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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Putting our FAMILY in Family History – The First Annual Raymond Stake “Family” Family History Fair

Last weekend we had the pleasure of attending and helping with the Raymond Stake Family History Fair.  We thought this was a very very successful event which other stakes might want to try.  The Raymond Stake has been kind enough to share their plan with us.  About 150 people attended the Fireside and over 160 people attended the classes on Saturday.  The lunch of soup, whole wheat bread, cookies, and apple crumble (made from dried apples) was delicious.  Obviously a lot of planning and preparation went into the event and we have included some of the outlines. Another element that made the event so successful was the large number of presenters and helpers from organizations throughout the stake.   Congratulations Raymond Stake!

The following is an extract of their outline for the fair.  Please contact us if you need a complete copy of the outline and contact information for the FH leaders in the Raymond Stake.

On Friday evening, April 20^th and during the day, Saturday April 21^st, The Raymond Stake will host a Family History Fair, centered in Family History activities that we can do as families.

Our Goals

• Help our stake families to understand their ancestors and how they contribute to who and what we are today
• Provide family centered activities to help us learn about and enjoy our family backgrounds and history
• Show what is available and build interest within our Stake in family history and genealogy work

The Format

Our fair will be in two parts. It will begin with a family fireside on Friday evening at 7:00 pm at the Stake Center Chapel. Peter & Linda Darby, our Area Family History Advisors, will be the speakers. During the day Saturday we will host a “drop in” smorgasbord of family centered Family History activities at the Stake Centre and Cultural Hall. This will begin at 9 am and continue till around 4:30 pm. Attendees will be able to choose from a range of concurrent activities, classes, displays and programs, each one repeating 6 times, at 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 1:30, 2:30, and 3:30. Some of the activities may require a previous signup with designated times for attending. Others will be “free form” and “drop in”. All will be designed for entire families to participate in. Each will take about 45 minutes, and allow 5 to 10 minutes for questions after, and 5 minutes to move the group out and a new one in. Lunch will be provided in the Cultural Hall between 12:30 and 1:30 (the Stake Emergency Preparedness group will be handling this so it could be interesting as well as filling).

The planned activities and their coordinating/sponsoring High Priests groups are: 

#1 – Build Your Family Tree and put it on your mantle, save it for a rainy day. (1^st Ward)

#2 – How can I write a journal when I can’t even write a note? (4^th Ward)

#3 – Can I really learn anything useful from my grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles? (7^th Ward)

#4 – What is indexing and do I need a dictionary to do it? (5^th Ward)

#5 – What does our family stand for, how are we unique, and where did we get our family traditions, traits, habits, recipes and all these things that make us who we are? (3^rd Ward)

#6 – How were the lives of our ancestors different from ours, and how were they similar (9^th Ward)

#7 – What is this whole NewFamilySearch thing, why is it “new” and is my family really lost enough that I need to be searching for it? (8^th Ward)

#8 – I’ve got all these old photos and artifacts and stuff – are they good for anything and if so, how can I save and use them? (6^th Ward)

#9 – What’s at the Family History Centre and what can it do for my family? (2^nd Ward)

There will be two additional activities that are not repeating “classes” but will be more of a service booth approach:

#10 – “The Doctors are IN” – what FH problems can we help you solve? (Area FH Advisors)

#11 – Haven’t registered for new FamilySearch yet? – Here is your chance – (Stake Clerk and FHC Staff)

What’s next

We are working with the High Priest Group Leaders to define and refine the activities and help find ways to make them whole family experiences. Someone has been assigned to coordinate a publicity campaign and we will all keep reinforcing in a positive way that this is a “Family” Family History event. We also plan to have family history related displays in the Cultural Hall and North Stake Centre foyers, – posters, materials, some artifacts and such.

Please contact (member of HC or FHC Directors) with suggestions, feedback and ideas.

 

Putting our FAMILY in Family History – April 21, 2012

Activity #1 – Build Your Family Tree (and put it on your mantle) – First Ward

Message – Families are made of real people who are connected in ways we can understand

Activity Description – As a family, talk about what a family tree is. Families can make a physical family tree that can be taken home and displayed, and can also register and receive a fanchart printout showing 9 generations of their family ancestors.

