RootsTech: Day Three

I'm at RootsTech, a Family History and Technology Conference in Salt Lake City. Today, Saturday, was the third day of the conference, and was sponsored by Ancestry.com. Here are my thoughts:

On the final day of RootsTech, I did not attend the General Session. I felt I needed to sleep in and take the morning slowly, as I knew I would have to be up early to catch my flight on Sunday and then jump right into the work week. I debated whether to go to any of the sessions at all and looked carefully at the schedule. Because it was Youth Day, many of the presentations were geared for youth, beginners, or members of the LDS church, although there were definitely some offerings for others. Since it was my last day in Salt Lake City, I felt I should take advantage of a last chance to get some research done at the Family History Library. I was not to be disappointed!

In a book titiled Indigent Soldiers Burial Records for Lapeer County, Michigan, I found a death date and and burial date and place for my ancestor, Anthony FREDENBURG. I long have tried to find confirmation of a single family mention of his death date The best part was discovering he was a Civil War soldier....this makes my NINTH Civil War soldier direct ancestor...and all on my dad's side!

I went back to the Library after lunch and copied a number of obituaries for various ancestors from different counties in Michigan. Then I went over to the Salt Palace's Expo Hall to be present in case my name was called for prizes! Unfortunately, it was not, but my roomie, Donna Potter Phillips, won a DNA kit from Ancestry, and another Eastern Washington Genealogical Society member won a $50 gift certificate!

After doing as much packing as I could, I set out to meet my ride to the Geneabloggers After Party, hosted by Pat Richley-Erickson and her husband, Gordon Erickson. It was a joy to reconnect with several old geneablogging friends and to meet many new ones! Our conversations were sprinkled with Spanish, Hebrew, and English spoken in American, British, and German accents, proving once again, that genealogy, blogging, and friendship transcend any language.

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I'm sad to leave RootsTech, the Family History Library, and the beautiful city of Salt Lake. I hope to be able to come again soon.

RootsTech: Day Two

I'm at RootsTech, a Family History and Technology Conference in Salt Lake City. Today, Friday, was the second day of the conference, and was sponsored by MyHeritage. Here are my notes:

Today's General Session's first keynote speaker was introduced by Shipley Munson, Marketing Director of FamilySearch International: The Legal Genealogist, Judy G. Russell. She is an engaging and entertaining speaker; as fabulous a speaker as she is a blogger! Her keynote was titled "Just Three Generations," in which she explained that oral family history can be lost in three generations, if not handed down deliberately AND accurately. She related how one ancestor's brother died in the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War, and how his story would have completely been lost, if another brother hadn't mentioned it while applying for a military pension for himself. She also shared how another story had deliberately been passed down over the generations regarding a Mayflower ancestor. However, although that story had been handed down deliberately, it hadn't been done so accurately. Using the Genealogical Proof Standard, Judy had refuted the story. Her final ancestral story was about her great-grandfather who seemed to have too many occupations: cowboy, ranch owner, farmer, traveling salesman, lawman, and circuit-riding preacher. Surely, there must be a mistake somewhere! Eventually, Judy was able to piece together the truth that her ancestor had indeed had each and every one of these occupations during his lifetime. She encouraged us to record our ancestors' stories, as well as our own.

The second keynote speaker was introduced by Ory Stone, Chief Marketing Officer at MyHeritage. First, he shared some statistics from his company from the past year:

• Two million records were added to MyHeritage in the last year
• They signed a partnership with FamilySearch
• MyHeritage users are adding over one million family trees to the site every day
• There is now an international selection of profiles
• The first 500 people who showed up at the MyHeritage booth at the Expo Hall would receive a free six-month all-inclusive membership

He then introduced the "Indiana Jones of Genetics," Dr. Spencer Wells of the National Geographic Genographic Project. Dr. Wells explained how he became interested in population genetics as a young boy when he was curious about his name, Rush Spencer Wells, IV. By talking to his grandmother, he was able to see how the name had been passed down over the generations, and even before the first Rush Spencer Wells, the surnames Rush and Spencer were in his family tree. This later grew into a love of science and genetics. 

The overarching question behind the Genographic Project is, "How do we explain the incredible diversity in the human race?" This can further be broken down into two other questions: "Where did we come from?" (origin) and "How did we get here?" (journey). He said that the question of origin is actually a question about genealogists. Because of the interest in genealogy and DNA, the power of "citizen science" has come about, as people have become quite knowledgeable about DNA. While the first project was launched in 2005, with one million people tested from then to 2013, Geno 2.0 is the relaunched project, which is estimated to hit another million tested in this year alone. One of the features of the project will be the ability to share stories with other people in the database with the same ancestry.

