by Lisa Cooke | Oct 19, 2013 | 01 What's New, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, Records & databases
Genealogy industry giants MyHeritage and FamilySearch have just announced a strategic partnership that promises to be a win-win for genealogists 
everywhere. It looks like FamilySearch’s billions of historical records will get a searchability boost with MyHeritage search technologies and users of both sites will have access to the results.
According to MyHeritage’s press release, “MyHeritage will receive more than 2 billion global historical records from FamilySearch, spanning hundreds of years. Collections include vital records (censuses, births, marriages and deaths) as well as hundreds of other collections from many countries.
Over the next few months, we will add this important content to SuperSearch and unleash MyHeritage technologies – such as Smart Matches and Record Matches – on the new content. This will bring significant new opportunities for MyHeritage users to grow their family trees and enrich their family history.”
FamilySearch users get something great out of this, too. “FamilySearch members will benefit from MyHeritage’s unique technologies which automate family history discoveries,” says the FamilySearch press release. “Smart Matching™ automatically finds connections between user-contributed family trees and Record Matching automatically locates historical records relevant to any person in the family tree. By receiving accurate matches between FamilySearch’s Family Tree profiles and historical record collections, such as birth, death, census, and immigration documents, FamilySearch members will be able to more effectively grow their family trees in size and in depth and add conclusions supported by historical records.” This technology is slated to be applied in 2014.
Got questions? Check out MyHeritage’s official blog post and FAQ regarding the partnership.
by Lisa Cooke | Oct 17, 2013 | 01 What's New, Conferences, FamilySearch, Flipboard, RootsTech
Have I got a promo code for you!
Want to save off your registration for what’s shaping up to be one of the biggest family history events ever? Of course you do!
From now until November 30, 2013, Genealogy Gems blog readers can save an additional $10 off the already discounted early registration price for RootsTech 2014, happening February 6-8 in Salt Lake City. The promo code is RT14LTO by November 30.
#RootsTech promises to be a spectacular learning event, with over 200 classes and a dozen hands-on labs taught by knowledgeable experts, special lunchtime and evening events and more. Before January 6, you can get a full-access pass for just $159, an $80 savings off the full price of $239. But again, register before November 30 with the promo code above and you’ll only pay $149.
The full schedule of classes will be available when the app comes out in November, but RootsTech has posted the computer lab schedule. These labs were incredibly popular last year. They sold out fast and had to add more! Your early registration gives you dibs on labs like these, including my own class on Flipboard:
by Lisa Cooke | Sep 23, 2013 | 01 What's New, FamilySearch, Organization, Photographs
FamilySearch users have created one of the largest family photo albums in the world in record time: one million images in just under five months. That’s a lot of pictures upload, tagged, linked to relatives and now just waiting for us to go in and snag copies.
Why the massive response? Pick your favorite reason:
- uploading photos from your computer, smart phone or tablet is easy;
- If you post a photo, you can share a direct link through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or email;
- pictures are publicly available to anyone (with or without a FamilySearch account);
- you can caption pictures and tag subjects to link them to their profile in FamilySearch’s family tree;
- you can collaborate with other descendants to identify everyone in a group photo;
- the site promises free online storage of your digital images forever (“. Every photo is backed up with a redundant system and preserved in state-of-the-art archive facilities”).
If you have a tree at FamilySearch (which is free), you can easily click to see what pictures others have uploaded of your relatives. Just log in, click Photos, then Find Photos of your Ancestors.
FamilySearch offers these tips for sharing your photos on their site:
“If you don’t have a traditional scanner, you can use your cell phone. Just take a picture of your family photos, use the browser on your phone, and go to FamilySearch.org. Then click on Photos, and proceed from there.