Target Group – Families with younger children for the physical tree and any family for the fanchart

Coordinator – 1^st Ward High Priests

Possible assisting organization – Stake Primary people and ward people as needed

What we need

• A simple way that people can select pieces, put names on them and construct a tree form showing their family relationships
• Some posters and discussion points or illustrations about relationships, what they are called and how they fit together
• A computer and printer setup to load and print fancharts from the NewFamilySearch website

The Take-home – an individual family tree, a visual reminder of how and who makes up our family

 

Activity #3 – Can I really learn anything new or useful from my grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles? – Seventh Ward

Message – Our ancestors and their experiences can be a blessing to us, but only if we know who they are and what they did. We can find these things out by talking to them about their lives and keeping notes or a recording in some way

Activity Description – Examples of Q and A family firesides, possibly a church video on interviewing, ask some of the questions and get the answers, talk about recording with ink and ipods

Target Group – Families with living relatives (that’s most of us)

Coordinator – 7^th Ward High Priests

Possible assisting organization – Stake YW, YM

What we need

• Illustrations of things learned from our progenitors and family members
• An opportunity to interview someone about a specific event as a learning process
• Discussion and examples about ways to preserve an interview
• A real interview with a family member about some significant event – marriage, first child, mission

The Take-home – a better knowledge of a family event or member and an understanding of how to find out about other events that have meaning from our past

 

Activity #4 – What is indexing and do I need a dictionary to do it? – Fifth Ward

Message – Indexing can be fun and it blesses us all – it is a powerful way to help Family History efforts

Activity Description – A presentation/demonstration about indexing along with actual involvement in indexing records

Target Group – All, with some emphasis on the “gadgetized” youth

Coordinator – 5^th Ward High Priests

Possible assisting organization – Stake Indexing director

What we need

• A location with a computer or two, a large monitor or projector and internet access
• Some demonstrations and illustrations about  the Church indexing program and why it helps us
• Discussion about the youth site at LDS.Org/youth/family-history
• Demonstrations on a smartphone/iphone and/or a tablet
• Some fairly easy record sets to work with
• Those taking this class will need their membership number and birth date if they are not registered already

The Take-home – an understanding of indexing and its importance in family history work

 

Activity #9 – What is at the Family History Centre and what can it do for my family? – Second Ward

Message – Tools, resources and training for our research needs can be found at the FHC

Activity Description – Show what is available at the FHC and what help we can receive there

Target Group – all

Coordinator – 2^nd Ward High Priests

Possible assisting organization – Family History Directors

What we need

• Sample setups from the FHC, one computer workstation, one microfilm reader, one microfiche reader, internet
• A presentation/discussion about what you can do at home and what you can do at the Center
• Illustrations of ways the FHC can complement family research at home

The Take-home – an understanding of where a Family History centre can help a family in their Family History program.

 

 

 

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1940 US Census and 1921 Canada Census

On 2 April 2012 the 1940 US Census was made available and the rush began to both make the images available and create an index to the images.  They are going state by state, so parts of it – at least some images – should already be available.  Want to help?  Go to
https://the1940census.com
for information in how to help FamilySearch with the indexing.

As Canadians we must be feeling a least a little envy for our American cousins getting access to new genealogical information, so I was pleased to read in Dick Eastman’s Online Genealogical Newsletter –
http://blog.eogn.com
/ 29 March entry – about the 1921 Canada Census.  He reminds us that in Canada we have to wait 92 years before the census information becomes available, and that only means the data is transferred to Library and Archives Canada – which will happen on 1 June 2013.  Let’s hope LAC is able to make the information available as soon as possible as they promise. No word on a timeline yet.  For more information read the LAC blog at
http://thediscoverblog.com/2012/03/27/1921-census-countdown/
.  8 3/4 million people in the census!  The prairie provinces population grew 47% since the 1911 census!  Should be exciting for the Canadian researcher.

