A year ago there were three various versions of Family Search serving different purposes. It is a good thing to learn what is going on right now, as we know it has already begun to transition into one singular site called Family Search.

Family search was originally launched on March 24, 1999. That was just six days after we became grandparents for the first time and we were just about to board a plane to Scotland to meet Piper. No wonder we were oblivious to the launching. That is not that long ago really and it is amazing what they have done since then. It had evolved into three versions being used simultaneously by last year. The three versions have caused a lot of confusion among church members regarding ordinances and genealogists alike, who have just been trying to get their records straight. The site administrators say that by the end of this year they will all be merged into one site. We all need to be patient as the program goes forward~we are the pioneers of the digital age. Understanding how it is now and where it is going will increase your foundational knowledge, especially as a church member when trying to help others in this exciting work.

Note that when you look at the home page of familysearch.org that just about everything on the page is a link. It takes time to familiarize yourself with these links. So do take your time and find the hidden treasures that are there. BYU and the teams of developers that work on Family Search are making and implementing innovations every single day. Users are adding to the Genealogy WIKI and forum discussions and new videos are being recorded all the time to make your genealogy experience more rich and rewarding. The help section is often updated as well.

They really have made and continue to make a valiant effort to assist everyone from the novice to the professional genealogist. We would urge you to use this resource in the beginning and return often. And speaking of returning often, if you click on the icon of the little tree on the top of the page that says FAMILY SEARCH under it, it will return you to the home page if you have wandered of into an interesting tab. :-)




Note in the upper right hand portion of the page it says Help and right next to that there is a place to Sign In which is not visible on this screen shot of the page. They are asking us to sign in now every time we use this site to insure that we have access to everything on the site. The information that was once housed in new.familysearch.org which contained temple ordinance information has gone public (minus the ordinance work unless you have access through a member name and password) making it easier and less cumbersome for everyone to use now. All the information from new.familysearch has now been moved into Family Search under the Trees tab at the top of the page.

Aside from the actual online records collection there are also billions of records in the offline collection. The online collection currently has over 2 billion records many of which have actual images and documents attached. The offline collections are archived microfilms that can be ordered from Salt Lake City. You can then research them free of charge, except for shipping costs. Find information regarding these on the Catalog tab under the Discover Your Family History above.

The most important tab you will find at the top of the page is the Learn Tab. This has a remarkable amount of information and videos to help you at every turn.

Click Getting started and access at least 25
Five Minute Genealogy Videos. They should be watched sequentially.
These are amazing! These videos are on Youtube
as well but the best access is right here.
These are great for everyone but I think the youth might buy in here.

The areas are expanded and searchable via the links that say, Go to the Wiki, View the courses and Browse the forums. Just click on the arrow and go.



This area of the home page has many links to various records designated by places. Under United States, search alphabetically in this collection and look under US Census records for the census collections. Many have the actual record attached, as well as, the digitized information.

The bottom of the page is also full of links including a place to call, chat or email for help 24/7. Not bad! And it is free of course along with everything else pertaining to this amazing site.

Enjoy this great learning tool and search engine. It will serve you well if you learn how to use it.