Once again, our sincere thanks to Peter and Linda as we move through this transition.  We’ve decided to not publish any articles on the blog for the summer with resumption of postings in September.  We wish you a marvellous summer !

Don & Glenda

Classic FamilySearch is No More

Posted: 24 Jun 2012 11:05 PM PDT

Without fanfare last Monday FamilySearch turned off the home page of its Classic.FamilySearch.org website, redirecting traffic to the current www.familysearch.org home page. (The old catalog remains available, however.)

Some users are not pleased with the retirement. Elaine Lee said, “Please can you tell me WHY you have RUINED a perfectly good website. I have used this website for 12 years and now find it so confusing.”

First released to the public in May 1999, the site was an instant success. The traffic load in the first few days was overwhelming and crashed the website.

FamilySearch.org, May 1999

For many years, site navigation was enabled via four color-coded menu pages; the home page was green.

FamilySearch.org, June 2001

In later years, a search form was added to the home page and color coding was eliminating. This home page design continued until it was shut down Monday.

The original FamilySearch.org as it appeared in its final years

In December 2010, this original FamilySearch.org website became classic.familysearch.org. (See “Beta.familysearch.org Replaces www.familysearch.org.”) It was replaced with the current FamilySearch.org (not to be confused with new.familysearch.org, which will be replaced by FamilySearch Family Tree).

Go to FamilySearch.org then to the Help Centre then to the section headed Family Tree Help.  Then click on See the Whole List.  As one of the White Papers deals with Temple ordinances you will not see it unless you are signed in.

The two papers are in pdf format.  The titles are:  1.  Dealing with Duplicate Records of People in Family Tree, and 2. Managing Ordinances in Family Tree.

Why are they called White Papers?  “A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem.” (Wikipedia)

Please note that previous recommendations posted here remain.  Family Tree, while a great product, is not yet complete, so you still need to use new FamilySearch (nFS).  If you don’t want to be using 2 products then stay with nFS until Family Tree is completed.

How do you keep up?

Try to regularly – at least once a month – go to familysearch.org then click on the blog and look to the right to the link under the heading Categories to What’s New at FamilySearch?

Since the beginning of May 2012 there are 5 items:

1.  Site Scoop – May 9 – details some changes to FamilySearch -

“Search Form Refinements – Small tweaks in formatting and presentation.. .  For example, the search fields now have a descriptive word or two to help you know exactly what information should go into a field.

The All Record Collections Page – FamilySearch adds new records collections almost daily.  . . .  Some have noticed that the system seems to be responding slowly when uploading a record collection. We have fixed that problem so that all record collections upload nearly 400% faster. Several other behind the scene changes were made that users will probably not notice but will make the search experience in FamilySearch a better experience for everyone.. . .

Looking Ahead – We’re currently engaged in focus group testing of a new main page interface that allows for easier search, location of records, and an improved new user experience. Look for that in second quarter.”

2. Ron Tanner Live from Salt Lake City – May 17 – product manager for FamilySearch (and stand up comedian!) – this is a link to his presentation at Rootstech in Feb 2012.  Besides being entertained, you will learn why and how Family Tree is going to work.

3.  New FamilySearch Feature – IGI – May 25 – this doesn’t mean new.familysearch.org but a new feature being added to FamilySearch.org!  Reminds us that the IGI consisted of inputs from 2 sources – “Community Indexed IGI: This collection consists of sources that were indexed by the genealogical community from collections of vital and Church records” – generally very dependable and a good research tool, and “Community Contributed IGI: This collection consists of personal family information submitted by individuals to the LDS Church.” – varied in quality but still can be helpful.  The article then goes on to tell you how to access the IGI at FamilySearch.  At the time of writing this article the community contributed IGI was not yet available.

4.  My Source Box – May 25 – ““FamilySearch now provides a new feature called My Source Box. This Source Box serves as a place to capture a record source and preserve it. Your source box contains the sources that you want to attach to your ancestors. It lets you reuse sources instead of retyping a source each time you need to use it.

If you have access to the Family Tree, you can find a record, add it to the source box, and then attach it to an ancestor on the Tree immediately or at a later date.

If you don’t have access to the tree, it can be a very useful way to bookmark or store records you find for later use. You won’t have to re-do searches to find and bring in sources you want to use to document an event.

To use the Source Box you must be signed into the FamilySearch system.

The Source Box option is located in the upper-right of the a record page.

5.   Robert Kehrer presents a FamilySearch webinar – June 15 – “On Tuesday, June 19, 2012, at 2pm Mountain Time, we will present a 60 minute webinar with Robert Kehrer. The purpose of this webinar is to help instruct and educate users on the FamilySearch search experience. We will focus the discussion on the Library Catalog, the Historical Records Collection and especially on the IGI (International Genealogical Collection.”  A recorded version of the presentation will be made available after this date.