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Follow up to Rootstech 2012

Rootstech 2012 is over!  Did you get to go?  We didn’t!  I am told that there were over 4000 people in attendance – an increase from the 3000 last year.  Would any of you who attended please share what you learned in the comments field.

Even those who didn’t attend were able to participate.  There were an unprecendented 14 sesssions broadcast live.  For many of the live sessions the handouts were available online.

If you missed the main events you can:

1. Go to Rootstech.org.  Individual videos are going to be added.  There is already a link download of the entire syllabus (go to Downloads) which is 82 MB!  Or you can select the syllabus for individual sessions.
2. Go to Dick Eastman’s Online Newsletter.
   http://blog.eogn.com/
     He had summaries of each day of Rootstech. By the way do you realize that Dick will be speaking at the joint AGS/AFHS Conference in Red Deer on April 13 and 14? (Go to
   http://rdgensoc.ab.ca/registration.html
     for more information)
3. The Ancestry Insider also reported on Rootstech
   http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com/
   

There is another way to catch up on Rootstech!  There is a free app for iphones/ipods/ipads and a version for Android devices! The app has a very original name – Rootstech.  Although the app was designed to use during Rootstech it gives you more access to news, and summaries of the keynote addresses – I haven’t explored all the links yet!

Rootstech was used as the opportunity to release the beta version of an app to do indexing!  This is available for both ipod/ipad/iphone (IOS) and Android mobile devices!  It is a beta so I don’t know if I would rush out and share with everyone right now, but I was very impressed with the features and stability of the app.

Some of you might wonder just how good it is to do indexing on a mobile device.  I installed it and tried it on my ipad.  I was very impressed.  After you sign in check the settings – just so you know what they are . . . All I got on the screen was the image of someone’s first name and last name.  I typed this in and clicked submit.  I missed seeing the name in context of the rest of the page and being able to see other words on the page to help with handwriting recognition.  Then I looked at the top of the screen and saw 2 icons – one of which looked like a page.  I clicked on it and got the whole page with the ease of zooming in and out any time I wanted to.  Then I just toggled between name and seeing whole document.  Maybe this was in the instructions?  Maybe I am just a slow learner?  i never did get to the end of a batch.  The names kept coming and coming and coming.  I had to stop so I could write this article so I just Signed out!   When I felt guilty and signed back in the names just seemed to continue from where I left off.  I have a lot more to learn about mobile indexing!  The App has a lot more features than you first realize – and seemed excellent.

The following information on the app was provided in the app by FamilySearch:

“This mobile app is expected to complement the FamilySearch indexing program, which has been operating since 2006. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world have contributed their time to index genealogical records using the FamilySearch indexing desktop software. Today there are more than 2.5 billion freely searchable names in the familysearch.org database, thanks largely to their efforts. Your mobile contribution to this effort, however large or small, is greatly appreciated. To ensure quality and accuracy, the system compares your work with answers from other volunteers until a “consensus” is reached.

While you use the same account information as you would when using the desktop indexing program, it is not necessary to have the desktop program in order to use this app. This beta app is in its early stages of development and is not yet fully integrated into the indexing system. So, if you also index using standard FamilySearch indexing, your contributions and points from using this app will not be displayed in your history in the desktop program. We plan to include this integration in future versions.

In this version of the app, you may see image snippets from collections that have already been indexed or from new collections. Reusing previously indexed snippets will help us determine the quality of results from this app and make future improvements to the system.

If you have questions or suggestions, or if you experience problems with the app, please e-mail us at indexing@familysearch.org.”

Try it – share your experiences!

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FamilySearch Facts as of 16 Sept 2011

The people at FamilySearch are very busy helping us with our Family History.  We like to share up to date facts about the FamilySearch web sites and were very pleased when FamilySearch shared the following information with us this week.  Aren’t these amazing numbers! – and new collections are being added so often!

1.     # of searchable names from original source records in FamilySearch.org’s Historical Records Collections: Over 2.3 billion

2.     There are 707 historic record collections at FamilySearch.org

3.     # of browsable digital images at FamilySearch.org: 312 million

4.     # of hits on FamilySearch.org: Over 10 million hits per day.

