Summer Discovery Club

We are always delighted when you share the great things you are doing! . . . . so we were very pleased to get the following from the Calgary FH Centre – although it is set up for FHC staff we think all of us would benefit by doing it!

CFHC Summer Discovery Club

CFHC Staff members: Make this a summer of discovery.

Each week choose a Question and/or an Activity to complete and then fill in the calendar chart provided. At our staff training meetings in the fall come and we’ll share something that we have learned.

Questions - Choose a question for which you don’t know the answer and fill in the calendar chart provided.

Most important is to record how to find the answer so you will be able to find it again. (If you need help with some of these questions or activities, see what you can find out through the FamilySearch Help Center or the Research Wiki or ask a fellow staff member)

1. When do Vital Records begin in Ontario?
2. How do I find an Irish birth civil registration? Record the film number one would need to order for the birth registration of James Robinson, born 10 March 1905 in County Armagh, Ireland. Include the volume and page number and Quarter. (Clue: The answer is not film number 101070. That is the index film which will tell you the volume, page and quarter.) Record the steps needed to find the actual registration.
3. How do I order a film?
4. Where do I go to find the new policy, as of this Feb 2012, relating to getting permission before doing temple work?
5. Where can I go to find pre-civil registration records in Scotland? Record three places to find these.
6. In British Free BMD’s how do you find a birth registration?
7. Where in the CFHC can you find a blank Family Group Sheet or Pedigree Chart?
8. What is the British Parish Locator. Where is it? How do I use it?
9. On new.FamilySearch how do I remove (delete) an individual that does not belong to my family if I did not contribute the information? Find a Knowledge Document for this situation and record the document number and how you found it.
10. If you have a Knowledge Document number and want to know what it says, how do you find it?
11. What are two sites where you can find Border Crossings between Canada and the US? Record how to navigate in these sites to get to the Border Crossings.
12. LDS Family History Suite #2. Where is it and what can you find there?
13. What kinds of things do you find at the Godfrey Memorial Library subscription site (free at the FHC)

Activities -Do the activity and record something you learned and where you found it.

14. Watch a research course video from the Learn Tab on FamilySearch. There are hundreds of videos that range from 5 minutes to an hour in length.

15. Watch to a Roots Tech 2012 Video: http://rootstech.org/videos. Scroll down and choose from19 great videos.

16. Do a batch of Indexing.

17. Read the Darby’s weekly article http://peterfh.wordpress.com

18. Record something you learned from What’s New on FamilySearch

19. Register for access to FS Family Tree and record where to go to do that.

20. Learn how to Use FastStone Capture. Copy and Caption and Save an image to a flash drive. (If you don’t have a flash drive, know how to help a patron to do this.) If you wish, copy the FastStone Capture tool to your flash drive and also to your home computer for your personal use.

21. On findagrave.com -find Hans Dietrich in the Manti Cemetery in Utah.

-find James C Cahoon in the Cardston, AB Cemetery.

-try to find one of your own ancestors on this site.

22. Google: Peel’s Prairie Provinces. In the Henderson Directories for Calgary in 1912 find Thomas D Smith, living at 313 11 Ave W in the Street Index which begins on page 197. Then find him again in the Alphabetical Index which begins on Page 325. What are the two page numbers where Thomas D Smith is found?

23. Read an article from the Research Wiki. E.g. “Principles of Family History Research” or “Preserving Photographs and Documents” or “Creating a Personal Journal” or read an article relating to the locality you are researching. There are over 67,000 articles to choose from.

Each week answer a question or do an activity of your choice so that you learn something new.

CFHC Summer Discovery Club Calendar Chart

Goal: Learn and record something new each week

Unfortunately this chart can’t be shown properly in this article. It has 3 columns – headings shown below – the boxes under each heading of about 5 cm high – under the question or activity column the first item is the dates for a week e.g. Week of June 3 to 9, then Week of June 10 to 16, and so on for the summer.

Question or Activity What did I learn? How/Where to find this information

Obviously you can change the questions and activities to suit your FH Consultants. It would be great to learn something new each week throughout the summer.

The Calgary FH Centre would appreciate your suggestions to improve this project. Just put them in Comments.

Thank you to the Director and Staff of the Calgary FH Centre for sharing this with us.
!

