A Family History Mission: We Are Reliving History

No. 41

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

One of the other missionary couples found this notice in the documents of the Maryland State Archives. This is a notice from the Orphan's Court of Maryland noting the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. I have been very much involved in reading about the history of the U.S. Civil War since high school and this notice had a significant impact on me. It brings home graphically that we are working with real people, real records and that the records are a real part of history.

What a great opportunity we are having to relive the history of an entire state and thereby of the nation. We love it. This note made me, as an attorney, feel like I was right there receiving a minute entry from the court.

In case you can't read the document, it says with some comments inserted:

Orphans' Court
April 18, 1865
This court having heard with profound regret the death of Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States by assassination at Washington on the 14th of April. [President Lincoln actually died on the 15th] Therefore, with respect for the memory of the illustrious dead, this court now adjourn[s] until Thursday morning at 10:00 am and that the Register of this court enter the same in the minutes of this court.

I expect that we will find many more such impressive records and comments on history during our work in Annapolis. 

A Family History Mission: Life Intervenes

No. 40

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

In my last post, I mentioned that we were on our way to Georgia to help take care of some complications with the birth of a granddaughter. Here is a photo of me holding baby Ruby, our 34th grandchild. You might also note my computer. This is a very typical situation. I am writing while talking and helping take care of family. We are grateful for the opportunity to help. Mother and new baby are doing fine. The family would have been in a major crisis without our help. I have helped read to the children, clean up some of the things that needed cleaning and helped when I can. My wife, Ann, has done the majority of caring for the baby and helping our daughter-in-law recover as much as possible.

This situation brings up an interesting aspect of serving as a Senior Missionary. There are situations when it is possible to briefly leave your mission location and help with family members or attend some special occasions. This depends, of course, on the missionaries' responsibilities. Some types of missions would be more restrictive than others. In our case, working the Maryland State Archives, we have other missionaries that can "cover" for us and continue operating "our" camera. We are blest to have these wonderful missionary couples as "companions" in our work. Not all missionaries would have this same ability to take care of this kind of emergency.

In addition, we did have to notify and obtain permission from our Mission President, who likewise had to notify the Area Authority Seventy of the situation. This is all done for liability purposes. But it illustrates the flexibility that exists currently with Senior Missionary assignments.

We are grateful that we could help our son and daughter and there now four children. They are busy young family and it has been interesting to help the children get ready from school, do their homework, fix dinners, wash clothes and do all the things needed to keep the family operational.

We will return soon to Annapolis and be back to work. 

Ethics for Consultant Planners

We recently received our weekly update from FamilySearch.org telling us about all the changes to those we are watching on the Family Tree. I say "us" because some of my daughters and I are watching the same people. The Changes List had a record of some extensive changes to my Great-grandfather, Henry Martin Tanner." This is not at all unusual and I keep a separate copy of all of the entries in Ancestry.com so that the changes can be easily reversed. We always send a kind note to the person making the changes to inform them of why we might disagree with what they did. In this case, dozens of sources had been removed. Within a few hours, we got a message from the person saying that she had not made the changes and didn't know what we were talking about. She made the same comment to both me and my daughter.

There were a number of possible reasons for this response, including issues well beyond our control, but one interesting issue could be that a Consultant Planner helper was signed in under her name and made the changes. Unfortunately, we have no way of either knowing that this was the case or communicating with the Consultant. So, the main user gets the feedback from changes made by the Consultant Planner.

The simple solution for the user seems to be to change passwords. But I am not sure that this would release the Consultant. However, the access given to the Consultant expires after one year and to continue a new request has to be sent and accepted.

But the possibility that a Consultant of some kind was "helping" her with her portion of the Family Tree raises some serious questions about the ethics of acting as a Consultant under the auspices of the Consultant Planner.

First of all, it is important to realize that any changes made while acting as a Consultant show up as having been done by the primary user of the Family Tree. Just a suggestion, but perhaps the help given by a Consultant does not need to be completely transparent. It would be a good idea that when changes are made that the changes show as having been made by the Consultant acting for and on behalf of the User. This would give family members and other interested parties the ability to confer with the Consultant if there was a need to do so.

However, I do think that there should be some guidelines about what and how a Consultant "helps" the main user. Some Consultants take the position that they are "passive" observers of the main user's portion of the Family Tree. Those who take this position avoid making any changes at all to the entries. However, the Family Tree is designed to allow anyone to make changes, corrections, additions, and do other types of actions. So limiting the Consultant in this regard seems superfluous and unnecessary.

From my own perspective, having helped dozens of people now using the Consultant Planner, the amount of "work" that I do depends on who I am helping. If the person needs extensive help because of a disability, for example, I would go further in making changes and adding information than I would if the person should really be doing that work for himself or herself.

The quandary here is that unless the Consultant has the latitude to make changes, add sources, add Record Hints and do other such actions, there is little they can do to help the person "find names to take to the temples." Of course, the Consultant's job (task, challenge etc.) is to teach, but in some cases, Consultants can also help those who cannot help themselves. I have several friends whose physical condition prevents them from using a computer or working with FamilySearch. But they are willing to do the temple work and so by using the Consultant Planner I can work on their family line and help them find names to take to the temples. This may not have been the primary motivation for developing the Consultant Planner but it has turned out to be a great blessing in the lives of some of the members of the Church.