5.     FamilySearch Indexing is the largest community-based transcription initiative in the world.

·         Over 125, 000 active (index at least oneproject/year) volunteer indexers.

·         Indexing 400,000 arbitrated names per day.

·         Over 500 million names indexed since the application was launched in 2005.

·         Publishing over 200 million indexed names per year now (double entered, arbitrated).

·         Over 100 current projects. New projects added weekly. See the current lists of projects at Indexing.FamilySearch.org.

·         Search completed indexes and un-indexed images at FamilySearch.org.

·         Indexing program is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish with more language interfaces and international projects coming.

·         Greatest need is for native language indexers for international projects.

·         Many partners—historical societies, state, national, and religious archives—use it to improve access to or accuracy of their indexes.

6.     2.4 million rolls of microfilm

7.     FamilySearch is producing over 160 million new digital images a year from original source documents.

a.     100 million digital images a year created through microfilm conversion

b.     60 million new digital images produced a year from new field captures.

8.     15 high speed scanners are dedicated to converting existing films. Time to complete the digitization of the film collection is projected at 6 years.

9.     185 camera teams currently filming records in 45 countries (new field captures). Most are digital cameras.

10.  Search digital images and indexes at FamilySearch.org. Millions added weekly.

11.  4,600 Family History Centers in 126 countries

12.  Scanning digital books in cooperation with select public libraries.

a.     Over 65,000 scanned titles to-date.

b.    These collections will be added to FamilySearch.org in the future. Some are available now at FamilySearch.org under the link Books.  See Labs.familysearch.org to try a new interface.

Thank you to FamilySearch for sharing this information with us!

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Creating Change Together

BYU FH Conf 2011 Day 3  (see end of article for links to “official” conference documents – the truth!  not just my rough notes!)

Notes from the keynote presentation by

Ransom Love , FamilySearch Senior VP Strategic Relationships.  He deals with global responsibilities  and relationships.

Change is always constant – even though we don’t always like it!

Types of archives:

- Private

- Government

- Religious

Problems facing records access

- lack of resources  – governments cut those who have the least voice – easiest to cut – e.g. Georgia State archives no longer publicly accessible – sometimes can’t even accommodate volunteers coming in – laws sometimes block helping archives – may not be allowed to take donations

- demand for digital access – immediately! no thought of cost to do it

- digital preservation – no global solutions – but they like what FamilySearch is doing! – governments don’t understand what is needed – so some are moving digital back to film to preserve it and losing meta data.  Millions of records today are being born digital – no paper copy – no back up – what are they going to do?

Technology does not drive change – it enables change

Change is an opportunity

Key answers:

1. Community – bring resources together – technology is enabling collaboration
2. Raise awareness of the value of record collections to the public
3. Become aware of the needs of the archives – some places in the world it is almost tragic – e.g. in parts of africa
4. Influencing legislation – make them more beneficial to records preservation
5. Communicate best practices
6. Collaborate about standards and support systems
7. Communicate on volunteer recruitment – experiment with volunteer payment methodologies i.e. sponsoring digitization and preservation
8. Collaboration with commercial companies – current model used by FamilySearch includes where records they are held for a fee for a few years and then free
9. “Digitize or Die” – belief of many archivists -

FamilySearch Solutions

Leverage technology developing and make available to community

1. Capture – assigning cameras to an archive – but if a few cameras in a big archive this could take over 100 years! – cameras expensive ( c 20K a system) – got to find a better way to capture – simpler, cheaper, done by volunteers
2. Transcription – make tool more robust – so archives could take hosted solution and use it for themselves – need to get records of interest to get many to participate
3. Hosting – provide them the software and server to put records up – alternative in situation where a church based in America is asking to take copies of records where it is not acceptable to take the records to Salt Lake, “putting them in a cave and . . . “
4. Preservation – cost is overwhelming – we will build the infrastructure and then make it available to the world – for genealogical data could be free – or done at cost