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New Blog + Billion Graves + Spring Handout

This week’s article has 3 parts!

1. We want to announce a new blog!  pfhn.wordpress.com or http://pfhn.wordpress.com/ Why?  To provide a place to post the latest versions of handouts for Family History – I just don’t like the idea of people going home from a presentation and typing in urls from a paper handout , and focus on FH articles for the public.  So peterfh.wordpress.com remains for FH Consultants and lds topics, and pfhn.wordpress.com is for public articles and particularly handouts. You are welcome to sign up for the new blog!  Your comments and articles are welcome!
2. Did you get the FH Consultant Newsletter from FamilySearch on 27 April?  Hope so – or it means that either you haven’t registered at familysearch.org/serve aka https://www.familysearch.org/consultant/  yet or that your email program moved the message into the spam or trash file!  Did you notice the interesting news that Billion Graves data will be part of FamilySearch as of 1 May 2012?  Not familiar with Billion Graves?  Their website is http://billiongraves.com/ .  They are trying to add 1 million records in the month of May.  There is also an article in the blog at FamilySearch.org https://www.familysearch.org/blog/billiongraves/   Billion Graves is a FamilySearch affiliate product (go to the link to Products at the bottom of the page at Familysearch.org and select Web)
3. Here is the latest version of the handout we have been using at our training sessions this Spring.

Stake Family HIstory Meetings April/May 2012

1. Our purpose: To follow the Spirit and empower members to identify their ancestors, link them into families, and ensure that temple ordinances are performed for them.

Process:  Ask, Find, Teach

Clarifying questions are very important. There are 5 main places to Find answers – (1). Learn at familysearch.org, (2). Help Centre at nFS and Help at familysearch, (3).  FHCentre Director, your fellow consultants, (4).  Telephone 1-866-406-1830 or email support@familysearch.org,  (5). Weekly articles at peterfh.wordpress.com .

1. Teach Temple policy – who we do work for – 110 year rule  – help everyone understand and follow Temple Policies – refer to page 30 in Member’s Guide – First Presidency letter 29 Feb – use the Tutorials and Guides from the Help panel or Learn How to use FamilySearch from the new FamilySearch home page – quote policy don’t interpret
2. Indexing on mobile devices – IOS and Android – in beta – app seems very stable – but work done is not being rolled up into Stake statistics yet – uses “snippets” – look for icon at top of screen to see page view (so can compare lettering)
3. Helping with LDS Account problems
   1. When registering – User name – keep short – minimum 4 characters
   2. Passwords – think of a word plus a number – minimum 8 characters including at least one number
   3. Contact name – use something meaningful e.g. first initial last name
   4. Forgot username and/or password – follow Forgot? on sign in page
   5. Forgot username but no or wrong email or not available to use email – click in box and use membership number and birthdate.
   6. How to sign in to help someone else – helper access numbers – where to find them – limitations on being a helper (e.g. no discussions available) – see kd 100546 – when do you use Sign in to Help Someone Else?
   7. Update email, change username, password and access # in Update My Profile and Preferences on welcome page of nFS
4. Update on FamilySearch.org – end of Previous site coming soon?
   1. Blog link – check periodically – includes news on changes
   2. Records – search wide – then narrow with filters
   3. Trees – new options – search PRF or AF or both
   4. Books – now moved to Familysearch servers so collection can grow – and it is already larger – full text access to family histories
   5. Learn – for Research Wiki, Research Courses, and Discussion Forums
   6. Catalog – still not final version
   7. Help – be aware of options
   8. Signing in makes a difference – e.g. more images available
   9. Future of the IGI – told it will be made available again in 2013 (??)
5. Building your tree on nFS
   1. Sign in – build your tree – combine duplicates – update Summary View – find relatives needing Temple work – move to temple list – print Family Ordinance Request (FOR)
   2. Are we making any progress with “mytreeitus”?
   3. FORs – how to email – beware of old FORs
6. Family Tree (FT) -  Demo of some of the features
   1. Dilemma – not complete product yet – so must still use nFS – will this be confusing?   will names be delayed going to the temple?  Should we be learning to use it or just be aware of it?
   2. For Help Learning FT – go to FamilySearch.org click on Help and scroll down to Family Tree Help – currently there are 5 resources there: Navigating the FamilySearch Family Tree (video), Navigating the FamilySearch Family Tree (pdf), Using the FamilySearch Family Tree (pdf), Gaining Access to the FamilySearch Family Tree (pdf), Release Notes (pdf)
   3. If you want to use FT you can have it – FamilySearch need people to give feedback during development – but be cautious about who tries it.  Providing feedback with good easy-to-follow examples can help the engineers to fix problems.  Go to FamilySearch.org, click on Help and scroll down to the section on Family Tree, click on Gaining Access to the FamilySearch Family Tree (pdf) to submit a request.   …If you have questions or comments, please go to http://getsatisfaction.com/familysearch/products/familysearch_family_tree_beta .   Note: This site is described as a “beta site” but uses live data, so please be careful. It is partly “read-only”, so changes sometimes need to be made in nFS to appear in FT.
7. Keeping your own file – feel stronger than ever that this is important to do if we can – what software to use? make sure you can move data to and from nFS without re-typing it.  See list through Products link at FamilySearch.org or link on right to software on sign in page for nFS
8.   Please read our weekly article – and submit suggestions for articles and even articles themselves.  We welcome your contributions. You can subscribe to automatically receive articles.  http://peterfh.wordpress.com/  Also public notes at http://pfhn.wordpress.com