Should a Consultant make changes? If so, should there be any limits as to the type of changes that should be made? I think the answers to these two questions, once again, depends on the interaction between the main user and the Consultant. In some cases, I simply cannot find any "easy" names for ordinance work. The only way the person is going to make any progress is to recognize the degree of research that is necessary. The Family Tree is entirely cooperative based. Anyone can make any changes where they find new information or whatever. There is no reason that a Consultant should be limited more than anyone else.

If we understand the cooperative nature of the Family Tree, the only real issue is accountability. In making changes, adding information, and cleaning up entries in the Family Tree for myself and dozens (hundreds?) of others, I very rarely receive any comments back at all. Most of the time, I feel like I am operating in a vacuum.

In short, I do not feel that Consultants should be put in any different category than any other user of the Family Tree. They should be free to do research and help in any way. But I do think that if a consultant is making a change, this fact should be communicated to anyone who is interested and anyone interested should be able to contact the Consultant through and by means of the program.

What are Sources on the FamilySearch Family Tree?

The word "source" as used on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is somewhat ambiguous. Here is one definition of the term from the FamilySearch Help Center:

• Definitions
• A primary source is a record created at or near the time of an event by someone with personal knowledge of the event. Examples of primary sources include birth certificates, death certificates, census records, newspapers, letters, journals, tax lists, court documents, or church records. Published books can be primary sources if they contain accounts based on personal knowledge of an event.
• A secondary source is a record created after the time of an event by someone who did not experience the event personally. Most histories are secondary sources.
• Sources can also come from personal knowledge about a person or from interviews with living relatives or other oral sources.
• A citation is a reference that describes the source and how to find it. Citations for oral sources should include who provided the information. Citations are important because they help users know where information came from and how reliable it is. They can also help users find more information.

According to this definition, the "sources" shown in the above image are "citations." The sources would be the record. But it common to use the words "source" and "citation" interchangeably. 

Why do we need citations to sources? When I enter information into the Family Tree I may think that it is correct. For example, let's suppose I enter my great-grandfather's birth date as follows:

11 June 1852
San Bernardino, Los Angeles, California, United States

Where did I get that information? Is it correct? I may "know" that it is correct, but how would you know? If I tell you where I got the information, you have a chance to determine for yourself whether it is correct or not. Here is what someone else put into a family tree program for my great-grandfather's birthdate.

11 June 1852 

San Bernardino, San Bernardino, California, United States

Are these the same? The dates are the same, but the place shows a different county. Was my great-grandfather born in Los Angeles County or San Bernadino County? How could I tell unless someone added a citation to a source showing where they got the information. If I find contradictory information, how can I resolve the differences?

What if we find both entries and don't know which one is correct? What if there are no sources (i.e. citations to records containing information about my great-grandfather's birth)? Then, if I want to know where he was born, I need to do the research myself. So, one function of a source citation is to help us all to avoid duplicating research over and over again. 

In the case of the different counties, it turns out that in 1852, the town of San Bernardino was in Los Angeles County and later it was in San Bernardino County. What difference does this make? Well, since the records about an event could be created at the time of the event and since we need to look for records, we have a rule that places are recorded as they were at the time of an event. Who made up that rule? A long line of genealogists over time. 

If I do the research and record the information I learn from the research and also cite the source, then someone who comes along can quickly determine which place is correctly designated. Does this sound complicated? It can be. 

What if I find another source that gives a different date or place? That is quite common. Then we have to decide which of the sources is the most reliable. It would also help if we added the reason for our choice in the notes part of the source citation. 

What if I find two or more sources for the same information? We record every place where the information can be found. We do not care about "duplicate sources" because they take up only a very little informational space and because we might want to know about more than one place where the information could be found.

What if we add something that does not fit the definition of a source? Who cares? Unless the information is inaccurate or misleading, there is no harm done. 

What if I know the information, but cannot find a record supporting the information? Again, go ahead and add in the information but the lack of a record means your conclusion will not be given the same weight as a conclusion supported by a cited source. But what if the source is wrong? Then you will have to find other sources that show how the source is not accurate. 

Fortunately, FamilySearch provides us with record hints that can be used to support or correct the information found in the family tree. 

More FamilySearch Records Than You Can Imagine!

The statement in red says: "This is a preliminary description provided to allow immediate online access. Images have not been reviewed." Hmm. I haven't seen that statement before, but the entries that follow are a huge list of probate files, 515 files to be exact. I was interested in searching here because my wife and I have just recently digitized the final probate books from the Frederick County, Maryland probate records and I was wondering if any of our digitized records had made it onto the website yet. There is obviously a time lag before the records that are digitized are put online, but I was surprised with all the records already online.

Here is a screenshot of part of the list of files:

The little camera icons indicate that the files are digitized.  By looking further at the content of the files, you can see from the first images that the files originated as digital images and not microfilm copies:

The Kodak Gray Scale is used to calibrate the digital cameras. Now that I am more acquainted with the process, there are a lot of things I am noticing about the files and what is being depicted.

When we have been digitizing the books from Frederick County, we start with a digital image of the outside cover of the book. Here is an example.

These books are about 19" x 14" and have between 500 and 600 pages including an index. They are very heavy. Sometimes it takes two of us to maneuver the book into position for taking the images.