Opportunities to assist

1. FamilySearch wiki – when hearts are turned to their fathers people become better people – need to involve the world – motivate people to do something – donate time and labour to build a community – share expertise in a given area of research
2. Bringing it all together – US 1940 census about to be released – so need to work with national and state archivists, societies, commercial companies, and volunteers to make census indexed and available.  Are there similar opportunities in other countries?
3. Regional Indexing Efforts – e.g. Catholic Seminary students in Venezuela being trained by familysearch to index their own records (showed photo).  EFY group in Mexico.
4. International projects – Italian civil registration project just signed after 4 years of negotiation – need help to get them indexed – records include descriptive paragraph of who attended event.  Guatemala civil registration project
5. Regional digitization centers – 5 cameras at national archives – would take 120 years  – what if we had 100s of cameras staffed by volunteers – now would take 8 years

Seek out records and opportunities – contact legislatures to fund archives

Trying to create community of archives

Embrace digital preservation

- metadata – very valuable – most expensive component – will be lost if filmed

- Open, standard tools and services – lower cost – pay cost only

Together we can overcome problems facing records access – and ride the wave of change . . .

“My belief is that the Lord is going to create a wave.  We don’t need to create, stimulate or manipulate the wave – we need to know how to ride the wave” – actually paraphrasing President Eyring

Been approached by China – in culture of China need to pay homage to ancestors – jia pu (jia pu is a record of a clan’s history and lineage) – government tried banning – so people hid jia pu – now government realize youth have no ties – used to have rituals leading to ancestors who then had a choice of accepting or not! – familysearch has 2nd large collection of jia pu in the world – so China asking for help – no sure what what will happen

(For more information on the BYU FH Conference 2011 go to:

http://familyhistoryconferences.byu.edu

2. Click on the Conference on Family History & Genealogy

3. At the bottom of the homepage, there are listed who the keynote speakers were and under each is the link to see their presentation notes.

4. Or on the left side of the website, there is a link titled, “Keynote Presentations”. Click on that and it will take you to see the presentations.

As of August 10  the written keynote presentation by Elder Dennis Simmons (Day 1) and the slides from D. Joshua Taylor’s presentation (day 2)  have been posted on our website and are now available for you to access! Ransom Love’s notes (day 3) on his presentation will be coming soon!)

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Items on Indexing, and familysearch.org

The following are from a recent newsletter from the Area Advisers in Salt Lake City – we are grateful to them for sharing with us!

“INDEXING
Recently we had a stake president ask us how he could get a report of Indexing for his stake. . . .  We wonder how many other stakes are wondering. To resolve this, he needed to contact the High Councilor in his stake assigned to temple and family history work and who is also assigned to oversee family record extraction. He can have access to the reports for his stake.

Another individual who can help is the stake indexing director. He or she has access to the report for his stake and can furnish this information.

The reports available are: Stake Statistics, Ward Statistics, Contributor statistics, Non-contributors, and also stake and ward directory. Some of these reports are available for the previous year, so you can make a comparison on how well you are doing this year compared to last year.

Stakes who have a close relationship with the high councilor, ward leaders, and the stake indexing director have better success with this program.”

FamilySearch.org

“Online Courses

FamilySearch now has over 140 free online courses available to help you learn basic methods and resources to help you with your family history! New ones are continually being added.  To learn about how online courses can help you, click on

https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/FamilySearch_Online_Family_History_Research_Lessons
  (or click the link to Free Courses under the heading Learn at the bottom left of the home page at FamilySearch.org)

These online classes feature courses for Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Mexico, Russia, England and the United States. Many general interest courses are found in the section, Research principles and Tools. Some are perfect for beginners, like “Genealogy Boot Camp” and “If I’d Only Known”.

FamilySearch Forums (- at FamilySearch.org click on Help then Community Assistance)

What is a forum? A forum is an online discussion site for the community to ask and answer questions or to list information others might be interested in. What better opportunity do you have to search for answers, post a question, or enter into a discussion category about your family history research?

When you view or create a discussion or question, it is known as a thread.ˇ A reply to a thread is called a post

Anyone can view information in the forum. The good news is, as of April 11th, you can log in to the FamilySearch Forums with your FamilySearch or LDS Account. (This is the last FamilySearch website in English to switch to the new user account system.)”