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New Look for labs.familysearch.org and Conference Update

Time to check out labs.familysearch.org if you haven’t been there recently.  The web site has been re-designed.  Some old favourites are still there and some new things are being added.

What is still there?

1.  Research Wiki – also available under Learn at Familysearch.org – “The FamilySearch Research Wiki provides free family history research advice for the community, from the community. The wiki is a free and growing resource fueled by the largest network of volunteer genealogical researchers and enthusiasts in the world.

Now is the time to join in and contribute to this free and rapidly growing resource that is available to everyone. FamilySearch invites those with expertise in genealogical research all over the world to contribute to these resources. Choose your preferred language, sign in (registration is free), and join many volunteers in making a huge difference helping others with their own family history.

The wiki is available in the following languages: Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish”

2.   Forums  – also available under Learn at Familysearch.org – “The Forums project is aimed at providing the most up to date information to anyone who uses FamilySearch products to work on their family history. Through the Forums anyone can ask questions about product features, research techniques, hints and tips, or even about specific families in specific locations. And anyone who knows the answer can reply. Come participate and give us your feedback. The more who use it the better the information.

The forums are available in the following languages: Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish.”

3.  England Jurisdictions 1851 – a great tool – do I have lots of English research?  – “The England Jurisdictions 1851 project simplifies research by consolidating data from many finding aids into a single searchable repository that can be accessed by clicking in a parish boundary. Features include contiguous parish and radius search lists and relevant jurisdictions as they existed in England in 1851. Data includes changes to parishes prior to 1851 and lists of non-conformist denominations in a parish. (requires Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, Safari 3 or newer)”

4.  Standard Finder – do you get frustrated “occasionally” by standardized place names?  This is a huge undertaking . . .  . – and actually a great project that is very helpful and getting better. Place and Preview were very interesting – didn’t realize there were so many places named Norfolk in the world.  Using this project will give you greater understanding of the project and a link to send Feedback on names that need correction! – “Standard Finder is a FamilySearch Labs application which provides access to standardized information for names, locations, and dates. These databases are used by several FamilySearch applications to assist researchers in searching for exact spellings as well as for indexers who enter information used for RecordSearch.”

5.   Community Trees – a good resource – need to know how to look at the collections – click on See Community Trees so you can browse the collections – “Community Trees are lineage-linked genealogies from specific time periods and geographic localities around the world. The information also includes the supporting sources. Most of the genealogies are joint projects between FamilySearch and others who live locally or have expertise in the area or records used to create the genealogies.”

New (or relatively new!) – as of 30 March 2012 only Submit Your Tree was available – the others are yet to arrive! :

1.  Submit your tree – I was asked to try this last summer, but just haven’t got there yet . . .  “This beta test of Submit Your Tree is an easy way to upload a GEDCOM file and compare it to millions of records that are already in new.familysearch.org. The process distinguishes between ancestors who are already in new.familysearch.org and those that are not. Once you have gone through this process, please use the orange feedback link to provide your input.”

