- Update on the Rollout of new FamilySearch. All the temples in Utah were added to nFS before Christmas – and nothing crashed! In fact I don’t even think there was a huge increase in calls for FamilySearch Support! Last temple to be added was Salt Lake! Now we await the addition of 5 temples in Asia before saying that all temples worldwide are using nFS!
- Church News articles on nFS. There are 2 new knowledge documents based on articles on Family History that appeared in the Church News on 26 December 2009. Why did the Church create nFS? Kd 109106 or http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58375/Questions-aboutNew-FamilySearch.html# and Tips for using nFS Kd 109105 or http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58378/Tips-for-using-New-FamilySearch.html Tip for finding kd articles – go to Help Center in new FamilySearch and search for the number.
- Interview with Ron Tanner, Product Manager at nFS http://media.libsyn.com/media/skperry/cs-newfamilysearch.mp3 (from Seagull and Cricket Fireside chat, Dec 2009). Some of the things I heard: pioneer stock may have 1000s of copies of the same person, nFS has been an immediate blessing to those without pioneer ancestors, finding cousins from other side of the planet, no danger of running out of names, some have ordinances done over 50 times, PAF 25 years old and as software is pretty much done its life cycle but will continue to be available, 3rd party products add features and sync data, 651 web servers, 1.4 Billion records, 20TB of pedigrees,
- December 2009 update – aka version 0.99. Did you miss the November 2009 update to nFS? Two extended sessions of beta testing and perhaps the intrusion of all that November turkey eating in the USA delayed the last update to nFS by a few days so that it became the December update! See What’s New document (4 pages accessible through News and Updates on nFS sign in page) and particularly take note of the bottom of page 2 and top of page 3! No more () or / or * in the name field – use the AKA field for alternative names! New pedigree view and ability to see who has names In Progress have been added. Study the document carefully! Date for next update to nFS? Was supposed to be February . . .
- More missionaries are needed for FamilySearch support. Training will be provided. You serve part-time from home. Contact us if you need more information.
- Common Identity System (CIS) is coming. Once deployed this will be the new method used to register for our FamilySearch suite of products. It is also a single log-in system that will let you access multiple FamilySearch applications and stake web sites with the same username and password. The Wiki is now live with CIS. Indexing has already revised password requirements to bring them into line with other church products. When working with Common Identity System (CIS) accounts, nonmember’s accounts are called FamilySearch Accounts, whereas member accounts are called LDS Accounts. Once fully deployed this will be a good thing. During implementation it may be confusing at times so this is a heads up on the pending deployment. We need to watch for news on the deployment to nFS and Indexing.
- Research Series Online – Continue to watch for new courses. Irish Research was added last week. I have not heard any feedback on the courses – have you tried any of them? There is now a total of 8 courses available. Go to Familysearch.org, then Library menu to Education.
- Personal email tragedy. Last week (10.17 one morning) someone hijacked my email account (spoofed?). I use Google Gmail. Someone from a different ip address took over my account – I could see the ip address they were using – and started sending a spurious email to everyone in my contacts. I was grateful for several gmail features! I disconnected all access, reset my password, increased my email security levels at google, scanned my computer for viruses (nothing!), deleted all the messages I did not send, sent apologies to everyone I could, and felt very embarrassed! Be careful!
Thank you for all that you are doing. We hope that 2010 will be a special year for Family History.
I have done 2 of the Irish Research lessons series. They are very good with lots of information and some nice handouts but you have to go in and start the video again just to get the handouts. I sent this feedback to them so maybe they will change that so we will be able to get the handouts before going into the video.
Thanks for the update. Keep those newsletters coming!
Thanks for the update. It helps to know what is coming. I haven’t spent much time on nFS lately.