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Two Timely Items: Indexing and Church Missions

 

1.  Indexing – we are grateful for all the increased efforts with Indexing across the stakes in our area.  We don’t want you to slow down – so we hope you got the following information on a 2 day closure of Indexing – and please share this with anyone who asks – and reassure anyone who wonders what is happening:

“Recently so many volunteers have been coming to participate in this worldwide indexing effort that we’ve been experiencing some growing pains. The time it takes to sign in, and download and submit batches has increased significantly on some days. We apologize to any of you who felt your time was wasted during the longer waits, but we are excited that so many people want to join us in this indexing initiative.

This year is already a milestone year, and our indexing community has been doing such great work that we’ve decided to give everyone a couple of days off! Starting Monday, March 7, at 11:00 PM (MST, GMT-7) the indexing system will be down for approximately 48 hours. No batches can be downloaded or submitted while the system is down.

During this time, we will be moving our computer servers to a new data center with newer and bigger hardware. This will allow us to accommodate a heavier workload and keep up with all of the great work that is happening on a weekly basis.

For those who want to continue indexing during the downtime, you may download up to 10 batches before the shutdown, work on them offline, and then submit them when the system is back up.

There is a possibility that we won’t need the full 48 hours to complete the move. We will send another e-mail when the system is back up. We hope that everyone will join us again at that time, refreshed and ready to continue this milestone year.

FamilySearch indexing is the largest indexing initiative in the world. Hundreds more volunteers are signing up every day. We thank you for your patience as we’ve experienced some growing pains. We hope this move to a new location will help everyone have a more enjoyable experience while indexing.

For questions or concerns, please contact FamilySearch support.”

2.  Church Missions – there is an urgent need for more part time Church Service Missionaries in the Family History area.  Please look around – maybe even look in the mirror!  You need to be available for at least 15 hours a week to serve from home.  The following article from the Miller’s Newsletter in New England gives more information:

What Do Family History Missionaries Do?

If you’ve wondered about Family History missionary activities you can serve – from your home, here are some thoughts on what it is like.  Our appreciation to Elder Winston G. Allred, coordinator of Family Search Field missionaries, for providing information.

FamilySearch missionaries help patrons bring families together so temple ordinances can be provided.  FamilySearch missionaries are called to serve in one of five different groups:

Product support: The main focus of this group is the new FamilySearch.  Potential missionaries should have experience in the operations and purpose of FamilySearch.org.

Indexing support: Over 100,000 people around the world are helping to index millions of records so they can be searched online.  Members who have experience in indexing and arbitration will enjoy this calling.

Research support: Patrons can talk to a qualified missionary and ask for guidance and direction in their efforts to research their ancestors.  In addition, missionaries monitor the FamilySearch Wiki and familysearch Forums, making comments as needed.

Historical Records: FamilySearch contains millions of records.  Missionaries serving in this group should be familiar with and know how to utilize these records.

Family History Center support: Directors and staff members in the thousands of centers will call these missionaries with questions about policies, procedures and equipment.

All of their training, their service and support, including spiritual support is conducted online over the internet as these missionaries serve in their home.  It is important for potential missionaries to contact the FamilySearch Missionary Coordinator to explore the area they can be called to serve in and arrange to have their internet and computer capabilities assessed.  The FamilySearch Missionary Coordinator can be contacted by calling 800-453-3860 ext. 20850 or by email at mission@familysearch.org.

 

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Area FH Newsletter February 2011