Final points were that genetic testing has exploded recently because of consumer genomics, DNA becoming a part of the national consciousness, people in today's society are comfortable sharing their most private information, and the "word of mouth" threshold, also known as "viral" spread.

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My first morning session was a lab called "Using Evernote for as Your Primary Tool for Capturing Notes and Ideas" by Andrew Smith. Labs were special sessions that you had to pre-register and pay for, mainly because they had limited seating at computer stations. I wasn't sure who this "Andrew Smith" guy was, until I walked in and recognized Drew Smith of the Genealogy Guys podcast! Even though I feel fairly familiar with Evernote and use it almost daily, I was glad to discover some new-to-me features. For instance, I learned that you can save audio recordings to Evernote, and not just text, images, or web clippings. I also learned about email reminders that you can set up (for To-Do lists you create on Evernote, for instance), as well as how to email things to Evernote. The hour flew by quite quickly, and it was very enjoyable.

Next came the lunch hour and I spent most of it in the Expo Hall, going from vendor to vendor to get my "passport" signed in order to turn it in for a drawing for an iPad. In the process, I ran into a number of Facebook and geneablogging friends, some of whom I had not previously met in "real life." (The same thing had occurred before the General Session took place earlier in the morning.) I picked up a large amount of "swag" (freebies) from vendors as well.

My first afternoon session was Dr. Blaine T. Bettinger's "Begging for Spit." He identified the challenges that can occur when we want others to take a DNA test, with a step-by-step approach to solving those problems successfully. I took lots of notes, because I am hoping to start testing family members soon. I know that I may get some questions and valid concerns which I would like to address accordingly.

I again skipped the middle session and went back to the Expo Hall to finish getting my "passport" filled out. One of the last things I did was watch a demo of Newspapers.com at the BackBlaze demo theater. The interface reminded me a lot of Fold3's, which makes sense, as they are both owned by Ancestry.

The final session was "Technology for Deciphering Foreign Language Records" by Randy Whited. While again, much was not new to me (in fact, my next Tuesday's Tip, which I've already pre-written) will be focused on this topic), I did learn a couple of things. For instance, I did not realize that Microsoft Word gives you the ability to change languages, which is great for transcriptions! Also, BYU has a great (free) Script Tutorial here.

I had planned to attend the free "Pizza at the Library" event, but decided it would be too crowded. I instead went to dinner at my usual place, and then uploaded photos to Facebook (which you can view here, even if you don't have a Facebook account). I went to the Library later after the crowds thinned down, to (unsuccessfully) hunt for some cemetery records for a few ancestors in Michigan.

Syllabus materials are available for free for a limited time at http://rootstech.org/about. Videos will soon be available as well, for the keynote addresses and some sessions. LiveStreaming is available every morning of RootsTech on the home page at 8:00 AM, Mountain Standard Time.

RootsTech: Innovator Day

RootsTech: Day One

RootsTech: Day One

I'm at RootsTech, a Family History and Technology Conference in Salt Lake City. Today, Thursday, was the first day of the conference, and was sponsored by findmypast. Here are my notes:

This morning's General Session and Keynote was opened by Opened by Shipley Munson, Marketing Director of FamilySearch International. He listed the following statistics for RootsTech 2014:

• There are over 8,000 registered attendees
• On Saturday, we will be joined by over 4,000 youth for Youth Day
• Attendees have come from 49 states (none from South Dakota!) and 32 countries
• Over 15,000 will be watching the live stream sessions online
• There are over 137 exhibitors
• Over 200 sessions are being offered from the top genealogists and innovators from around the world

He then introduced the CEO and President of FamilySearch International, Dennis Brimhall, who welcomed us to the fourth annual RootsTech. Next Monday, volunteers will begin working on RootsTech 2015, which will be held in conjunction with the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference here in Salt Lake City on February 12-14 (Innovator Day will be February 11th). Dennis also mentioned that there are currently 622 RootsTech Family History Fairs being held globally in tandem with the Salt Lake RootsTech. Last year, there were only 16 with an average of 200 people each. It is estimated, then, that over 150,000 people around the world will participate in a RootsTech experience this week.