6.  New Books at the FH Library – 21 June – not really of interest unless you are close to the FH Library in Salt Lake or planning a visit . . . . .

However the “writing is on the wall” and the old site is going to go away . . . .  We have been assured that the IGI will be moved to the new site and the extracted components are already in the Historical Records collections.  The US Social Security Death Index is on the new site.

Please use Feedback to send suggestions for features you want to see at FamilySearch.org.

For us this means a sad farewell.  We have served for just over 5 years, and had a wonderful time.  What will we remember most?  Will it be all the exciting new resources for FH?  Will it be all the updates and changes?  Will it be combining IOUs?  No, it will be each of you!  We appreciate your special spirit.  We appreciate your faith, courage, patience, and determination.  We have met thousands of wonderful people.  There is a special spirit that comes when we teach and talk about Temple work and Family History.  We will miss the abundance of that spirit that we have felt.  We have a testimony of the importance of this great work.  We look forward to doing more of our own Family History!  We send our love and best wishes to each of you.

For the next few weeks we will be working with Brother and Sister Evans during a transition period.  Brother and Sister Evans are wonderful and well qualified for the work.

We will let them introduce themselves.

Farewell, Peter and Linda

Hello Fellow Subscribers,

As with many opportunities to serve in the church, we accept this calling with feelings of inadequacy and excitement at the same time.  We very much look forward serving the Lord in this work that is such a significant part of the plan of salvation.  The world of genealogy is going through massive change – particularly with continued technology advances lending so much to new opportunities for research and record keeping.  FamilySearch will continue to evolve its resources as well, with the coming of Family Tree as an example.

We know there will be a chorus of thank-yous for the Darbys and the work they’ve done so diligently over the past six years, and we add ours to that chorus as well!  They have left a rich legacy that will be drawn on for many years.

For the sake of establishing our roots, Glenda was born and raised in Australia with her ancestry going back to England, and has been involved with her research for many years.  Don is a native Albertan with his ancestors coming to Ontario from all parts of the United Kingdom.

It’s fortunate that the calling has come to us at this time of year.  The summer months will give us time to get up to speed and prepare for visits throughout Alberta.  The most exciting event on our itinerary will be the opening of the Calgary Temple this October.  We look forward to connecting with the 23 Stake Presidents and their assigned High Councillors and having the opportunity to catch their vision for family history work in their stakes.

Again, our sincere thanks to Peter and Linda for their diligent attention to this work and we wish them nothing but health and success in their continued church service.  We look forward to playing our role in the Lord’s work and assisting all of you in your efforts.  And we look forward to meeting all of you in the coming months…

Don and Glenda

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.
!

Family history is one of the most popular hobbies there is, and the church’s contributions toward family history research are well known.  However, we are not using family history to create missionary opportunities as much as we could. What could we do better? Here are some of our thoughts.

When the members of the public are engaged in family history, it is a win-win-win.  As they learn more about their ancestors, they feel the Spirit of Elijah, which is the Holy Ghost.  As they gather identifying information, it becomes available for potential submission for temple ordinances.  As they learn more about their ancestors characters and accomplishments, important lessons are gathered which help them better face life’s challenges.  As they learn more about the church’s interest in building eternal families, they may wish to find out more about the church and its doctrines.

Too often, we miss some of the most important opportunities associated with family history.  Or in an effort to save time for our nonmember friends, we deny them the excitement of discovery.

Why family history?  We often begin presentations about LDS resources by reading Malachi 4:5-6 as a basis for LDS interest in family history.  We explain that turning “the heart of the children to their fathers” is tracing your ancestors, and “the heart of the fathers to the children” is recording our own personal history and keeping journals.  Besides explaining the importance of family history, this reaffirms our belief in the Bible as scripture.

People are interested in stories and interesting facts.  Sometimes we think more is better, so we rush to gather names, dates and places, without bothering to learn much about the individuals.  If you’ve watched some of ancestry.com’s commercials lately, you’ve seen that what they think is most exciting are seemingly minor facts like occupation or address.  People were more interested in knowing that an aunt lived in a building just a couple blocks away, or that their grandfather was the first doctor in town.

Help people discover facts – perhaps their occupation, where they lived, or interesting stories.  These bring the people to life – much more than a chart full of names, dates and places. Working from those facts, see what more you can help them discover.  This may be a different approach than the LDS name-identifying, but it appeals to those who really want to understand their ancestors.

People feel the Holy Ghost when they research their families, and it is a good feeling.  In our efforts to interest people in family history, we may offer to do research for them – saving time but stealing the thrill.  Rather than doing the work for them, sit down together and show them some actual documents, such as census record or birth, marriage and death certificate.  Show them the additional clues the document provides.  Let them be the explorer.

