What does it mean when FamilySearch announces new records?

I get a monthly notice of the "new" records on FamilySearch.org but what is meant by the word "new?"

The key here is reading what FamilySearch is saying. Some of these are "new indexed" records being added to FamilySearch.org. The comments on the records indicate that they are "Added indexed records to an existing collection." Now, this is really good news because only the indexed records can be searched for names, dates, places, and etc. The more indexed records that are added the easier it will be to find your ancestors from the millions of records on the website.

Are there any other "new" records? Yes. There are new indexed record collections that have been added. These may have images but the images are of the "index" not the original records. Here is an example.

New Jersey, marriage indexes, New Jersey Bride Index letters E-Z, R-Z, Reel 33, 1930–1935

There are also new images added to the Historical Record Collections as long as they have an associated index. The idea is to convert the Historical Record Collections entirely to searchable records.

Where are the unindexed images? There are still some left in the Historical Records Collections but new unindexed records are being added, without fanfare, in the FamilySearch.org Catalog. The images for these newly digitized records have yet to be indexed so the records need to be searched individually using places, dates, and names by looking at the images. As of June 2018, there were 832.6 million records that were only available as listed in the Catalog. Over time, since digitizing the records takes less time than indexing the same records, the ratio between the number of records in the Historical Record Collections and those listed only in the Catalog will shift with more records only in the Catalog than in the Historical Record Collections unless the Indexing program increases dramatically.

New records are being added all the time to the FamilySearch.org Catalog. I know this because I am working at the Maryland State Archives digitizing thousands of new records that are being sent weekly to FamilySearch that will ultimately end up on the website. But you will need to periodically look into the catalog and see if any new records have appeared in the places where you need records.

A Family History Mission: What we brought vs. What we needed

No. 75

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 or click back through all the posts.

We are a camping family. Even now, in our "advanced age" we spend some of our vacations tent camping. As an aside, some of our friends back in Provo, Utah cannot believe that we actually sleep in tents on the ground. We have what to take camping down to a science with specific lists for specific conditions. But coming on a year-long camping trip is more of a challenge. As Senior Missionaries, the guidelines about what we can bring on our missions are a lot more liberal than those for young missionaries. Here are a few thoughts on the categories of things we needed and those we actually brought here to Annapolis, Maryland. 

The first main difference between young missionaries and Senior Missionaries is that if you live in the United States and are called to the United States and have a car, you bring that on your mission and depend on your car to drive to and from your mission and for transportation while on your mission. For us, that meant we could bring only what would fit in our Subaru Outback. As I have written previously, we did a test run and loaded empty boxes into the car to see what we could and could not take. 

For us, our first priority was our computer systems. So those boxes came first. We are glad we brought our computer systems with us including a printer. One hard drive has crashed since we came and so we had to buy a replacement. 

There are unexpected but ordinary and some extraordinary expenses on a mission. One minor one, for example, is that we do not have any way to wash our car living in an apartment except to pay for a car wash. Other expenses, although unexpected, can be major, such as doctor bills, medicine, and etc. These are not necessarily things we would not have had to pay for if we had stayed at home, but in some cases, they would have been for things we had left at home. Another example is pillows. We left ours at home because of space requirements. We had to buy new pillows when we got here. We now have quite a few pillows because the first ones we bought didn't work well at all. If you leave a paying job to come on a mission, that is a major consideration. 

One thing we did bring that turns out to be necessary is tools. I brought a selection of tools, i.e. hammer, screwdrivers, wrenches, etc. and that turned out to be very useful. Some of the missionaries brought more tools and they have used their tools to upgrade some of the things we use for digitization in the Maryland State Archives. One missionary designed a clamp that is now being used by other missionaries across the United States. 

Food is always a consideration. I would have brought less. But Ann brought the things that are not easily replaced such as spices and other similar items. Unless we want to eat out every day, we have to cook. We do not eat out much. In fact, we have eaten out at restaurants more on our mission than ever before in our lives. Most of the kitchen items were kindly supplied by our mission, but we did end up buying a few things. We did buy a chair for one of our computers, but that was incidental. 

In our mission, the apartment came completely furnished. I understand that is not always the case. We even were given some basic supplies like TP and soap. We also made a trip to the mission office and got a few more things we needed. Some of those things have needed replacement, such as a mop that broke. 