The number of digital images has basically overwhelmed the process of categorizing them and putting them into the historical record collections. The number of images that are only available by searching in the FamilySearch Catalog has jumped to 703.1 million images. That has increased by about 100 million since I last looked at the statistics. I explained all this in a video uploaded some time ago to the BYU Family History Library YouTube Channel. Here it is:

Where are the Digitized Records on FamilySearch.org

If anything, the number of files is increasing even faster than when I did this earlier video. The combined efforts of those who are digitizing the existing microfilm records and those, like us, who are out here digitizing original records means that the number of records available will continue to increase dramatically for the foreseeable future.

A Family History Mission: Unexpected Events

Clamshell boxes for archival storage

No. 39

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

Life is full of the unexpected. Our youngest son and daughter-in-law were expecting a new baby. This would be our 34th grandchild. Unfortunately, there were some complications when the baby was born and she had to stay the NICU. We then had a dilemma. We were the only ones able to go and help the new mother, the new baby and the rest of the three children and, of course, our son. We asked permission to go for a week and help with the new baby. Senior missionaries are given a lot more latitude when it comes to family matters. So, we are now in Georgia with our son's family. Fortunately, mother and baby girl are doing fine and came home from the hospital. Meanwhile, I was able to teach a family history lesson during Sunday School time and also teach the High Priests during Priesthood Meeting. The benefits of traveling to a new ward where they aren't tired of hearing from you.

We will be here in Georgia for a week then back to Annapolis and our digitization

Relatives at #RootsTech 2018

#RootsTech 2018 is quickly upon us. Of course, I will be clear across the country when it starts, but maybe you will have a chance to be there. One bonus of being at the conference is the possibility of interacting with some of your relatives. If you have the FamilySearch Family Tree mobile app on your smartphone, you can connect to those around you who happen to be relatives. I am sure if I were there and using the app, I would probably have a few hundred relatives, but for some, the experience would be interesting and perhaps amazing. Here is the long link to the full explanation about how this works.


http://view.familysearch.ldschurch.org/?qs=697f4faf3035ea715ceb7831e3c27b525ecc0cbe61c346828140c8fed79737e9be53a5e066c8cc57ca80481ecad7d6ed0a09009b30c2c3db5348db22b82d84461d7ac9ec7fb0b13929abd7c52dd4fe64

Just in case that link doesn't work, here are the instructions:

Before the conference
Download or update to the latest version of the Family Tree mobile app.
Allow the app to use Location Services by clicking Yes when prompted or in the OS settings. 

You can download the FamilySearch Family Tree app from either the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. 

At the conference
Launch Family Tree app while inside the Salt Palace Convention Center.
Tap the Relatives at RootsTech option at the top, and follow the prompts to opt in.
Discover who at the conference is your cousin!

FamilySearch also suggests the following:

Meet up with your cousin in a special place in the FamilySearch booth in the expo hall. People who share their photo on social media using #RootsTech are eligible for a special prize (while supplies last) 

More information will be available at registration and in the FamilySearch booth.

In past years the Wifi connections at the Conference have been spotty, let's hope that all this connecting works. 

A Family History Mission: What I have learned so far

1854

No. 38

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

This image is a document from the Maryland State Archives dated in 1854. Can you read it? Interestingly, every Senior Missionary at the Archives I showed this to could read it instantly and completely. Here is a photo of another interesting document from our work at the archives:

This document, a Probate Estate Inventory, was folded up into a tight bundle. None of these old documents have been opened since they were filed away over 150 years ago. Working there is like opening presents for a special occasion every day. Here is another document showing an unusual style of handwriting but more readable than the first example above:

You can click on the images to see more detail.

What have I learned so far on our mission?

First, almost all of my preconceptions about serving as a Senior Missionary were either wrong or inaccurate. Serving with my wife in the Maryland State Archives is nothing at all like being a young missionary in Argentina or anywhere else for that matter. It is very much like the last 14 years I served as a Church Service Missionary, but spending full-time rather than part-time. Overall, it is a very interesting and worthwhile experience. I suppose that there are senior missionary experiences that are more intense and harder to deal with, but we are happy to be here in Annapolis and thankful for the opportunity to serve.

What we do with our spare time away from the Archives is pretty much up to us. Since we are FamilySearch missionaries, we are doing what we have done for years; helping people with their family history research and finding names to take to the temples. We have had many good experiences already in the time we have been here. We also enjoy working in the Spanish speaking Branch here in Annapolis. We are already having experiences helping them to find their ancestors.

Being away from our home is not as much of a challenge as we might have imagined it to be. We have a nice apartment and it is centrally located and close to the Archives and to most of the stores and other businesses, we need.

One of the best parts of the mission experience is getting to know and work with the other missionaries who are assigned here in Annapolis. We have a wonderful time talking and having activities together. We are also enjoying our time with the Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy which is about five minutes away from our apartment.

One thing I have learned is the value of the documents we are processing. We have been working on probate files including guardianships, indenture documents, and Certificates of Freedom of formerly enslaved people. It makes me sad to think how many genealogists miss a great opportunity in not becoming familiar with more kinds of documents. These probate documents are a fabulous source of information about families.

I have also learned that we can get up every work day at 5:30 am and be to work by 7:00 am and then work all day. I am not sure I would choose that schedule absent a mission call, but it is possible to do.

I have been pleasantly surprised also, that I have time to write and do my own research.

