The RootsSearch App -- Finding Records You Weren't Looking For

The RootsSearch App is not one of those listed on the FamilySearch.org App Gallery, but it likely should be. It has been around for a while and has been recently expanded. From the listing in the Chrome Web Store, here is a summary of the functions:

Search across multiple genealogy sites for matching records.RootsSearch allows you to search the most popular genealogy websites for records relating to your ancestors. 

When viewing an ancestor in an online tree or a record from a genealogy website, RootsSearch allows you to search for matching records on other genealogy record sites. 

RootsSearch works on:

• Ancestry
• BillionGraves
• FamilySearch
• Find A Grave
• findmypast
• Genealogie Online
• Open Archives
• WeRelate 

RootsSearch allows you to search on:

• American Ancestors
• Ancestry
• Archives
• BillionGraves
• Chronicling America
• FamilySearch
• Find A Grave
• findmypast.co.uk
• findmypast.com
• Fold3
• Genealogie Online
• Genealogy Bank
• Geneanet.org
• Genealogy Gophers
• Geni
• Google
• Mocavo
• MyHeritage
• Newspapers
• NLA Trove
• Open Archives
• USGenWebWeRelate
• WikiTree
• World Vital Records

The program is a Chrome App and the icon appears on the Extensions bar next to the top of the browser window. If I navigate to a website such as FamilySearch.org's Family Tree, I can search using the entries from any one of my ancestors. For example, here is the entry for my Grandfather Harold Morgan with an arrow pointing to the RootsSearch icon.

When I click on the icon, I get the following screen:

If I click on the More Sites link at the bottom of the listings, I get a long list of other available websites with sliding tabs to enable or disable searches in each website.

I could click down through the list and enable as many websites as I can handle.

Here are the results when I click on the RootsSearch icon for my grandfather:

Obviously, the list is longer than appears on the screen.

When I click on Chronicling America, the Library of Congress digital newspaper website, I got the following results:

The program is a little cranky and I had to click several times to get it set up to work, but when it works it is very impressive. Here is the article highlighted in the upper-left from the St. Johns Herald for 25 November 1915.

Sometimes I think I am going to drown in all the data out there to gather.

Auto-Indexing added to FamilySearch.org

"Internet Archive book scanner 1" by Dvortygirl - Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_Archive_book_scanner_1.jpg#/media/
File:Internet_Archive_book_scanner_1.jpg

Optical Character Recognition or OCR has been around for quite a while. It is routinely used by businesses, such as the U.S. Postal Service, to expedite delivery. I have been using desktop computer based OCR programs for many years. At one point, I lost the files for my personal journal but fortunately had a printed copy and used an OCR program to reconstruct the missing portions of my journal. Lately, I have been using OCR's cousin, Voice Recognition or VR software to save the time and effort of keyboarding everything I write.

More importantly for family historians, the huge collections of digitized and transcribed books online is dependent on this technology. For example, the tens of thousands of books in the FamilySearch.org Books collection have been subjected to OCR scanning and the text is completely searchable.

There have been a couple of mentions of using OCR technology to expedite the entry of some documents into the vast FamilySearch.org Historical Record Collections. The latest was in an update by Steve Anderson in the FamilySearch.org Blog entitled, "What's New in FamilySearch -- September, 2015." Here is the short paragraph about the subject.

Search: Auto-indexed Record Feedback 

FamilySearch.org has begun publishing collections that contain searchable indexed information that was extracted from images by computer algorithms. This monumental advancement promises to dramatically increase the indexed information available for the many image-only collections currently published on FamilySearch.org.

While we are developing these automated indexing tools, your feedback on the accuracy of these records will greatly accelerate the improvement of the tools. On auto-indexed records only, you will see a new tab at the bottom labeled “Errors?” When you click Errors?, you will be able to provide direct feedback to the engineer on the type and specific nature of any errors you encounter.

First of all, this only works on images of typeset documents. OCR technology does not yet work consistently with handwriting or script. Even at the U.S. Postal Service, human intervention in the recognition process is still required in some cases although I suspect that the volume of hand addressed mail has decreased dramatically. OCR technology is still entirely dependent on the quality of the original image.

I always wondered why, when indexing was such a labor intensive activity, that the larger indexing companies, such as FamilySearch.org, did not get more heavily involved. For some time now, Ancestry.com has had a system where users could correct the "indexed" record and add readings of the original that become part of the search terms. Anyone who has spent time researching in indexes, realizes that the indexing system, either human or electronic, makes mistakes in reading the characters in a record.  Here is an example from Ancestry.com.

My Grandfather's name is Leroy Parkinson Tanner. Here is the indexed entry from Ancestry.com where his name is recorded as "Leroy T Tanner."

