FamilySearch Fan Chart

FamilySearch’s Fan Chart Wins Big Fans

May 21, 2013 By Ron Tanner

The unique interactive fan chart provides a way to visualize your ancestry differently than the traditional pedigree chart. It provides a way to quickly recognize visual clues regarding missing lines on your Family Tree.
The fan chart shows the main person at the center of the chart. Their spouse and children are also displayed. The ancestors of the main person expand out for four generations. You can reposition anyone in the fan chart to be the person of focus and visualize his or her ancestry.
Any individual shown on the fan chart can be clicked on to bring up their basic information. By clicking on an person you will also be directed to the person’s full page, which shows all the information about that person including vital information, relationships, sources, photos, and stories.
You can also print the fan chart from the browser now. Soon, FamilySearch will provide a larger, seven generation fan chart that will be printable.

Dennis Brimhall on Volunteers

Volunteers: The Lifeblood of the Genealogical Community

April 30, 2013 By Dennis Brimhall

I’ve been leading FamilySearch for just over a year, and I still can’t get over what our volunteers are accomplishing. I always knew FamilySearch was a volunteer-supported, nonprofit organization, but the magnitude of giving continues to impress me. And at the heart of our volunteer program is indexing.
Volunteer indexers and arbitrators—hundreds of thousands of you—have produced over one billion free, searchable records on FamilySearch.org just since 2006. There’s nothing in the history of genealogy that can compare in magnitude with this ongoing act of selfless giving.
Volunteers really matter to FamilySearch, as well as to every person out there who is trying to find his or her ancestors. You are the lifeblood, not just of FamilySearch, but of the entire genealogical community. If not for you, the world of genealogical possibilities we all enjoy would not exist. That’s why doing all we can to help you succeed is so critically important.
Now, I have also become aware of concerns within our indexing community. Indexers and arbitrators working together can produce amazing results, but when conflicts arise between them, the quality of the work suffers, feelings are hurt, and dedicated volunteers may go looking for other ways to give. I am now keenly aware of improvements that we need to make, whether in our data, software tools, or volunteer programs, and I want to assure each of you that we are taking steps to address these shortcomings in appropriate ways.
As most of you know, we have been working to improve the experience for users of FamilySearch.org. This monumental task has consumed nearly all of our resources for many months. We believe our efforts will result in making family history more appealing to more people, which, in turn, will spur demand for more records and more ways to discover and share them.
Our chief consideration in all of this is to help patrons more easily discover their ancestors and their stories. Your satisfaction as a volunteer is key to meeting that objective. There is much to consider in this process, and occasionally there will be trade-offs, but we believe our efforts will result in the greatest possible good for all.
As we move forward, we will continue to balance our efforts between attracting new family historians and supporting the ever-growing demand to find and index new records. Part of that effort will be to make the experience for our volunteers more delightful and productive. I would like to offer my sincere thanks for your willingness to overlook the shortcomings of the program so that others can continue to have the joy of discovering their ancestors.

Fragmentation of Efforts Update

Last September I expressed the opinion that there is very little coordination in research. There are competing and overlapping sites, trying to accomplish the same ends. Some are in it for the money. Others are sincerely trying to do what they think is best. There are countless hours and financial resources being expended.

I would like to promote a possible solution to much of the duplication: use the same site and help to build it. FamilySearch has been quietly building a records collection that is unmatched and under used. The search feature on the website has a records collection that grows literally every day. The paid sites have used the film from FamilySearch for many of their offerings. Ancestry.com is partnering with FS to fund projects as was the case with other large projects in the past, that can only be finished in that way.

A new feature on the FS site is the family Tree. It is now open to anyone who wishes to participate. It is possible to see an interactive fan chart on anyone in your family, to add photos and stories and many other features are in the works. They are encouraging documentation, which will make for better records. Also asking for families to work together to make the records as complete and accurate as possible. This is a safe place to store your family records where they will be available for other family members to view.

If you have not been to FamilySearch.org, I would suggest that you will be pleasantly surprised! Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but it gets better every day and needs more involvement. If you have data on the site that you have not verified, get it done and help to cut down the fragmentation!

David William Bishop

Looking for information on David William Bishop who was born about 1827 in Tennessee and died about 1858 in TN. We know more about his wife, Cynthia M Martin, who was born 23 January 1830 in North Carolina and died 27 July 1895 in Arkansas. Any information on this family would be gratefully received.