Dennis then highlighted these areas of focus for FamilySearch:

1. Stories -  FamilySearch has made it easier to share stories and photos on their website with the Memories Tab, where you can upload photos, stories, and documents. In the past year, 150,000 people uploaded 12 million sources; an average of 500 stories a day. For those who do not have access to computers, a paper approach to preserving family history has been created. "My Family" booklets (1.7 million of them) in 27 languages have been shipped out to locations world-wide in an effort to gather and preserve family stories. The end result is to have these be added online. Finally, a texting app for cell phones (not smartphones) is in development so that those who don't have either computers or smartphones can use their cell phones to build a family tree online.
2. Records - Dennis' presentation was interrupted by a pirate, Captain Jack Starling, informed us that dead men tell no tales, but their obituaries do! Obits contain stories that are locked away. The next big FamilySearch Indexing project will focus on indexing this record group. FamilySearch has signed several agreements, with more pending, to get millions of obituaries online. Currently, there are one billion indexed records now on FamilySearch, thanks to the volunteer indexers, with 267 camera crews currently imaging 5.3 billion records in North and South America and Europe...BUT there are 10 billion waiting, at risk to damage and destruction. It will take 300 years to index what already has been imaged, so FamilySearch must change what they are doing.
3. Partners - The way that change can happen so that the records can be imaged, indexed, and available within one generation (the goal) is to partner with other organizations and corporations. One example is in Guatemala, where the government is contributing 30 camera crews to image their records, while FamilySearch will be hosting and indexing these records online. FamilySearch has announced major partnering with Ancestry, findmypast, and MyHeritage in obtaining records. These partnerships will allow LDS members to have free access to these subscription websites in their homes, and the public will be allowed to access them for free at FamilySearch Centers. In addition, FamilySearch has over 30 certified partners, including software companies Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree, and RootsMagic; societies such as the New England Historic and Genealogical Society and the Federation of Genealogical Societies; and app companies FamilyMap and Puzilla.

D. Joshua Taylor (Genealogy Road Show) introduced the first keynote speaker, Annalies van den Belt of findmypast. She talked a bit about her own family history, and then the vision of findmypast. One of the most important projects is digitizing the documents of the Imperial War Museum, which has collected documents, photos, and stories of thousands of individuals who served as soldiers or on the home front during World War I. The second speaker was Ree Drummond, who blogs at The Pioneer Woman and now has a cooking show. Her down-home speech was about the importance of writing down the everyday stories so that someday they may be enjoyed by future generations.

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The first session I attended was Tom Jones's "Can a Complex Research Problem Be Solved Online?" I was fortunate to get a seat, since the room was packed. Tom brought us through the convoluted but fascinating story of a man who was married five times to four wives, used three fictitious names, has numerous children, and who was missing in many census and vital records.

At the lunch break, I peeked into the vendor hall, but it was too crowded for my liking, so I ended up heading outside the convention center for a quiet, relaxed lunch. I returned to attend "Treasures Within the Ivory Tower: Finding Family in Academic Archives" by Laura Prescott. This focused on the wealth of documents, photos, and even artifacts found within university and college archives and libraries, offline. Laura used their websites, as well as demonstrating using NUCMC and OCLC to locate where resources can be found for your ancestors, their siblings, or their neighbors. She reminded us that even if our ancestors didn't attend college, they may have worked for one and be listed in employee records, or they may have simply donated their own family collections to be preserved at a university archive.

The next session I wanted to attend, "DIY Publishing for the Family Historian: Tips, Tricks, and Tools" by Lisa Alzo, was cancelled because Lisa had been unable to arrive on time due to the bad weather impeding flights back east. The other session I had wanted to attend, "Google Hangouts 101a: The Panelists' View" by Pat Richley, required pre-registration; I didn't have a ticket because I had intended to attend Lisa's presentation. While there sixteen other great choices, I decided I was a bit tired and decided to take another break in which I planned out what I would look for at my next trip to the Family History Library.

The last session of the day was Elissa Scalise Powell's "Genealogy Online Courses Exposed!" Elissa gave an "under the hood" look at the major online courses available, from the Boston University certificate program to ProGen and everything in between. She first differentiated between what a beginner, intermediate, or advanced researcher will look for in a conference or what they want to learn. She then covered the cost; time commitment; credit, certificate or degree obtained (if applicable) from each course; and the showed the type of platform each course uses in communicating and uploading assignments. It was very thorough.