Clothes are a problem. Since we lived in Provo, we had winter clothes. Had we come from Mesa, where we used to live, we would have needed more winter clothes. Snow and ice require gloves, car window scrapers, and all sorts of things. Since we work in the Archives with old records, we wear regular clothes to work. We love our raincoats. We can live without a lot of variety, so we brought about what we needed. 

We obviously have to buy food here. It took us a while to find the stores and work out the prices. 

All in all, we brought about what we have needed and now have to figure out, at some point, how to get it all back home. 

Relational Processes Associated with Regular Family Prayer

http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-29932-001?doi=1

An LDS Church News article entitled, "BYU Research Shows Why Your Family Should Pray Together," cites the above Journal article.

https://www.lds.org/church/news/byu-research-shows-why-your-family-should-pray-together?lang=eng

The study was based on 476 participants from 198 religious families—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—living in 17 different states across the country. The conclusions of the study indicated that family prayer served important functions and influenced relationships in various ways. The influence of family prayer is summarized in the Church News article. The original article is only available as a paid copy.

RootsTech 2019 and Family History

Family Discovery Day at RootsTech 2019 will likely prove just as interesting and inspiring as it was in 2018. Family Discovery Day has been scheduled for the last day of the general RootsTech 2019 Conference on March 2, 2019. In 2018, the Family Discovery Day was scheduled to begin with the classes starting at 10:00 am and general session at 1:00 pm. The schedule for 2019 has yet to be announced, but it is likely to be similar.

The RootsTech 2019 Conference begins on February 27, 2019. I suggest that you might want to sign up for the entire Conference to include attending the Family Discovery Day activities on Saturday. Either way, you need to start making plans now to attend. The attendance on Saturday is usually very crowded and in past years there have been limits on the number of tickets to the conference they had available.

I am already looking forward to attending this next year's conference. I missed RootsTech 2018 for a good reason that of serving a full-time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

BYU Family History Library Webinar Series

https://sites.lib.byu.edu/familyhistory/classes-and-webinars/online-webinars/

The Brigham Young University Family History Library has a very active video and webinar series that continues to produce a huge number of high-quality family history related videos. You might note, that I am still helping with the webinars and will have one in August about digitizing records here at the Maryland State Archives. Here is a screenshot of the BYU Family History Library YouTube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7hqNOQt-2AfeVEpDuc7sCA

As of the date of this post, we now have 378 videos posted on the Channel.

A Family History Mission: Family History and Temples

No. 74

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 or click back through all the posts.

Shortly after arriving in the Washington, D.C. North Mission, the Washington, D.C. Temple closed for two years of reconstruction. We had one opportunity to attend the Temple before it closed. The next closest Temple is the new Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Temple. However, we are serving in Annapolis, Maryland and on a good day, the Washington, D.C. Temple was about 45 minutes to an hour away depending on freeway traffic. On a bad day, the trip could take two hours one way. Philadelphia is outside of our mission boundaries but a trip to Philadelphia, again depending on traffic, takes about two and half hours one way. 

The reaction of the membership of the Spa Creek Branch (Spanish Speaking) was to set some target dates for trips to the Philadelphia Temple. First, the Relief Society sisters in the Branch organized a Saturday trip and then the Branch Presidency organized a trip for the entire branch. He asked us to help prepare the members by helping them find their own family names to take to the Temple. As I may have written before, we meet in the Annapolis Stake building and the Stake Family History Center is in our building. We help the members of the Branch find names to take to the Temple almost every Sunday during the Sunday School time period. Our Branch has a very small membership but so far this year their Family History Report shows an almost 100% increase in members submitting names for temple work. Currently, the Branch has 17.7% of the members submitting names for ordinances which is actually higher than many of the wards back in Provo for people who live less than an hour away from four operating temples. 

The members are from Mexico, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, and even the United States. The key factors in the increase in participation are the commitment of the Branch Presidency and Elders Quorum Presidency to support the family history effort. Both the Branch President and Elders Quorum President lead the way by finding their own names to take to the temple. Imagine the increase that could be experienced in a large, active ward with the same type of involvement. 

