Family Tree at FamilySearch

I am excited about the changes and improvements that are being made to Family Tree. It is part of FamilySearch.org and it will eventually replace New.FamilySearch.org. It will be available for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and also for nonmembers. Members should sign in with their LDS account and then they will have access to LDS Temple information.

Watch this short Introduction to FamilySearch Family Tree video to learn more.

Go to Family Tree Training to learn how to start using the program. The training resources are very comprehensive.

I would advise users of New.FamilySearch.org to make the switch now. Stop using New Family Search. Starting watching the tutorials for Family Tree. And start updating and sourcing the information on your family in Family Tree.

Christmas and Family History Ideas

This morning I watched a webinar from Life Story Productions

It was presented by Marlo Schuldt and Kathleen Bitter and featured Quick Pages that are now available for making an Heirloom Cookbook and 2012 Calendars. I learned more about the options in Heritage Collector Suite. A new feature in the latest 7.3 version is the capablility to tag your photos with GPS co-ordinates using Google Earth and addresses or place names or the Google Earth Map.

I am interested in following Kathleen's Storybook Blog. There are some great ideas for projects and free downloads for calendars.

And I know I need to take the time to watch the Heritage Collector Tutorials

African American Research at Family History Center in Kensington, Maryland

I love this video. I like the enthusiasm and the joy of the women who are finding information about their families. I especially like the way they LAUGHED about the "colored section" of the records.

Joining together to uncover history

The Genealogy of LDS Temple Record Keeping

The Saturday Seminars at the Riverton FamilySearch Library are always interesting and informative. On November 17, 2012 I attended the keynote speech by Ruth Maness, AG. She has worked for the Family History Libarary for many years and is a specialist in Scandinavian research. Her topic was The Genealogy of LDS Temple Record Keeping. She outlined the history of LDS temple work for the dead starting with work done at Nauvoo in the Mississippi River and in the Nauvoo Temple and going until the present time. Her presentation answered several questions for me. I know I will be checking a lot of temple work that has been done for my ancestors and their families. So the information that she shared will be very helpful. While I was at the Library I printed cards for temple work and I am giving them to grandchildren to get started performing the baptisms for the dead.

KSL Story about Family Search and German Records

Here is a great TV news story about FamilySearch and how records are made available online for free.

KSL News Story

Unfortunately they misspelled "Genealogy."

Five Million Record Goal at Family Search Indexing

I helped by arbitrating 400 names.

Steve Morse Helps for Census Research

Here is a great link on how to find ED (enumeration district) for your people in the 1940 U.S. Census.

http://stevemorse.org/census/quiz.php

1940 U.S. Census

Everyone in the genealogy community is getting excited about the release of the 1940 U.S. Census. Many of us are making plans to look up family members as soon as it is released. Here is a blog posting by the Genealogy Insider with essential information.

1940 U.S. Census Simplified: What You Really Need To Know, In 7 Key Points

Inventing the Future, as a Community, Keynote RootsTech 2012 Jay Verkler

The first event of RootsTech 2012 was the keynote presentation “Inventing the Future, as a Community” by Jay Verkler, outgoing CEO of FamilySearch. Jay Verkler has led FamilySearch for ten years and has recently been replaced by Dennis Brimhall. During the time he led FamilySearch many innovations in technology have been implemented at FamilySearch. He has reached out to other companies to encourage new developments and collaboration.

 I first heard Jay Verkler speak at the NGS Conference in 2010 and was further impressed with him at RootTech 2011, the first RootsTech Conference. He has been a pioneer in getting technology connected with genealogical research.

Jay Verkler’s keynote presentation was multi-media and he gave credit to many others who helped him create it.  It can be viewed at RootsTech.org and there was a great article about it in The Church News. The The Ancestry Insider had a blog post giving more information about RootsTech reviews in The Church News.

Jay Verkler introduced the subject by giving background information about the population of the world and telling how we must collaborate to preserve family history information. He introduced Robert Gardner and David Barney from Google who briefly told us about new metadata that has been developed to optimize historical and genealogical searches. He introduced the CEO of BrightSolid, Chris van der Kuyl,  and the CEO of Archives.com, Matthew Monahan. Both of these men expressed the importance of collaboration. There was a dramatization of collaboration between a FamilySearch researcher, a BrightSolid customer in Sweden, a Facebook user in America. The presentation finished with a vignette of a student in 2060 who was researching her family history. This was an inspiring presentation and made me grateful to have access to all the wonderful tools and possibilities for genealogical research.  In conclusion Jay Verkler was presented a “To Turn the Hearts Award” by FamilySearch. He richly deserves this award.

RootsTech 2012 and FamilySearch Family Tree

I had the privilege of attending RootsTech again this year. It was a wonderful experience and I want to write about it in my blog. This will be good for my reference even if no one else ever reads this blog. There have been plenty of bloggers who have written about RootsTech. There were official bloggers who reported about it and I have read some of what they wrote. I especially like the Ancestry Insider blogs. He has written many interesting and informative things about RootsTech.

There are also Thomas McEntee at Geneabloggers , Randy Seaver at Geneamusings, Lisa Louise Cooke at Genealogy Gems Blog, Amy Coffin at We Tree, Pat Erickson at Dear Myrtle and others.

The best resource is the RootsTech Web site itself. Videos of many of the conferences are on this site. You can watch the actual seminars. Saturday I watched the RootsTech seminar by Ron Tanner about Family Search’s Family Tree. I did not see this live because it was the same time as the Devotional for Family History Consultants where Paul Koelliker was the speaker.

Actually I heard Ron Tanner speak on the new Family Tree on Saturday morning at the Riverton Saturday Seminar and then came home and watched his presentation at RootsTech online. They were not the same, just the same subject. I am really excited and happy that Family Tree is going to be available. I was very impressed with what I saw. I think it will be easier to use than New Family Search and that it will be more professional. People will be more hesitant to change things. I really like the addition of source citations. Hurrah for Family Search Family Tree!