I have learned we can live in a place that has all four season's weather in one day: warm and sunny, cold, ice, and snow, rain, wind, fog and almost every variation possible of all of them.

We will probably learn a lot more in the next few months.

Finding Francis: More Breakthrough Discoveries

Will of Nathan Tanner

One of the most challenging and elusive all-time research projects I have been involved in is finding the parents of my fifth-great-grandfather, Francis Tanner.  As I have chronicled in previous posts about Finding Francis, the traditional accounts of his parents are contradictory and simply wrong. Despite having hundreds of thousands of descendants, none of them seemed to have questioned the early published origin of the family. Back in 2017, I published a copy of a will of a William Tanner with a son named Francis who died in 1757. Since that time, I have re-evaluated the will and do not believe that it is the will of my Francis Tanner's father. The Francis Tanner mentioned in the Will was a minor child in 1757 and by 1757, my Francis Tanner had a wife and family.

The Will I found for a William Tanner illustrates the difficulty of doing research during this early time period in Colonial America. Just when you think you have the matter resolved, additional research shows that you are off on the wrong track. This is mainly due to repetitious common names. As I pointed out in a blog post on Genealogy's Star, I now have documented 12 possibly different William Tanners that lived during the applicable time period. See "12 William Tanners? A new record for confusion."

What the consistent documents do show now, it that the father of Francis Tanner had at least three sons: Francis, Nathan and another son named Benjamin. His name was William Tanner and he had a wife named Elizabeth. All of this information has come primarily from Wills and probates. The latest discovery is Nathan Tanner's Will shown above. This will confirms Nathan's wife's name was Mary and that his mother's name was Elizabeth. The will also contains a witness named Francis Tanner who in an additional discovery, is named the Guardian of two of Nathan's underage sons: Nathan and Abel. Another son, David is the Executor of his mother's estate. Apparently, she died a few years after her husband, Nathan Tanner.

We now know that Francis, Nathan, and Benjamin were brothers and all the children of a William Tanner and Elizabeth. We have wills for both Francis and Nathan. The additional existence of a Guardianship established for Nathan's sons with Francis Tanner as the Guardian further supports the existence of the family.

Now, we need a William Tanner, married to a woman named Elizabeth with three sons named Francis, Nathan and Benjamin.

Millions of Mexican Civil Registration Records Added to FamilySearch.org

The screenshot shown above is only a partial listing of the millions of Civil Registration Records added to the FamilySearch.org Historical Record Collections during the past month or so. Searchable images of all of the records are available. Here is an example of the list of microfilms that have been digitized. This example is from the State of Guerrero.

Here is an example of one of the microfilm image sets.

Here is an example of one of the records on this particular roll of microfilm:

If I zoom in on the image, here is some of the text.

If I use the search function to look for an ancestor for someone whose family came from Mexico, this is what I might find:

Just as with any other name searches, the user must add in dates and a location or family members to find a particular instance of a common given name and surname.

In addition to this huge collection of Mexican images, the FamilySearch.org website has added images from El Salvador, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Panama and many other countries. You need to keep searching and checking back to see if new records have been added.

A Family History Mission: Expanding our Horizons

No. 37

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

Quoting J.R.R. Tolkien from the Lord of the Rings,

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

To paraphrase, it is an interesting business going out your door to go on Senior Full-time Mission, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to. 

In our case, we have been swept off into a whole catalog of new and different experiences. Most recently, we started to attend the Spanish speaking branch here in Annapolis and we were certainly swept off. Besides Sunday meetings in Spanish, teaching family history class in Spanish, singing hymns in Spanish and speaking in Sacrament meeting, in addition, we have attended a wedding in Spanish and the lively reception that followed and a baptismal service for the newly married husband and wife and all this is only the first week or so of our involvement. Even after speaking Spanish for over 54 years, this was the first Spanish speaking wedding I have ever attended.

Part of our new experiences are those that accompany moving from one city to another for an extended time but many are new and unique. Obviously, we have never both worked in an archive digitizing records, but after almost two months, we are getting used to that activity. But it is decidedly different for both of us to have the same job and the same schedule.

One thing is certain, the traffic is part of the overall experience and easily the greatest (and most dangerous) business. This week saw our first extended driving in downtown Washington, D.C. I am sure driving in D.C. is one of the major challenges in the entire U.S. road system, heightened by the fact that there are almost no right angle intersections in the city. I have driven in every one of the ten most populous cities in America and none of these come close to D.C. which has the densest population in the country and I am sure they are all out driving cars.

As to the weather, I think my daughter put it right when she observed that "It looks like they take every kind of weather and temperature and then randomly assign it to different days or times of day." The weather can start out warm in the morning with sunshine and then rain, followed by snow and by the next morning sun with warm temperatures. This is the first place I have lived in recent memory where the temperature can go up when the sun goes down. Continuing on with my daughter's comment about D.C. weather, "Over a few days this week, we had sun, clouds, wind, rain, sleet, snow and temperatures from 20 to 70 degrees."

We are adjusting to living in an apartment and having two flights of stairs to carry in all our groceries and such. We are also have figured out things like where to shop, buy gas for our car and get the oil changed. Interesting adapting.

The Impact of Billions of Records

Family history is all about records. Many of the members of The Chruch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United States are descendants of those early members of the Church who crossed the plains back in the 1800s. Even those who are not new members or who have joined the Church since 1900 are surprised to learn that they have "Mormon Pioneer" ancestors. I talked to one such individual this past week at the Maryland State Archives.