Percentages are not what is most important. What is important is the fact that members are actively participating in providing the saving ordinances for their ancestral families and deceased relatives. This active participation helps to resolve many of the day-to-day issues with activity in the Branch. As the core of active members continues to grow, there is a greater chance that the new members, as they are baptized, will also stay active. It is a great blessing to see what concerned and dedicated leadership can do even in a small, struggling branch of the Church. 

Are You a Victim of the Family Tree?

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about being a genealogical victim. If anything, I am seeing more people with a victim mentality than ever before. Quoting from my previous post, here is a list of some of the common reactions suffered by those who see themselves as victims:

• Ascribing non-existent negative intentions to other people
• Negative, with a general tendency to focus on bad rather than good aspects of a situation.
• Self-absorbed: unable or reluctant to consider a situation from the point of view of other people or to "walk a mile in their shoes"
• Exhibiting learned helplessness: underestimating one's ability or influence in a given situation; feeling powerless
• Stubborn: tending to reject suggestions or constructive criticism from others who listen and care; unable or reluctant to implement the suggestions of others for one's own benefit

My perception of people with a victim mentality comes from years of representing clients as a trial attorney. Obviously, some of the people I represented really were victims and they had valid legal claims and those were the cases I accepted. For every case I accepted, I talked to many people I declined to represent. Nearly all the people who fell into this rejected category had a victim mentality. I can't help people who refuse to cooperate and help themselves.

Now as I think about the complaints I constantly hear concerning the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, nearly all of the complainers fall into one or more of the above categories. In fact, these attitudes are pretty common with those who are struggling with genealogical research in general. Interestingly, most of the people who have victim mentalities do not accept that their own attitudes are at the core of the problem they think they are facing. In addition, their reactions to the problems are almost always inappropriate and defeatist.

Again quoting from the previous post, here are two hypothetical examples of victim mentality.

Genealogist A who is 84 years old has been working on researching her family for most of her lifetime. When her family members show interest in her research, she becomes defensive and says that her work isn't done and she would rather they wait until she has everything in an acceptable condition. She is persuaded by one of her younger relatives to take a look at the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. When she is shown the Family Tree she immediately begins criticizing the content. She states that she is not interested in seeing anything more. Since this is my hypothetical, I could have it end the way I want. In the most common real life situation, when A dies, all of her work is lost because no one wants it and no one appreciates what she has done.  

In another hypothetical, Genealogist B is a meticulous researcher. He is certified by one of the major genealogical certification organizations and has exhaustive support for all his conclusions. As in the first hypothetical, he is persuaded to view the Family Tree and is immediately angry. He cannot believe that anyone would make such obvious errors and he immediately starts correcting everything he considers to be wrongly entered. The next time he goes into to view the Family Tree, he sees that someone has recopied all of the "wrong" data back into "his" Family Tree. Rather than make the corrections again or try and contact the person making the changes, he dismisses the program as "broken" and determines that he will simply ignore it. 

The issue arises in the context of those who feel threatened by changes made to the Family Tree and then get immediately discouraged and stop trying to work with the program. In addition, they immediately begin blaming others, including FamilySearch, for the problems they see.

I do not make these things up. Here is a list of links to articles, some from journals, about victim mentality.

• Strategies to Deal with a Victim Mentality
• Wikipedia: Victim mentality
• The Victim Mentality – What It Is and Why You Use It
• Playing the Victim: How the Victim Mentality is Hindering Your Sobriety
• The Victim Mentality will Imprison You — and then Destroy You
• The Educational Benefits of Releasing "Victim Mentality": An Approach from the Fields of Business and Psychology

Ask yourself this question. Why are there people, like me, who are very much involved in constantly using the FamilySearch.org Family Tree for their research and data storage? Why don't we just give up in the face of all the changes being made to the Family Tree?

When I get examples of how "they" are ruining "my" data on the Family Tree, the complaints are almost always directed at one or two individual instances. These are the "revolving door" ancestors I have been writing about for some time. Instead of focusing on the other entries that are not changing, the victim uses one or two events to justify quitting. They also personalize the changes as if the people making the changes were intentionally persecuting the complainer. Victims do not see that they can be the solution to the problems they encounter. 

We live in a pervasively victimized mentality society today. Let's try to keep that attitude out of our interaction with the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Remember, the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is the solution, not the problem.