After dinner, I went back to the Salt Palace to see Vocal Point, an a cappella group who has performed on The Sing-Off. I especially enjoyed their "12 Days of Christmas." After, I went to the Family History Library for an hour and a half of research. I was able to obtain and copy Washington State death certificates on microfilm for my ancestor, Mary Lucy (WRIGHT) STRONG, and my children's ancestors, John Franklin MIDKIFF Sr., John Franklin MIDKIFF Jr., and Albert Francis CHAPLIN Sr.

Syllabus materials are available for free for a limited time at http://rootstech.org/about. Videos will soon be available as well, for the keynote addresses and some sessions. LiveStreaming is available every morning of RootsTech on the home page at 8:00 AM, Mountain Standard Time.

RootsTech: Innovator Day

RootsTech: Day Two

RootsTech: Innovator Day

I'm at RootsTech, a Family History and Technology Conference in Salt Lake City. Today, Wednesday, was Innovator Day, and extra pre-conference day, dedicated to innovators and developers of technology that relates to genealogy. It was sponsored by FamilySearch. Here are my notes:

My roommates, Donna Potter Phillips and Cecily Cone Kelly, and I hit the Family History Library a little after 8:00 AM. I spent the next almost-two hours locating some deeds on microfilm for my YORK and SWEERS families. Then we went around the corner to the Salt Palace to register for RootsTech and today's Innovator Summit.

I had chosen the following sessions to attend:

The General Session, with a Keynote and a boxed lunch, was opened by Andrew Fox of findmypast, who announced a new single platform; a multitude of new records from around the world, including South Asia; integration of the FamilySearch tree with findmypast; and a new multimedia app, coming out in a few weeks, in which audio recordings and photos can be stored and shared. This announcement was followed by the keynote address by Chris Dancy of BMC. He has been dubbed "The Most Quantified Human," as he utilizes analytics to measure almost everything about himself. His presentation was humorous and quirky, and its main gist is that death has a new meaning in today's digital age. People remain immortalized online, particularly in social media. Where the Egyptians had a Book of the Dead for the living to learn spells to keep them living on in the afterlife, today's society has Facebook, Twitter, and plethora of apps and websites to interact with the dead and to keep themselves "alive" in the afterlife. One simple example is how dead people can continue to be tagged on Facebook. The examples became more complex, in which he told about going to Las Vegas and seeing a show with a hologram of Michael Jackson, wearing clothes he had never worn in real life, singing a song he had never sung before. Chris reminded us that when we die, we will continue to live on digitally in ways we never imagined. Our descendants will discover many things about us, most of which we already manipulate. It was rather a mind-boggling thought.

By the way, the hall was pretty full, and we got the last few seats before they opened the overflow room for the General Session. I was fortunate to sit right next to Paul Nauta, Senior Manager of Marketing at FamilySearch. It was nice to finally meet him, and I was honored that he remembered that I was a blogger!

The first regular session I attended was "A New Tool for Recording, Analyzing, and Displaing Genetic Relationships from Y-DNA, mtDNA, and Autosomal-DNA" by Capers McDonald of Johns Hopkins University. He presented a new numbering system, versus the traditional ahnentafel numbering system, based on each of the DNA tests for ease of use and understanding of the results of those tests. More can be viewed at the website, http://ancestrallines.net. I thought this was a fascinating idea and hope that the developers of genealogical software include these numbering systems in the future for research reports.

The second session was "GOV - The Genealogical Gazetteer" by Timo Kracke. GOV does not stand for "government," but is an German acronym for The Genealogical Gazetteer. Timo spoke about the difficulty of naming particular places in genealogical software due to the fact that a location may have more than one name, simultaneously; or may have had different names over the course of history. Add to the complication that the location may be in several jurisdictions (government or ecclesiastical), whose borders and/or names also changed or may be duplicated elsewhere. Finally, there is the difficulty of using GPS to define a place; the questions that arise are: What specific coordinate designates the place? Is it the church? Which church? The town hall? Supposed it moved? Timo explained that the purpose of GOV is to use place identification that will overcome all these challenges. It is a collaborative project, wiki-style, in which he encourages others to participate. To view the website, go to http://gov.genealogy.net.