1. Ancestry.com. If you notice that your FHCentre Director has a larger smile than normal . . . perhaps it is at least partly due to the announcement that the library edition of Ancestry.com is available in all FHCs!!!  The announcement was sent out on Feb 8.  Ancestry.com is available in the FHC Portal under Premium Subscription services.
2. Leader’s Guide to Temple and Family History – Turn the Hearts The guide is available on lds.org.  Go to Menu then Serving in the Church then Melchizedek Priesthood then Leader Resources then scroll down.  The guide will be officially printed and distributed with a DVD in a few months.  Lots of wonderful information in the guide – and for those of you graphically inclined – there are lots of pictures and quotes! You will also notice as you go to the Leader’s Guide on the lds.org web site that there is an online interactive version of the new Handbook 2 Administering the Church.
3. nFS Training Site Please remember not to put test, trial or ficticious information to nFS.  When you want to use try out features or teach, then use the training.familysearch.org web site which has only ficticious information.  Treat it as your sandbox!
4. nFS Reference Manual Did you know there is a 71 page reference manual for nFS?  You can find it if you go to the Help Center, then Training and Resources then click on More in the area titled Training and Other Helpful Resources.   On the title page it says “This manual is intended to be used with the new FamilySearch User’s Guide and information available in the Help Center.”    The Reference Manual is considerably shorter than the User Guide. There is a link for Feedback. MIA
5. How do you find PAF on new version of familysearch.org? Click on Learn at top of screen and search for Software.  Look for item PAF and Other Genealogy Software (usually number 3 on the list of results).  At the end of the first paragraph in the article there is a link (Click Here) to get the download.
6. Indexing Please continue to encourage indexing.  Great progress was made last year, but there is much more to be done. The scanning of microfilms is ahead of the indexing.  Great to invite your friends and neighbours to do!  Did my first batch on a Mac this past week.  Worked just fine.
7. Webinars There are lots of really good webinars available to help us learn.  Recently I came across some on the Legacy Family Tree site to help with Indexing! If you are new to indexing, please watch Jim Ericson’s introductory webinar first at
   http://www.millenniacorp.com/_videos/webinars/20101006fsindexing/indexing.html
   .  if you go to 
   http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/Webinars.asp
   , to see the archived webinars you will find one which includes tips and tricks for experienced indexers.  There are more webinars at
   http://rootsmagic.com/Webinars/
   on Rootsmagic topics . . . and the list goes on.  Do you have any favourite webinar sites for FH?  Please share.
8. How do you find online FH courses through FamilySearch.org? Go to Learn at top of screen and search for Online Courses. First item in results is How-To Genealogy Learning Online with links to FamilySearch courses, BYU courses, NGS course, National Institute for Genealogical Studies and more.

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Family History Projects for Youth

by Ralph and Linda Miller, Area FH Advisers for the northern part of New England

Young people have the opportunity to complete projects to gain experience with family history and following the spirit.  Young men and women can start on potentially life-changing or life-enriching experiences.  One of the difficulties is finding interesting, modest projects that won’t take their entire life but will yield significant results.  Here are a few thoughts that you could share with YM/YW leaders, families and youth.

• Learn about one of your ancestors.  What were they like?  What challenges did they face?  What blessings do you have because of them?  Record a faith-promoting or inspirational experience of one of your relatives (parent, grandparents, uncle, etc.).  Write how that experience strengthens you.

• Begin a book of remembrance.  Get a binder with divider tabs for pedigree charts, family group sheets, biographies, pictures.  Also include your patriarchal blessing and your testimony (date it).  Begin your personal history (life story).

• Index for 30 minutes each day for 4 weeks.  Record the number of names indexed and describe what you learned during this experience.

• Prepare a talk about an inspirational experience of one of your ancestors (could be parent or further back).  Write it neatly and put it in your scriptures for reference as an “instant talk.”

• Interview one of your parents or grandparents about how they received their testimony.  Write it down and put it in your Book of Remembrance or scriptures.

• Download Personal Ancestral File (PAF) from the www.familysearch.org website.  Create a picture pedigree, starting with yourself.  Seek help from your extended family in getting pictures (headshots) of your family going back as many generations as you can.  Experiment with several printing formats (PAF helps you do this) – try four generations, five generations, and see what difference it makes when you check the “allow last generation to split.”  Print out the picture pedigree you like best and put it in your scriptures and/or your book of remembrance.

• Identify a deceased relative who needs temple ordinances and use New FamilySearch to prepare that person’s name to take to the temple.  (Your ward family history consultant can help you do this.)  Then go to the temple to be baptized for that person.  Have someone take your picture near the temple door holding the temple card.  Write your feelings about the experience in your journal

 

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