2.   Fresh – can’t wait to see what this is going to be! – “This project represents the new face of FamilySearch for people who have never participated in their family history before.”

3.   FamilySearch Maps – “Get the help you need in person. It may be closer than you think. Search for family history around the world.”

4.  Ohio Research Assistance – OK I admit I was at first underwhelmed as I have no ancestry in Ohio, but they are developing this tool to provide research help for other areas of the world too – “We are experimenting with how to best provide research help to our users throughout the world. Our first phase is to provide research assistance to those needing help finding their ancestors in records involving the State of Ohio.”

Genealogy Conference update!

Registrations already over 200!  Don’t miss your chance to hear Gena Philibert Ortega (author, blogger Vice-President for the Southern California Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists & a Regional Director for the California State Genealogical Alliance) the keynote speaker on Friday night, Dick Eastman (Owner and writer of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and Blog) on Saturday, and attend a live webinar with Thomas MacEntee (Founder of High-Definition Genealogy and a professional genealogist specializing in the use of technology and social media to improve genealogical research)

Go to http://rdgensoc.ab.ca/conferenceindex.html for details.

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5 Minute Genealogy Series

How many videos are there in the complete 5 Minute Genealogy Series?  Answer:  25!  The final episode is now available.  These are a great introduction to Family History.

Here is a complete list of the titles in the series:

1.      Find a Record

2.      The Circle of Success

3.      Record What You Know

4.      Learn From Family

5.      Choose an Ancestor and Question

6.      Locating Your Ancestor

7.      Records – Have I Got Something for You

8.      Find a Record

9.      Using Indexes

10.   Using Name Variations to Find a Record

11.   Find Help from Others Online

12.   Learn From a Record

13.   Write It  Down

14.   Organize Your Records

15.   Evaluate the Information

16.   Share With Others

17.   What’s Next

18.   Get Help with Locations

19.   Get Help In-Person

20.   Get Help from Others Researching the Same Name

21.   Getting Help with Using Family History Products

22.   Get Help Sharing My Knowledge

23.   I Want to Interview a Living Relative

24.   I Want to Learn More About Sourcing

25.   I Want to Improve My Handwriting Skills

Where do you find the 5 Minute Genealogy videos?

1. At FamilySearch.org under Learn and then click on Getting Started.  Under the window showing Episode 1 there are thumbnails for the first 8 episodes.  There is an arrow to the right of the thumbnails that takes you to the rest of the episodes – 8 at a time!  This link also works:   http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/fr/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html
2. At FamilySearch.org under Learn and then select Research Courses.  You will see some of the episodes immediately and you can search for the rest.
3. At YouTube.com – go to the FamilySearch channel.  At YouTube you can download an episode (and not be left dependent on the Internet bandwidth when you are teaching a class!).  There are various 3rd party tools to download from YouTube.  We use http://keepvid.com/

The first eight episodes are now available in 9 other languages. Please go here to see the latest episodes:

Spanish:

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/es/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html

Portuguese:

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/po/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html

French:

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/fr/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html

Italian:

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/it/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html

German:

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/de/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html

Russian:

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/ru/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html

Chinese:

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/zh/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html

Japanese:

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/ja/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html

Korean:

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/ko/FamilySearch/5Minute/index.html

What’s Next?

·        FamilySearch are reviewing all 25 episodes, color correcting, and tightening some edits based on testing.

·        The remaining 16 episodes will be made available in all ten languages

·        Add episodes to new language sites

·        The handouts and descriptions are being translated for all languages.

Hint:  Use the Subject Language filters at FamilySearch.org to help with navigation

As always please send Feedback to FamilySearch – comments, suggestions, words of praise . . .

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FamilySearch.org Update January 2012 and Rootstech 2012

FamilySearch.org continues to get better and better!  On or about January 26 there was an update to the website – how do they do that while we are all still using the site?  Please note an update to the website is different from the frequent almost weekly additions of data and images.

What changed?