In this case, the indexing system was accurate. The original image is definitely a "T."

The problem is that this type of error may prevent the record from being found by an unsophisticated search engine. Advances in the search engine technology have diminished the impact of this type of error, but where the original record is not available, where there is only an index, these errors can prevent the researcher from finding the record altogether.

As FamilySearch.org mentions in the announcement, limited user input is now available to help correct this type of entry problem, whether it originated in the original input at the time the record was created or somewhere else in process, it is important to make the original records available with every index, unless, of course, the original record was an index.

This is definitely a move in the right direction by FamilySearch.org.

RootsTech 2016 Website updated and Family Discovery Day Registration Opens

 The new, RootsTech 2016 website is now up and running and registration is now open for the main RootsTech conference and for the Family Discovery Day activities. I would strongly suggest registering early for the Family Discovery Day because last year registration closed and many people could not attend. This is particularly true if you plan on taking a group of individuals to the conference.

Back to Adam -- Sailing off the edge of the world

The famous "Flat Earth" Flammarion engraving originates with Flammarion's 1888 L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire (p. 163)

The idea that people once generally believed the earth to be flat is a myth. But today, it is almost universally believed and reported in history books, that people in the Middle Ages or before, believed the world to be flat. This is an example of a myth based on a myth. Fortunately, we do not have to borrow the flat earth myth, genealogy is well endowed with its own supply of myths. It is also fortunate that we do not have argue the historicity of people who figure prominently in ancient history. We manage to avoid confronting the reality of the lives of historical figures while maintaining extensive and well-developed myths regarding our connection to these people.

From the perspective of genealogy, there is a well-developed, shorthand method of referring to this type of extended, ancestral myth. We refer to it as the "back to Adam" issue. It is remarkable to me how common it is for genealogists to accept extended pedigrees that have no basis in historical fact. But the issue is much more common than is recognized. The reason for this common occurrence is that there is a propensity among some genealogist to extend their pedigrees past the point where there is a reasonable, supported, historical basis for the connections. As I have observed in posts recently, the point at which a pedigree departs from reality can be even in the first one or two generations.

The question is, why does this departure from reality occur? What is it that impels researchers to add generations to their pedigrees when there are no substantiating records? Why do we, in effect, sail off the edge of the world?

First of all, there is no doubt that extended pedigrees at some point depart from historical reality. It is not uncommon to find specific birth and death dates and time periods when such dates were not recorded for individuals. Unfortunately, this propensity to add unsupported pedigrees is not limited to the extension of a pedigree back to a prominent historical figure, but it also includes adding lists of people who are only connected to an ancestral family by reason of the fact that they share a common surname.

When I first began accumulating family records, I found that one of my ancestors, in investigating her family lines, accumulated substantial records based only on a common surname. I found literally hundreds of names of individuals in family group records that appeared to be related but upon extensive research could never be verified. That same practice is fairly common today, particularly among people who justify adding names to their family files for the purpose of doing LDS temple ordinances. This practice is often referred to as "name extraction" and is justified by an entry in the applicable guidelines that states as follows:

Possible ancestors, meaning individuals who have a probable family relationship that cannot be verified because the records are inadequate, such as those who have the same last name and resided in the same area as your known ancestors. See the FamilySearch.org Help Center article, "Individuals for whom I can request temple ordinances."

Some researchers extend this license to include entire countries even though there is no justification to conclude that the surnames encountered are related individuals. In this regard, There is further clarification in the following statement:

Pre-1500 Names
Because there is already much duplication, members can submit names of persons who lived before A.D. 1500 only by contacting FamilySearch Support. For contact information, please go to https://contact.familysearch.org. 

Note: Please do not perform ordinances for people from the Bible, historical personalities, or those of royal or noble European lineages who were born before A.D. 1500, regardless of your relationship to them. These ordinances are either done or not needed.

My main concern with the wholesale extraction of surname records is that the individuals are not connected to families. In many cases, if subsequent research discovers the individual, even though the individual resides in the records of the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, there is often no real way to determine if the individual extracted is exactly the same individual as one produced by careful research. This is the same or similar problem in connecting individuals in the International Genealogical Index or IGI to ancestral families.

The key issue is the question of relationship. The general rule is that members should only do ordinances for those to whom they are related. I am very well aware of the arguments on both sides of this issue and I also am well aware of the difficulty in defining a reference to "same area." I merely suggest that this is an area that needs to be more closely examined.