RootsTech review by FamilySearch

RootsTech 2013 in Review

March 28, 2013 By Steve Anderson

Now that RootsTech 2013 is over, we can finally catch our breath and see just what a great conference it was. We want to thank everyone who attended—and those who took part in this family history conference remotely. Hopefully each of you enjoyed yourself with some of the excellent presentations that were made.
This year’s RootsTech conference was a remarkable success. We had approximately 6,770 total registered attendees. More than 13,000 people tuned in to watch the live streaming sessions. More than 1,500 youth attended a special youth oriented program. Altogether, more than 21,000 people were able to take care in some part of RootsTech 2013. That’s exciting!
There was great content with excellent keynote speakers and more than 250 sessions and workshops. For those who did not get to attend all the classes they wanted, you can access selected classes and keynote addresses by visiting www.rootstech.org.
We’d love to hear what you thought worked well so we can do it again next year. We’d also like to hear your suggests that might make RootsTech 2014 even better. Please take a moment and share your thoughts with us by visiting info@rootstech.org.
We have already begun preparations for RootsTech 2014, which will be February 6 – 8, 2014, at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Next year we will stream selected conference sessions to more than 600 sites around the world. We expect that more than 120,000 people will be able to attend RootsTech 2014, either in person or via the internet. So come join us next year for another exciting RootsTech conference. We look forward to seeing all of you there.


 



 




 


 

RootsTech

What is RootsTech you ask? 

A gathering of individuals passionate about family history in all its aspects, and technology to facilitate the gathering, and preserving of records. There were classes and workshops to satisfy most any interest or need. The sponsors were many of THE names in Genealogy, such as Ancestry.com. This years conference attracted ~ 6700 registered attendees with booths from hundreds of sponsors and venders. Everything was bigger this year than last, with about a 50% increase in attendance. This is the third year and there were exciting announcements concerning access for those who could not attend. Some of the sessions were streamed live and that concept will be expanded at future gatherings. The logistics of offering classes without knowing who would attend, did not always work out. There were classes that were too popular for the venue assigned to the class. The presenters used the latest equipment to make their presentations interesting and informative. Many of the presenters are well known in the field and their classes were well attended.

 I particularly enjoyed a main stage work by Ron Tanner from FamilySearch. They have just released Family Tree to the general public to use, and he was explaining how to best use it. There are still improvements that will be added that are in the works, but it is much better that what it is replacing. With the tree, you can get a pedigree of your family, as part of the World Tree. It is designed to be a pedigree of the entire human race. You can add people to the tree, add relationships, pictures and documents and make corrections in the data. We are encouraged to work together as families to make the record as correct as possible and to document everything we can.

If you have not checked it out, I would encourage it. Bear in mind that it is a work in process, and is still being tweaked. There is a place to report problems: use it if you find something wrong.

Happy Hunting!

Rootstech conference

(This is a post on the FamilySearch blog that was interesting to me and I am posting it here as it appeared:)

Ancestry.com CEO Tim Sullivan Encourages Mutual Collaboration at RootsTech 2013

March 22, 2013 By Steve Anderson 

Tim Sullivan, President and CEO of Ancestry.com spoke as one of the two keynote speakers on the second day of RootsTech 2013. He began his comments by focusing on the need for the professional genealogists to be patient with and see the value of working with beginner genealogists. He mentioned that the beginner can often provide valuable information and insights to help the professional create a more accurate family pedigree. “The key,” said Sullivan, “is to collaborate with each other.” Both the professional and the novice have something to contribute to each other’s success in piecing together one’s family history.
Sullivan encouraged those who begin using Ancestry.com to make their family tree public. If you already have your tree on the Ancestry website and you’ve listed it as a private pedigree, then it’s an easy matter to make it public. Sullivan suggested that by making one’s pedigree public, it encourages useful collaboration. The public display of one’s pedigree allows others, both family and non-family members to view what you currently have. Viewers can then provide you with added documentation or provide useful documentation and suggestions for changes to make your pedigree more accurate. The key with collaboration is to be open minded and willing to see what others have to offer.
What is Ancestry.com doing to encourage this collaborative effort?  They are creating a single location on their website where uses can post their pedigrees so that experts and beginners can work together to create a more complete and more accurate pedigree. Ancestry.com is also working hard to provide as many digitized records as possible so that users can use original documents to document their genealogies.
Sullivan announced some exciting new products and services as well. They include:

• The new iOS app version 4.1 for iPhones and iPads. This came about partially because 1/3 of all registrants came from some kind of mobile device. The need is there and their audience is including more of the younger genealogists who are making full use of such technology.
• Ancestry’s DNA service is cheaper. Ancestry.com is now offering its DNA research services for $99. This is available for subscribers and non-subscribers alike.
• New content. Over the next 5 years Ancestry.com has committed to spending $100 million dollars to digitizing and indexing new content.
• Continued collaboration between Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. Ancestry.com and FamilySearch will work together to capture 140 million pages of U.S. probate records. This will include images and indexes. It will create a national registry of wills, letters of administration and other probate records that will span from 1800-1930. This is a 3 year project.

The audience was excited about all the new and exciting changes coming to Ancestry.com.