By now, I was getting a bit tired, but I went to my next choice, "Building Data Models for the Research Process" by Dr. Luther Tychonievich of the University of Virginia. That was a good choice, because he was an animated speaker, so even though much of what he spoke about stretched my brain until it hurt, I did stay awake! The description of his class, as stated in the syllabus, was: "Storing data representing individual research steps instead of researcher beliefs reduces collaboration disagreements and import and export problems and simultaneously supports all levels of researcher maturity. I provide both a theoretic overview and a proof-of-concept implementation of such a data model." It was a lot to absorb and try to think about!

Finally, I set off for "Empirical Evidence of the Popularity of Family History Using Digital Traces," by Dr. Arnon Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University. Setting out to find evidence of the statement that is oft-bandied about regarding genealogy being the fastest-growing hobby on the Internet, he discovered and analyzed evidence from Twitter that shows it is actually decreasing in popularity. However, when combined with data mined from other media, including printed books, genealogy increased as a whole significantly beginning in 1976, when Roots was published. It has only slightly decreased, as a whole, since 2002.

I left the final session a few minutes early, as I had a ProGen meetup at the Marriott lounge. There were only half a dozen of us, but we got our photo taken. We all had other dinner plans, so we parted ways after about a half an hour. It was very nice meeting them all and especially a couple members with whom I've been long-time friends on Facebook.

Syllabus materials are available for free for a limited time at http://rootstech.org/about. Videos will soon be available as well, for the keynote addresses and some sessions. LiveStreaming is available every morning of RootsTech on the home page at 8:00 AM, Mountain Standard Time.

RootsTech: Day One

RootsTech: Day Two

What Shall I Take with Me to RootsTech and the FHL?

I'm pretty excited about my upcoming first-trip-ever to Salt Lake City for RootsTech and the opportunity to do some research at the Family History Library! I've been reading other conference alumni's posts, and reviewing my conclusions about Jamboree 2010. Here are some of the things I've done to prepare for the conference and research:

1) I've been reviewing all the research I've done on two of my brickwall ancestors, Jeremiah Franklin YORK and Berber J. DeJONG. Using my Repository Checklist, I'm building a list of books and films I want to peruse while I'm at the library. I've read some books on using the Family History Library, too.

2) I'm taking stock of my technology, such as it is. I don't have the latest and greatest, and that's OK. I've learned with my limited budget that having the newest toy isn't necessary to do good research or have fun. Most importantly, it does not limit me from learning about the newest gadgets. I'm planning on taking a class on using iPads in genealogy, for instance, even though I don't own a tablet. I do have access to one in my classroom, so I'm somewhat familiar with that device. I just haven't felt the necessity of owning one yet. The technology I'm traveling with is a four-year-old Asus Eee netboook with Windows XP (yes, I know support for XP is going away) with Microsoft Office 2010, a Chrome browser, Evernote, Dropbox, and RootsMagic 6, among other programs and apps. I have an LG 800GHL Tracfone with limited apps (Facebook, Google Maps, and a mobile browser). I'll be bringing my chargers and netbook lock and a couple of flash drives. Finally, I have a Canon Powershot A550 digital camera. The camera on my phone is very poor quality, so I continue to use a digital camera, which works great, except for being a battery-eater. For that reason, I'm stocking up on batteries.

3. I registered for RootsTech on the first day registration was available, and signed up for a couple extra classes. Recently, I accessed the web app for my schedule and selected all the classes I want to take, as well as listed a couple extra "interests" in case those classes fill up before I can claim a seat. I tried for diversity in classes as well as speakers. There are some big name speakers I'd love to hear, some fellow geneablogging friends I've never heard present, and classes I'll take because of the interests I have or the challenges I'd like to try, even though I've not heard of some of the speakers.

4. I allowed myself some down time. I didn't see as many sessions on Saturday that I would like to attend. I may decide to sleep in and hit the library for one more research session that day.

5. I'm traveling light. I don't need to bring a heavy coat or boots, because a) I'll be staying at the Plaza not far from the conference venue and the library; and b) I'm an Inland Northwest girl; I know what cold and snow are like!

6. I'm frugal. I'll be packing instant oatmeal and snack items to save on my meals.

7. I'll be rooming with some genealogy friends who have had experience both in leading research groups at the library and have attended previous RootTech conferences. They will be excellent guides and advisers.

8. I hope to have fun! I'd love to meet up with other researchers and bloggers, and if I have time, see some of the sights in Salt Lake City! And I'm ordering some more business cards to hand out.

So that being said, do you have any advice for me? I'm especially looking for those who have been to RootsTech and/or the Family History Library in the past. What do you recommend?