1. Main Search Screen.  There were changes in the wording of the search screens on the main page at FamilySearch.org, which allows you to search in the collection of Historical records.
2. Browse by Collection (lower part of main screen). Canada now has its own link!  This should save time when you are trying to get to Canadian Historical Record collections.  Similarly there is a new direct link to the United Kingdom.  The All Record Collections link has been moved to the top of the list.
3. Books.  Clicking on the Books tab on the main page takes you to the new FamilySearch Books search rather than the old link which took you to the BYU Books Collection.  There was problems with capacity on the BYU servers so the collection has been moved and additional books have already been added – there are now over 40,000 digitized FH books.  There are also improvements to the search tools. Please try searching for your main family names.
4. Trees.  Take the link to Trees from the main page and you see that the search screen for Trees has undergone major changes.  Most important is the ability to select if you want to search in the Ancestral File, or the Pedigree Resource File (PRF) or both!
5. Uploads to Trees. There is a new link to upload GEDCOMs on the Trees page.  This will shortly replace the old upload to PRF link on the previous FamilySearch.org site (i.e. the old version of FamilySearch.org).   FamilySearch.org has more names in the PRF collection than the old FamilySearch website, and provides more information on the names in PRF including sources – it is no longer just an index.  FamilySearch is discontinuing the distribution of PRF on disk.

What is the Ancestral File (AF)?

A collection of 40 million names submitted to FamilySearch between 1979 and 2003.  See the article in the FamilySearch Research wiki  https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Ancestral_File for more information

What is the Pedigree Resource File (PRF)?

Collection of genealogies submitted to FamilySearch since 1999 in GEDCOM format.  PRF includes some sources which makes it different from AF.  The collection on FamilySearch.org contains over 200 million records (compared to 120 million on the old version of FamilySearch). Initially the information was shared on CD and then later submissions were shared on DVD.  There are about 150 disks. FamilySearch is discontinuing the distribution on disk.  For more information go to the FamilySearch Research Wiki https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Pedigree_Resource_File

What is a GEDCOM?

An  ”acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunications. GEDCOM is a data structure created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for storing and exchanging genealogical information so that many different computer programs can use it. It is identified by the file type “.ged”.” See the wiki article for the rest of the information on GEDCOMs.   https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/GEDCOM

Rootstech Sessions available live online!

We hope that you got the notice that 14 sessions of the Rootstech conference being held in Salt Lake City on Feb 2 to 4 will be broadcast live!!!  Go to http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=b0de542dc933cfcb848d187ea&id=e0eae27d25&e=1944fc8d1d for details.

If you didn’t get the notice please go to familyseach.org/serve and make sure that you are registered as a consultant, FH Centre Director or priesthood leader so that you are on the email list to receive updates from FamilySearch.

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Recent changes at FamilySearch.org (as of 19 November 2011)

Used to be in the old days (?? – a year or 2 ago!) that we looked forward to updates to nFS every 3 months and a nicely written summary of the changes.  For the past year the focus of changes has shifted to FamilySearch.org.  Besides additions of data – which seem to be almost weekly – there are usually monthly updates to the website.  The What’s New at FamilySearch link gives details of the updates on 24 Sept.  There is no mention of the updates in October . . .  and yes I have used Feedback to ask them to provide us with a summary (if you miss the articles too, maybe you can send feedback?).  In the meantime here are some of the updates we have noticed.  If you have noticed other changes not on this list then please add a comment.

1. The main page has changed – don’t panic!  – everything is still there but some things are in different places.  There is an effort underway to make the web site easier to use for beginning genealogists.
2. Where are the What’s New articles?  Click on the link to Blog at the top of the page, look to the right under the heading Categories, and there is a link to What’s New at FamilySearch (currently 73 articles).   Articles you might want to look at might include Feature Changes at FamilySearch.org as of 14 Sept 2011, Searching at FamilySearch (12 June 2011) and “Nine Powerful Search Features in the FamilySearch Search Engine” by PBDunn (in April 2011).  Note the link to What’s New at the bottom of the main page is not What’s New at FamilySearch!
3. Icons and messages on links to images in Historical records have changed.     Now gives a better explanation of how to get to the image.
4. Images are no longer in Flash – iphone and ipad users can access them.  Features still need to be added to the image viewer (in our opinion).
5. Changes to the Learning Centre at FamilySearch.org – that’s the official title for the Learn section!  Getting started is a link to the 5 minute genealogy videos.  The Learning Centre also has links to Forums, Research wiki, and Research Courses.
6. There are links from Ancestral File or Pedigree Resource File entries to the nFS tree now at FamilySearch.org when you search in Trees.  If you are signed in to FamilySearch.org and search for an ancestor in Trees and find someone who is also in the nFS Tree there is a link provided that takes you directly to that person in nFS.
7. Sources and notes for Pedigree Resource File (PRF) have been added on Trees at FamilySearch.org.  PRF is after the Ancestral File listing – and we still don’t see an easy way to just get to the PRF results – hopefully that will soon be coming.