If you know photos that exist of your ancestors but belong to other family members, contact these relatives and ask them to publish the photos to your family’s tree, or set a date to scan or take pictures of their collection. You can also send out a request for family photos over social media to your relatives. If there are family heirlooms (photos, furniture, bric-a-brac, letters, mementos, medals), take pictures of them and upload the photos to the profiles of your ancestors in the family tree. Then stories can be added by anyone to support the photos and describe them. These photos and stories will become keepsakes for everyone to have and will be preserved freely for future generations.”
Check out this 4-minute video on using Photos and Stories feature at FamilySearch, and you can contribute to the next million photos!
by Lisa Cooke | Sep 18, 2013 | 01 What's New, British, Census, FamilySearch, Immigration, Military, Records & databases
It’s hard to keep up with the content constantly being added online at FamilySearch! If you (like me) spent the past month squeezing the last bit of travel an
d sun from the summer, you may have missed some great new content. Here’s a recap:
This month, over a half million indexed records and images have already shown up from Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Guatemala, Italy, New Zealand and the United States. Highlights include updates to the United States Social Security Death Index, images from the Czech Republic, Censuses, 1843–1921, collection, indexed records from the Hungary, Civil Registration, 1895–1980, collection, images from the new U.S., Indiana, Naturalization Records and Indexes, 1848-1992, collection and the Italy, Mantova, Mantova, Censuses (Comune), 1750-1900, collection, and indexed records from the U.S., Maine, State Archive Collections, 1718-1957, collection.
In August, FamilySearch.org added more than 45 million indexed records and images from BillionGraves and from Italy, the U.S., England, New Zealand, Sweden, Italy, Jamaica, Chile, Honduras and more. Notable U.S. additions are updates to the New Orleans Passenger Lists and newly-indexed war collections, including: the United States, World War II Prisoners of War of the Japanese, 1941-1945, collection, the United States, Korean War Battle Deaths, 1950-1957, collection, and the United States, Casualties of the Vietnam War, 1956-1998, collection.
A few more cool additions include:
- More than a half million images to a growing collection of Italy’s Civil Registrations;
- Nearly a million indexed Jamaican and a quarter million Chilean civil registrations;
- More than 2.5 million indexed recods from New Zealand passenger lists (1855-1973);
- Nearly a half-million indexed names from Boston passenger lists (1820-1891);
- Over 41 million indexed names added to the U.S. Public Record Index.
Search these and 3.5 billion more records at FamilySearch.org. Records are always free to search here, thanks both to the organization itself and thousands of volunteers around the world who index records. Join the effort here!
by Lisa Cooke | Sep 17, 2013 | 01 What's New, Family History Library, FamilySearch
The biggest family history library in the world just got a new boss! Diane Loosle is the new Director of the flagship Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the first woman to hold this job. She has exciting ambitions for the FHL and I look forward to seeing how they unfold.
Diane mentions three specific goals she’ll focus on between now and the end of 2014:
- “Become more family and youth-oriented through providing interactive, discovery experiences.
- Enhance the services of the library through new collaborative research areas and better access to research staff.
- Engage more patrons from the geographic community surrounding the library.”
As an example of the first objective, a FamilySearch press release says Loosle wants to “study the role of the Family History Library and 4,700 satellite branches worldwide…and how to make them discovery centers for people of all ages, not just a research facility.”
“Our centers are great places to do genealogical research,” Loosle says. “[But] we need to figure out how to balance the needs of researchers while increasing appeal to those with other family history interests. You can’t attract a younger audience and offer the same experiences. We need to offer fun experiences and activities for the entire family that will increase love, appreciation, and understanding of their ancestors.”
I admit I’ve wondered about the future of satellite family history centers as increasingly folks stay home to research online. So I look forward to seeing how she will reinvent these community resources to serve today’s (and tomorrow’s) genealogical researchers.
Loosle comes to this job with great credentials. She is an accredited genealogist who has been with FamilySearch for 19 years, where she championed new customer service initiatives. She also has an MBA, strong business and leadership skills. She is described by a senior executive at FamilySearch as “one of the most qualified and capable to ever serve in this position.”
Congratulations, Diane! We look forward to seeing what’s coming next.