Overview of the RecordSeek App

This new video on RecordSeek.com is another in a series of presentations on the Brigham Young University Family History Library YouTube.com channel. There are nearly a hundred videos uploaded so far and we have many more to come. You might consider subscribing to the channel. Just click on the subscription link and watch for new family history training videos each week.

Registration now open for Family Discovery Day and the RootsTech 2016 Conference

I just received the following announcement from FamilySearch regarding registration for the Family Discovery Day event and the main RootsTech 2016 conference.

SALT LAKE CITY, 15 September 2015—FamilySearch announced today that registration for RootsTech 2016 is now open. RootsTech is a highly popular and growing global conference where people of all ages celebrate family and are inspired to share their memories and connections. The annual event attracts tens of thousands of participants worldwide. RootsTech 2016 will be held February 3–6 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The website for registration is RootsTech.org. 

Attendees can expect a full lineup of inspirational keynote speakers, over 200 educational classes, exciting hands-on activities in the expo hall, and entertaining evening events, all designed to help celebrate families across generations! Exclusive early bird discount pricing is available now for full passes starting at just $149 and $169 for the RootsTech plus Innovator Summit pass.  Passes for the Getting Started track start at $19 for a limited single day and $39 for a limited 3-day. 

An exciting change comes to the class schedule for RootsTech 2016. Classes will now start earlier in the week, on Wednesday February 3, with the first class beginning at 1:30 p.m. 

For RootsTech 2016, attendees can now use a new scheduling tool to build, edit, and print their class schedule at RootsTech.org. All RootsTech and Innovator Summit classes, including speakers, class titles, and descriptions, are now available within the scheduling tool. Attendees can begin to create and edit their schedules, and continue to edit them after registration. The online tool will sync with the mobile app available later this year. 

As part of RootsTech, the Innovator Summit returns to offer developers, business leaders, and entrepreneurs access to the latest content and resources that provide insight on family history data, services, and inspiration for current and future projects.  

Along with the Innovator Summit, the Innovator Showdown also returns to RootsTech 2016 and is even bigger than before. Innovators of all kinds in any industry are invited to compete with their latest hardware and software apps and services. The top six finalists will be invited to demo live onstage for over 23,000 people. The audience and a panel of renowned judges will decide the winners! 

Registration for Family Discovery Day is also now open. The event takes place on Saturday, February 6, 2016, and is designed for families and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members of the LDS Church are invited to register as families and  groups up to 10 at a time. . This free one-day event includes devotionals, classes, interactive activities, and entertainment to help families and members discover, preserve, and share their family connections. Event details, including speakers and classes, will be made available soon at RootsTech.org. 

 Last year, tickets for the Family Discovery Day ran out sometime before registration closed. I would suggest registering early especially if you are considering taking a group to the conference. This year, I will be attending the conference as an Ambassador or blogger. If you attend the conference, please take time to say hello.

WikiTree now connects to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree

The FamilySearch.org Family Tree is not the only wiki-based online family tree program. In fact, there are several very active such programs. However, the first of these to connect directly to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is WikiTree.org. An App in the FamilySearch.org App Gallery appeared to facilitate the connection between the two programs. By the way, if you want to see all of the apps in the App Gallery, you need to make a choice from the menu to see all of the categories. I think it strange, that the default view does not include all of the apps. Here's a screenshot of the link to the WikiTree.org App.

 The green icon indicates that the app is FamilySearch certified.

Obviously, to take advantage of this particular app, you need to be registered both on FamilySearch.org and on WikiTree.org. The app is described as follows:

This web-based application automatically searches the FamilySearch Tree for likely matches from your WikiTree Watchlist. It enables you to evaluate the matches and then create permanent links from profiles on WikiTree.com to FamilySearch IDs.

The nature of the connection between the two programs is further explained in an article entitled FamilySearch Connections located on the WikiTree.org website. Quoting from the article, you should note, that "when you make a connection with the app a link is added to the person's WikiTree profile page." This is the extent of the connection.

As I have discussed from time to time in this blog, there is an ongoing controversy about the accuracy of online family tree programs in general. Since these programs are user generated there is a concern about their accuracy and their position as "sources." To some extent, this issue is sidestepped by allowing a visual connection between the two programs. This allows the users to evaluate the accuracy of either entry. There is of course, substantial duplication between the two programs. But this duplication is useful, just as all redundancy is not bad. Redundancy between two such large programs will aid users in determining whether accurate information about a particular ancestor exists in either tree.

Now, those who are putting their information into the FamilySearch.org Family Tree have ways to review family tree information in several large online family tree programs. Overall, this should promote consistency between the programs. However, this will only be the case if the users recognize the need to record source information consistently.

On the other hand, the average user will probably feel overwhelmed at the prospect of maintaining several family trees in different programs.