Bottom line – FamilySearch offers more resources than ever before.  We need to embrace changes and improvements especially those that help people new to Family History.

It is true that we “believe in continuous revelation as long as it does not involve change.”  (Richard Condie,  A Disposition to Do Good Continually, Ensign August 2001)

Please remember that training materials are available at familysearch.org/serve.  There are new videos!

Hope you got the news from FamilySearch this week?  (if not maybe you aren’t registered at familysearch.org/serve ?)  Thank you and farewell to Jay Verkler who has been CEO of FamilySearch for the past 10 years, and welcome to Dennis Brimhall who becomes CEO in early January 2012.

Did you know that you can now follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pldarbyfh ?  We are using Twitter to post any items that come up during the week.  We are learning new things too!

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Using and Contributing to the FamilySearch Wiki

The Research Wiki at familysearch.org is a great tool.  It is like an encyclopedia for how to do research!  Click on the Learn link at the top of the main page at familysearch.org and scroll down to the Research Wiki link.   Over 64000 articles!   . . .  and you can also help with editing and contributing!

For example:  Type in Canada Census and click Enter (or Return), select the top article “Canada Census,” and you get a very helpful article on the Canada Census including the date when each census was taken.  There is also a section on Canadian Censuses Online with links to the actual sites.

Would you like to learn more about how to use the Research Wiki?  Try these links

https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Help:Tour

https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Help:Wiki_Basics

Would you like to learn how to contribute to the wiki?

https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Help:Edit_and_Contribute

Take advantage of the mentoring program to help new contributors:

https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/FamilySearch_Wiki:Mentors

Next to the Research Wiki on the Learn link are over 300 research courses and also a link to the Forums where you can post specific research questions.

Now you can follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pldarbyfh

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Access to Images for the Canadian 1901 and 1916 Censuses

If you do FH research in Canada perhaps you should mark your calendars for 19 December 2011

Thank you to Bill who made us aware of the following knowledge document (kd) in the Help Centre at Family Search (hint:  just put in the kd number and then search).

105681

 Known Issues for Canadian 1901 and 1916 censuses in Historical Records

Symptoms (Problems):

• The Canadian 1916 Census is no longer available at the Historical Records site.
• When will the Canadian 1916 and 1901 censuses be available to the public?

Answer (Resolution):

The Canadian 1916 and 1901 censuses are not available on Historical Records at this time due to contractual obligations with The Generations Network (TGN). The contract specifies that the index, with links to the images, will be made freely available to the general public on December 19, 2011.

In the meantime, the collections will be available for free to the public through 4,500 FamilySearch family history centers worldwide. Qualified FamilySearch members will also have free home access as soon as FamilySearch implements a new authentication process.

FamilySearch is also indexing pre-1900 Canada census indexes that have no contractual access restrictions and will be free to the public immediately upon completion.

For further research on the Canadian censuses, visit the FamilySearch Wiki page https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Canada_Census.

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BYU FH Conf 2011 – a few gleanings

The conference was wonderful – there were over 600 people in attendance – I thought about each of you and wondered how I could share what I learned . . . .  then I realized that you are all on holiday and probably don’t want to know right now – so I had better keep this short!

There were thunderstorms the first 3 evenings I was in Provo including one quite violent storm – so I felt right at home!