As they discover clues about an ancestor’s identify, their hearts turn and they feel the Holy Ghost confirm the eternal nature of families – that this person is truly part of them.  Don’t skip this important step.

Methodology is less interesting than people.  If you plan a family-history-oriented event for the general public, emphasize families, individuals and relationships more than research methodology.  Experts find research strategies or resources interesting, but most people do not.  They don’t want to become experts – they just want to learn more about their family.  Save technical topics for classes for advanced researchers.

One of the opportunities many LDS researchers miss is talking with relatives.  While genealogists are more comfortable in quiet archives, the real heart-turning comes when you are face-to-face with someone who can tell you about his or her life and relatives.  Spend time in meaningful conversation rather than just gathering facts in quiet solitude.

Listen, listen, listen.  As Steve Covey says, seek first to understand than to be understood.  People aren’t going to listen if they don’t think you understand what they are interested in.  When talking with someone about family history, ask questions to discover what they are really interested in.  Don’t have your explanations planned in advance. What do they want?  Do they want to know about their heritage, or are there certain family members they really feel drawn to?  Do they miss someone who has passed on and want to preserve their memory somehow?  Would the idea of eternal marriage or eternal family relationships be something they are interested in right now?

To learn about FamilySearch Family Tree go to the Help Centre at FamilySearch.org and scroll down to the section on Family Tree.  Several resources are there including instructions on how to get access, and a video.

The user guide is entitled “Using the FamilySearch Family Tree.”  This is a work in progress.  It is not complete – so we strongly recommend that you not print the document (available as a pdf) – try to study it online – use keyword searches – or the chapter headings and page numbers to help you navigate.

How do we tell when there has been an update to Family Tree?  Look at the date on the cover of the user guide – it changes when changes are made!  Most recent changes have been in Chapter 8 on Sources – an important chapter.

You may also be very interested in Appendix C in the user guide that offers a feature comparison between Family Tree and new FamilySearch.

There is a link in the Help Centre to Release Notes.  These do not seem to be as up to date at the date on the user guide!

Your input and feedback is very important – so please send comments and questions to FamilySearch Support.

Get Satisfaction is the name of the Feedback tool used by FamilySearch.  It is very helpful to explore this tool and learn how to use it as it covers all FamilySearch products and not just Family Tree.  Here is how to access it:  1.  Click on Feedback in the Help Centre (upper right side) – don’t be signed in when you do this – or you will have to navigate through 2 additional screens  2.  Click on the link to Share an Idea – and you go to a section entitled Ideas from the Community to Improve FamilySearch – has interesting material!  3. On the right scroll down the list of Products and Services, click on the link See All Products and Services, and then select Family Tree from the next screen to see discussions on Family Tree – often with replies from the product developers.  This is an interesting tool to learn about any of the FamilySearch products!

Don’t feel that you have to use Family Tree at this time. You can still continue to use nFS and wait until FT is more complete.

Sue Maxwell

(Sue always has interesting articles on her blog - http://granitegenealogy.blogspot.ca/ )

I thought I would share a ward activity we held last week. Our Bishop  feels strongly that a ward activity is just that — for the ward,  including children. I put together a round robin of classes on Saturday beginning at 5:30 pm. That’s important because of the children.

I had 5 stops and each stop was in a different room at the church. I  made rotating handouts so that we could start everyone at the same time but in different rooms. I tried to focus the families with small children into the (1) “food” room first and then move on from there. I had a class on indexing (2), one on using the Fan Chart and new FamilySearch (3), one on Involving children in genealogy (4), and one on the “gathering” portion of family history (5) (unique ways of gathering information from family and building your story). We only had 20 minutes each – so about 15 minutes in each class with a few minutes to change rooms. Two of the classes were taught by our YM and YW who I had been working with.

In every room I had a table in the back of the room with activities for the children of the parents who were attending the class. This kept the families together but the children were occupied. I also used YW to teach the various games in each room.

Our Primary President put together and taught the class on “involving children in genealogy” and also put together the activities for each room. All of them were family history related in some way. For example, one of the activities for the children was looking for things in the Where’s Waldo books. As each child found what they were looking for, she gave them a census record and had them look for a name. It was so fun. In her room she used the object lesson of brushing your hair without bending your arm at the elbow. This taught the children about using a proxy to get the job done.

What surprised me the most was the families that attended were mostly the young families with children! And they had the best things to say. They were so exciting to be able to learn about family history without having to worry about their children or chase them around. The whole activity was over in about 90 minutes. And the adults were so impressed that the youth were teaching.

The bishop later told me that he went home and discussed the activity with his children and he was so surprised at all the concepts they learned. Great activity.