There is an inaccurate and very nearsighted common belief among those who ancestors were early members of the Church that all of their "genealogy" was and is done. This was usually accomplished by some very active "genealogist" in the past. There is also another related myth that "someone in my family is doing all the work." This person is usually a sibling, a parent, or some other relative. This near relative may be "providing names to the family members" sometimes hundreds of names.

I am one of those who has an extensive LDS heritage. Of those in my direct ancestral lines, all of my great-grandparents and some of my great-great-grandparents joined the Church during the 1800s and nearly all of them crossed the plains as pioneers. My personal experience with genealogy parallels the experience of many of those who claim that their work has all been done. But, fortunately, I realized very quickly many years ago that the claim to completeness was illusory and false.

What has changed? Why couldn't our relatives "do all the work" years ago?

We are presently helping as full-time Record Preservation missionaries/volunteers at the Maryland State Archives. There are presently four cameras digitizing records and a significant number of volunteers processing the records for digitization. After being here for a while and seeing the number of images produced by the camera operation, I estimate that we will produce between 1.5 and 2.0 million digital record copies during this year. Most of these records have not been touched by anyone since they were created and initially stored away in the county record repositories. None of our ancestors had access to these records. They were not on microfilm. They were not even available unless the researcher went to the individual counties and accessed the records. Now, they are being put online for anyone to access with a computer and an internet connection.

Multiply the number of digital images we are producing by the 303 cameras in operation and you can see that there are millions of records being uploaded every month. There is absolutely no comparison between what we are doing today and can do to find our ancestors and what could be done even five or ten years ago. If we add in the billions of records on the FamilySearch Partner Websites, we have billions of records that were not available to our expert genealogist ancestors.

There is no excuse for not becoming involved in family history and there never was.

A Family History Mission: Planning for a Mission

Nauvoo Temple Sunstone

No. 36

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

This particular example of the Nauvoo Temple Sunstone is in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History NMNH in Washington, D.C. Back in 1992, the Museum purchased this original Sunstone for $100,000 from the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams Counties in Illinois. When we recently visited the Museum, seeing the Sunstone in D.C. was like seeing an old friend. We have a day and a half off each week to recuperate from our work schedule and take care of all things we need to do to live in Annapolis. 

For example, we are required to provide our own transportation. That means bringing a car across the country and maintaining it in Annapolis which includes oil changes, tire rotation and etc. We also purchase and fix all our own food. Of course, we did that at home, but here we have to take the time to go to the stores and work out where to do all the things we need to do to survive. We have a very nice apartment and it is centrally located very near the Archives where we work. So we do have only a five minute or so drive to the Archives. 

My previous full-time missionary experience as a young missionary in Argentina was dramatically different than our experience here in Annapolis. We have wonderful opportunities to help the local members with their family history and we have other opportunities to serve and help, but we are not out on the street every day proselyting. We have a very defined position in the Archives and limited interaction with the staff. Fortunately, here in Annapolis, we have other Senior Missionaries. This gives a small, but important, support group.

If you have ever thought about serving as a full-time Senior Missionary, I suggest you think seriously about how you would like to serve. I can only imagine, but I am pretty sure that serving a FamilySearch mission in Annapolis is vastly different than serving a CES Mission in New York City or as a Farmland Reserve Church-Service Missionary. Every month the Church publishes a Senior Missionary Opportunities Bulletin. In thinking about a mission, you should take a look at the opportunities available. You will likely find something that uses your own special talents as well as sounds like a wonderful opportunity. 

Moving to a new city, town or village for a year or more has its difficulties, but so does living at home. For us, the biggest challenge has been getting mail in a timely fashion. This could be solved by having someone at "home" who can forward the mail or sort through it and follow instructions. In planning for a mission (and old age) we have almost all of our periodic bills paid online automatically. This saves us from having the mail situation impact keeping our payments current. 

Before we left, we got referrals for doctors and had our prescriptions transferred to a local pharmacy. This can be done through most of the major pharmacies. We sold one of our cars and have debated whether to stay a one-car family or not when we return. There are a lot of other such considerations that do not apply at all to younger missionaries. 

Since there are both full-time and part-time missionary options that allow the missionaries to serve while staying at home, many of these issues can be avoided. 

For some, financial considerations and leaving family for a period of time are the most important factors. As I have pointed out previously, neither of these issues was much of a challenge for us. We are sorry to leave the children we left behind in Utah, but we have children all over the country and we have already had the opportunity to visit with some of them while here in Annapolis. Ideally, we would love to have all of our children and grandchildren living close by, but that is not our reality. 

In visiting with the other senior missionaries, health and finances are the two major considerations. One way to prepare for a mission is to work at staying healthy and saving for the time when the money might be needed. These are both a lot easier to talk about than actually put into practice. I think every senior missionary couple I have talked to has had one or the other of these issues. The difference is that they "put up with" the problems rather than letting their lives be ruled by those same problems. 

What it seems to come down to is making up your mind to do something productive when you are older and not expected to do anything. 

FamilySearch Mobile Apps and FamilySearch Family Tree Hinting

FamilySearch Mobile Apps

FamilySearch has posted two new videos: FamilySearch Mobile Apps and FamilySearch Hinting. 