1. Familysearch is trying to bring all data sets and tools into one place – this first version feels a little stitched together – 2nd version being mapped out now will allow parts to talk to each other.  Some products built on old technology e.g. fs.org almost 15 years old, record search could not be scaled up .  There are 2.25 billion records on the new site so far – and growing.
2. Images owned by various organizations – will shortly indicate if there is an image freely available or where it is available if not for free.  Current image viewer built on Flash – will be replaced in a few months with one built in HTML
3. FamilySearch.org has added Pedigree Resource File (PRF) to the Trees tab – and not the 100 million records that are on the old FamilySearch.org but after eliminating the living there are about 200 million records in the collection on the new site.  At the moment searches for the PRF are mixed in with searches for Ancestral File (AF) – but expect that to change in the future – it would be good to send Feedback suggesting the kinds of filters you would like.  I attended a session with one of the engineers working on the search engine.  They are working hard to continue to improve the product and appreciate our Feedback.
4. Search tips for Familysearch historical records – down arrow on right in list of search results to see a preview within the results list.  See articles on searching posted on this blog on 12 and 19 June 2011.
5. Historical records collections are being added to almost weekly – keep encouraging the indexing!  Now 681 collections.  Tip:  if you browse collections did you know you can sort any of the 3 columns by clicking in the column heading!  So you can sort by Records or by Last updated or by Title.
6. Catalog at familysearch.org continues to be improved – data is all there now but the design in not finalized – send Feedback – when get a results page it tells you how many items in each result and clicking on one of the results creates a drop down preview within the results list so you can easily go back.
7. maps.familysearch.org – continues to be a great product for those of us researching England (cry your heart out if you are researching other countries!).  I noticed during the conference that they now have a view that uses the UK Ordnance Survey maps – look for OS map button on upper right.
8. Rootsmagic news – I asked Bruce Buzbee if they were going to create a Macintosh version of Rootsmagic.  He said that they are awaiting the release of a mac compiler from their software tool company and then would be working on a mac version.  Reasonable estimate of public release is one year from now!  Meanwhile Rootsmagic have a great article on how to run Rootsmagic on mac (go to Rootmagic.com and the support and search for mac).  They offer several ways to do this.
9. Please consider and encourage the use of the FamilySearch Research classes in your FHC.  You can find the ever growing list at Learn and then the link to Research Classes in the lower centre.  I can see this being done very effectively by inviting a group of people to a lesson in the FHC – watching the lesson together and then discussing parts of it.  Is pop corn allowed in a FHC for the first part?  Perhaps the list of possible lessons could be circulated and people could select the ones they are interested in and then you could schedule them for the group.

Great keynote presentations!  They flew in Joshua Taylor from the New England Historic  Genealogical Society.  You don’t want to know how young he is!  He helped with some of the Who Do You Think You Are tv shows – and shared some experiences.  He showed some pictures behind the scenes during the making of the Ashley Judd episode.

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Resource to help with teaching the Temple and FH Course

We are pleased to meet many of you who are teaching the Temple and Family History Course (aka the 7 “basic lessons”).  We were just discussing how to supplement  the materials at a recent training session!

Then I came across the following link:

http://familyhistory.byu.edu/

There is a lot of interesting and useful material on this BYU site!  For the moment don’t be distracted by all these good things,  just scroll down to Family History Companion.  Click on this link!

“Welcome to the Family History Guide Companion!

The purpose of this course is to supplement the Member’s Guide published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by providing additional resources, insights, and information on how to access information that can be used in compiling your family history and provide the necessary ordinances for their salvation. We hope that the material presented here will also help you to come to know who your ancestors are as people and individuals.

In order to get the most out of this class, there will be assignments outside of class. The best way to effectively learn how to do family history research is to actually do research. Therefore, you will be asked to select a family or individual that you wish to come to know and find information about in order to provide temple ordinances. Once this family or individual is selected, there will be simple things that we will ask you to do to successfully find information about them.

We have been asked of the Lord, “Let us, therefore, as a church and a people, and as Latter-day Saints, offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness; and let us present in his holy temple, when it is finished, a book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation.” (D&C 128:24.)

We hope to be able to help you successfully accomplish family history research in a way that is pleasing unto the Lord, to your ancestors, and to you.”

Each lesson has:

• Additional Resources
• Additional Insight
• Suggested Additional Assignments
• Handout

Of course these are only suggestions – but we hope you find something helpful!

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Addendum – FHC wiki pages

Try the Riverbend EdmontonFHC wiki page  - go to FamilySearch.org, click on learn, then search for FHC Riverbend – the one and only result will lead you to the Alberta Edmonton Riverbend FHC wiki page.  Congratulations to Lonni, Bill, and everyone at Riverbend

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