Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Puzzilla - a Great Software Program

I learned about Puzzilla at RootsTech. It works with FamilySearch Family Tree. It is awesome for descendancy research. It is completely free. I tried it out today.

You can try it too at https://puzzilla.org/.


For more information in video form go to Introduction to Puzzilla


and Finding Ancestors on Collateral Lines in FamilySearch



Sunday, February 9, 2014

Attendance Statistics from RootsTech

This is my fourth year of attending RootsTech, 2011, 2012, 2013 and now 2014. It has certainly grown during these four years. The first year I thought it was the largest genealogy conference I had ever known. According to statistics on the Ancestry Insider Blog there were 3200 registered in 2011. In 2012 there were 4000. In 2013 there were 6700. This year the conference was moved to the main part of the Salt Palace where the rooms were larger and there were 8000 registered for a four-day event. A Youth Event was added on the Saturday of the Conference last year and this year in 2014 there were 4000 who attended! Some of the RootsTech sessions were also streamed live online. Last year there was a total of 20,800 comprised of registrants, youth and those who viewed some sessions online. This year the total was about 30,000. 
It is a privilege for me to be able to attend these wonderful sessions and to gain so much knowledge about family history. Therefore, I want to blog about my adventures at RootsTech and share what I have learned. I hope it is interesting to my readers.

Friday, February 7, 2014

RootsTech 2014 Set your Indexing Sails

I enjoyed this segment from the Thursday morning general session of Roots Tech February 6, 2014. Captain Jack Starling teaches about indexing obituaries. Click on the link to view the video.




Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Salt Lake Community College Genealogy 1000 Computer & Internet Tools for Genealogy

This semester (Spring 2014) I am taking the course Genealogy 1000 Computer & Internet Tools for Genealogy at Salt Lake Community College. It is an online class and I am auditing the class as a senior. I am doing the assignments and being graded, but I will not receive any college credit. (I already have my B.S. degree from Utah State University.) The instructor is Janet Hovorka who is well qualified. 
Here is my first assignment a post to the discussion "Getting to Know You."
I took the Genealogy 1000 class Fall semester 2011. I wanted to continue with the next genealogy class in the series and registered for Genealogy 1010. Unfortunately the class was cancelled because not enough students were registered. Then my life got very busy and now I want to continue my genealogy education. Since the SLCC  Genealogy courses have changed and many things on the Internet and with software have changed I am choosing to repeat Genealogy 1000. My immediate family history goals are to organize and digitize my files and to update four generations of my family history. I am a senior auditing this class, but I am not retired. My family owns a goat dairy Drake Family Farms in West Jordan Utah. We sell goat milk, yogurt, cheese and goat milk soap. My husband and I have eight children, 21 grandchildren and one great grandchild.