Family Tree Hinting

These videos are presented by Bryce Roper, FamilySearch, Senior Product Manager and by Andrew Hair, UX Designer Mobile Team, from FamilySearch. This is a close as you can get to getting it straight from the source at FamilySearch. 

Not Everything Works the Way You Think It Does on the FamilySearch Family Tree

No matter how easy or uncomplicated you think something is, there always seems to be someone who doesn't quite get the message. The FamilySearch.org Family Tree is an amazingly well done and, from my perspective a rather easy program to use. But there are always questions and misunderstandings with even the most obvious features.

I recently had a friend pass on this comment after trying to help a patron in a Family History Center. The comment really illustrates two different issues.

Today, I was helping a young woman with her research, and I asked if she looked for information on FamilySearch. She said, "oh yes, I have a tree there with sources."

I said let's look at it. She went into FS and pulled up her person. There was not one source, document or memory attached. When I asked (very nicely) where the source was, she responded -- "oh, it's right here". She pointed to the hints under the Research Help column on the right. Her perspective was that was a place where the sources were kept and that she did not have to do anything further.

We were trying to estimate a marriage date and I noticed that there was only one child listed under the couple. I asked if there were any other children in the family, and she said yes, it was a very large family but she is only interested in her direct line ancestor.

When a program is designed, the programmers are not usually the people who will ultimately use the program. That is one reason why FamilySearch and other developers use Beta tests to let the real users give feedback on the issues with the program. Here we have two excellent examples of program difficulties that are not going to be found by bug reports. The reason is simple. There is nothing wrong with the Family Tree program at all. However, the Family Tree, as well as most of the other parts of the FamilySearch.org website do make assumptions about a user's competency and awareness of the terminology and usage of parts of the programs. 

People who focus only on one line and fail to "fill in" the rest of the people in their ancestral families are quite common among those who are "interested" in genealogy. If you go back in time, clicking on family lines on the Family Tree, you will quite possibly find family lines that have only one child in each generation. So this part of the quote does make some weird sort-of sense. 

Quite frankly, this is the first time I have ever heard of the issue with Record Hints. I know people who ignore them both negligently and intentionally but thinking they are the same thing as sources is really strange, especially if you manage to open one of the Record Hints and look at what it says. 

It is situations such as these that make my days interesting while helping in Family History Libraries and Centers. Let me know if you agree with the patron. 

A Family History Mission: Extremely Interesting Discoveries

No. 35

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

Since we are involved every working day with 200 to 300-year-old documents there are a lot of things going on every day that are interesting and surprising. The documents and books become a constant source of entertainment and amazement. For example, we got a series of books that had been sent to the conservation section of the Maryland State Archives. They were infested with mold and had to be irradiated. However, working with the documents requires the use of gloves and a dust mask. Here is a look at one of the books.

This is after the book had been treated for mold. Here is a photo of the workstation.

When you see the condition of some of these records, you begin to understand the importance of what we are doing to digitize and preserve the records and all the information they contain. Here is how the books come to us.

Of course, not all the books are in this condition. Most of what Ann and I have been doing involves books in a lot better condition than these. We make interesting discoveries. Here is a pedigree chart that was found among the records we are digitizing.

Here is a photo of the entire chart. This particular chart was accompanied by a stack of original records from Ireland.

One last photo. Here is a notation about a court document. Can you read the date?

It took me a couple of minutes to figure it out, but now I can read all of the dates from this court and time period without much of a problem.

The things you learn on a mission!

New Family History Photo Activity

I got an email inviting me to a new family activity from FamilySearch.org. The email says:

We created a fun, new family activity to remember your ancestors! Strengthen your knowledge of what they looked like in this personalized photo challenge.

By clicking on the blue button, I got the following series of screens:

The series continues for ten people. If I guess the right person, then it gives me a link to that person.

This feature is apparently a promotional campaign and may or may not translate into a permanent feature of the website. Look for this when you sign on to FamilySearch.org or look for an email.

Home Page Updates for The Family History Guide

http://www.thefhguide.com/blog/home-page-updates/?utm_source=The+Family+History+Guide+Association+Blog+Main&utm_campaign=5260796d7b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_41be9f9d3a-5260796d7b-283099673

By subscribing to The Family History Guide blog, you can keep up-to-date with all the new features and additions to this extremely useful website. The link to the post about "Home Page Updates" is above in the caption to the screenshot. Here is a list of the updates.

• Menu Help – Just above the banner area is a small open / close link titled “Menu Help”. Click it to get a brief description of the menus at the top of each page in The Family History Guide. This is a gentle reminder that you can find whatever you need on the website by using the drop-down menus; you don’t have to use the tiles or links on the Home Page.
• Search – Also just above the banner area is the Search link; it has been moved into the header area on each page of the site so you can find it without scrolling. For more details, see our blog post The “Search” is On.
• Font size and color – We’ve reduced the text size in the banner in order to fit two tiles on the right, and we’ve made the green color consistent on the page.
• Mission recap – We’ve added a shortened version of our mission statement at the bottom of the banner: “Family history made easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable!”
• Get Started – see the description below.
• Quick Tour – This is a link to our Quick Tour video, but it will change when more videos are added (see “Sneak Peek” below).
• Google Translate bar – This has been moved higher up the page so it’s visible without having to scroll down.

Here is a screenshot of the Home Page as of the date of this post.

thefhguide.com

If you are not familiar with The Family History Guide, be sure to click on the Get Started link and take a quick tour. 

A Family History Mission: Why Am I Here?

No. 34

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

Why do older members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leave home and family for up to three years to serve missions all over the world? Since I presently have an opportunity to work with a number of senior missionary couples and have talked to hundreds over the years, I have asked the same question. Interestingly, some of the senior missionaries, even ones I am working with right now, are on their second or even third mission. What motivates these people? What is more personal, why was I motivated to come on a mission?

It would be too easy to say that they are motivated by their testimonies of Jesus Christ, the reality of the restored Gospel and latter-day prophets on the earth. This is too easy a way to explain the choice to serve a full-time mission because many older members have strong testimonies but do not serve full-time missions. There must be something else going on here and there is.

Life becomes almost unbelievably complicated as we grow older. There is this falsely advertised view of old age as the "Golden Years." They are mostly years filled with worries about medical, financial and family issues. Almost every one of the senior missionaries I have talked to has had or is still having serious medical challenges. The missionaries serving here in Maryland are no exception. Of course, there is a threshold where medical conditions prevent serving some kinds of full-time missions but fortunately, the senior mission system is highly adaptable and some can serve while living in their own homes where medical and other support is already in place. Visits to doctors and even hospitals by senior missionaries are not uncommon. However, our schedules are flexible enough to accommodate most of these challenges. What is different about those who serve full-time missions is their ability to put physical limitations in perspective.

There is a financial hurdle to overcome. But this is also less of an issue than might be imagined. The main part of the financial issues are ongoing obligations that prevent service. All of the senior missionaries have planned their lives to avoid excessive debt and have either the support of family or their own resources to pay for a mission. The decision to "put their houses in order" was made years or even decades before they choose to serve. I am guessing that this is the one most important deciding factor after physical health that prevents some from serving.

What does it cost to serve a full-time mission? To some extent that depends on the place and type of mission served. One of the missionary couples serving here with us sold their home to go on a mission. They presently have no home to go back to and are deciding where in the country they want to live after their mission is finished. Some missions are much less expensive than others. The key here is that senior missionaries have much more control over where and how they serve than the young missionaries. Of the six couples serving here in Annapolis, all but one couple asked to serve with FamilySearch.

We chose to serve a FamilySearch mission because we have been so totally involved with family history and were already serving as Family History Church Service Missionaries. We see the value of digitizing records and understand how that service fits into the overall effort of Temple work and the salvation of the dead. Personally, I have been closely involved with FamilySearch for years and I simply appreciate the opportunity to be involved in this aspect of genealogy. It is interesting that we have dozens of volunteers helping in the digitization effort in the Maryland State Archives, almost all of which are local genealogy society members or genealogists and not members of the Church. They see a need to help where the local members do not even know the opportunity exists and would not help if they did.

One of the issues, perhaps the one most talked about, is the "leaving" our families issue. In my own situation, my children and grandchildren live all over the United States. I am just as likely to see some of them when the come through or to Washington, D.C. as I would by living in any other place. But if, as grandparents, you are actively involved in the day to day care of family members either parents, children or grandchildren, you may need to think in terms of serving our of your home. This is a difficult decision to make. However, as Senior Missionaries, there is some latitude in attending important family occasions, even outside of your mission boundaries.

When we get right down to the motivation for serving a mission, it turns out to be highly personal. I do think more older members would consider a full-time mission if they knew more about the opportunities and the commitments involved. We are very happy to help in the Archives for a year and then we will probably find some other way to serve.

Take some time to seriously think about it and look on LDS.org for the missionary service opportunities. If you do not think you can serve a full-time mission, seriously consider a part-time Church Service mission.

Comments on the online connections to FamilySearch.org

Obviously, to use the FamilySearch.org website and all its resources, you need to have some sort of device that connects to the internet and a connection. We had a discussion last evening at the Annapolis, Maryland Family History Center (FHC) about teaching a group of young people about Indexing. The entire Indexing program is now online and web-based. Most of these youth did not have laptops and would be depending on smartphones of some kind. The main issues were the size of the device's screen and the lack of a regular keyboard. Oh, the activity was taking place outside of the FHC so they would not have access to the Center's computers.

Another topic of conversation was the poor internet connection in the FHC. I found out that for some months now, the Director has been trying to resolve why the connection slows down to zero when there are only a few people using the computers. I was one of those complaining that I could not view the "restricted" digital images because the Center's computers would not load the images. I was having the same problem on different computers in the FHC.

This got me thinking about connecting to FamilySearch.org in general. As the website gets more functions and features, such as the move to web-based Indexing, the problem of sustaining a good connection to the internet and having appropriate devices will become more and more significant. Working with the FamilySearch.org website shares some of the same common limitations that everyone has in connecting to the internet, such as, the necessity of having either a paid or free WiFi connection.

Many people rely on publically available computers in Family History Centers, libraries, and other public places because they either do not own a computer or do not have their own commercially available connection. WiFi is appreciably slower and less reliable than a physical cable link using Ethernet. Nearly all of the chapels of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, here in the United States,  now have WiFi available in some form or another. However, I find that a common complaint is that once there is a meeting in the chapel, the WiFi quickly becomes too slow to use. It is apparent that many units of the Church do not either have the resources to solve this problem or do not know who to ask for assistance. The challenge is that many of the Church's programs, not just FamilySearch.org, are web-based. The leaders usually have a physical cable connection that they can rely on, but the members are faced with using an unreliable WiFi connection. Personally, I have prepared all my lessons, classes, and teaching to presentations that do not rely on an internet connection just for this reason. This last Sunday, for example, we were attending the Spanish-speaking Branch in our area and in the Sunday School Class we attended, every one of the class participants were relying on their smartphones or tablets to participate in the class.

Other examples from FamilySearch.org are the "restricted" digitized records that can only be viewed in a FHC, I mentioned above. I have written about this recently, see "Restricted Records on FamilySearch.org." My frustrating experience is only one example of the complex problem in maintaining a workable connection with a complex website.

In addition, in some locations in the United States and around the world, the main issue is having an internet connection at all. One solution is to make more and more of the web-based programs, such as Indexing smartphone compatible. The reality of today's world, especially with the youth, is that most of the population relies on smartphones for their internet experience. Only a few of the Church's web products work well on these small devices. The challenge will be to adapt to the reality of small screens. FamilySearch.org has some well-developed Family Tree and Memories apps, but many of the other functions are not well adapted for small screens and limited keyboards.

I suggest that these issues of connection and usability will become major obstacles to increasing the use of the internet-based Church programs by members unless solutions are implemented.

77% of the historical records on FamilySearch cannot be found by searching

https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/finding-elusive-records/

According to the above blog post, 77 percent of the free historical records on FamilySearch.org can’t be found by searching. Quoting from the post entitled, "Finding Elusive Records on FamilySearch,"

If a basic search on FamilySearch.org is the only approach you use to find your ancestors, you might be missing out on a lot of potential discoveries. The records you can find by performing basic searches represent only a small portion of what’s available on FamilySearch. 

In fact, 77 percent of the free historical records on FamilySearch.org can’t be found by searching. That’s a lot of information about your family just waiting to be discovered! In order to tap into these hard-to-find records, you’ll need to know how to use resources like unindexed image collections and the FamilySearch catalog, as well as some more advanced search features.

This is not new news. Most of us who are extensively involved with FamilySearch.org know that, in many cases, page by page searching of the records is absolutely necessary. In fact, it may be necessary even if we find what we are looking for by using the FamilySearch.org Search Engine or function. This is not a particularly appealing prospect to beginning researchers and so is not talked about much by those promoting the large online genealogy database websites such as FamilySearch.

In addition, the hundreds of thousands of records on FamilySearch.org that are only listed in the Catalog are also unavailable to online searches and must be viewed and searched one record at a time.

Slogging through the records is just a fact of life for experienced genealogists and historians. However, there are a lot of other techniques that may help minimize the need to look at every single record every time. Here is a video from Robert Kehrer, Senior Product Manager for FamilySearch's search and hinting technologies that explains more.

Finding Elusive Records in FamilySearch

A Family History Mission: Helping the Midshipmen at the Naval Academy

No. 33

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

Our Stake in Annapolis includes the Midshipmen from the United States Naval Academy who would like to attend church services. There is a missionary couple assigned to handle Military Relations and they have organized some of the other missionaries to help with transportation and support of the Midshipmen. Every Sunday, certain designated Senior Missionaries help with this service.

We are really impressed with the young men and women who are attending the Naval Academy and were happy to be invited to help transport and support them. They can only leave the Academy for a few hours each week to go to Church. It is quite a process to get approved to go on to the Academy and pick up the Midshipmen. We have now gone part way through the approval process and will soon be able to help.

Meanwhile, we have also been invited to meet with the Spanish speaking members in the Spa Creek Branch on Sunday. My wife Ann does not speak Spanish but understands some. We are happy to help with the Branch because we can help the members with their genealogy. I have done a lot of Latin American genealogical research over the years for friends and patrons at the Libraries and I am looking forward to doing some more.

We have had a couple of opportunities now to visit the Naval Academy and are impressed with the lovely architecture and the interesting historical connections.

One thing I am beginning to learn about on this Full-time mission is that there are going to be a lot of opportunities that are unexpected and very interesting. By the way, I am now scheduled to teach at two different genealogy conferences later this year here in Maryland. More about that as the schedules become available to publish. 

A Family History Mission: A Visit to Downtown Washington, DC

No. 32

Note: You can do a Google search for "A Family History Mission James Tanner" to see all the previous posts in this ongoing series. You can also search for "James Tanner genealogy" and find them.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." All full-time missionaries are encouraged to take advantage of local cultural companies on preparation day. We took an opportunity to visit downtown Washington DC and visit the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing and spend some time in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This exhibit of $1 million in $10 bills is at the entrance to the Bureau. Here are some additional highlights of our visit.

We find it convenient to drive to the nearest train station and take the Metro into downtown DC.

About half the ride is in the subway. It was bitterly cold and very windy. We just barely survived walking from the train station to the Bureau. The sunshine didn't help much.

 This is the front of the Bureau.

 We were surprised at the poor condition of the building.

The tour is rather short and so we walked to the National Museum of African American History and Culture and almost froze again.

This museum is huge and we only saw less than about 1/3 of the entire museum. We were impressed by some of the beautiful views inside the museum.

We walked to the nearest Metro station and wrote back to our car. We will likely visit downtown DC many times during our stay in Annapolis, Maryland.