How to use this and any other blog site

Like many other blogs, this particular one has a specific theme. I currently write for five different blogs, most under my own name and one for an organization. All of my blog posts provide either information or commentary. Blogs are not strictly "social networking" websites, they are more closely related to traditional newspaper columns. The comments to blogs could be compared to letters to the editor in a traditional newspaper environment. Obviously, because of the interactive nature of online communities, blogs tend to be more immediate and current than newspapers.

Whenever blogs are mentioned in the traditional media, they seem to emphasize the fact that the bloggers are not professional journalists. There is an unspoken criticism that somehow blogs are inferior to print publications simply because of the nature of the contributors. Now it is true, that I do not have any formal training in journalism. I began my writing experience as a reporter for my university newspaper. For short time, I was the editor of a newspaper at the University of Utah. I was an editor of the Arizona State University Law School newspaper for a year during law school. I have written books, articles and tens of thousands of pages of legal briefs and I have a wife, a former English teacher, who tries to correct my grammar, punctuation and content. I give these examples to show that a blanket dismissal of blogs and blog writers is a somewhat dangerous position to take. This is especially true since blogs are, for many purposes, replacing traditional newspaper involvement throughout the world. Most of our nation's newspapers are struggling to maintain a readership and most have moved online. Many newspapers now rely on those same bloggers that they denigrate.

It is true, that the quality of the writing varies considerably from blog to blog. But each blog provides a unique insight into the writer's view of genealogy. You may choose not to participate in the greater genealogical community, but that is your loss. One good example of the use of blogs is the upcoming RootsTech 2014 Conference where bloggers are included as the official media representatives.

Now you could search for a long time in traditional news outlets for information about genealogy. In fact, it is very rare that anything having to do with genealogy makes it into the national news. One of the few places I have seen any consistent mention of genealogical events or articles of interest has been in the Salt Lake City Deseret News. This is not surprising since the Deseret News is located in Salt Lake City, Utah and is ultimately owned by by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I fully realize that the majority of the genealogists that I encounter each week go about their activities blithely ignorant of the fact that there is a genealogical community online. But from my own experience, my persistence in writing a blog has very slowly, over the years, begun to make inroads into that lack of awareness. The present blog is no exception. Obviously, my readership for this particular blog is far less than Genealogy's Star. But in this case, my motivation for writing this blog is somewhat different.

Genealogists who ignore blogs and other online resources are like people who shop in the same store day after day year after year. They may have created a comfort zone but have no idea what they are missing.

This blog arises out of my perception that there is a serious disconnect between the members of the various Wards of the Church and the greater genealogical community. I started this blog for the specific purpose of addressing a Latter-day Saint audience about genealogy.

This blog and many others is not like a flyer that you read and throw away. It is more like a reference book with chapters being added daily. To properly use a blog you need to refer back to previous articles. It is true, that some of the material in this or any other blog may go out of date, but most of the material retains its value for a considerable period of time.

When you discover a new blog, go back through the archives of that blog and look for articles of interest. When you search online for information about your ancestors include the word "blog" as part of your search terms and you may find articles of interest.

Preview of the new FamilySearch Indexing Website

FamilySearch is in the process of developing new Indexing procedures and a new Indexing website. Above is a screenshot of the preview site that presently has limited online distribution. The entire process is becoming more streamlined and easier to use. This preview shows that there has been a dramatic advance from the mainly text-based program when it first started.

The basic idea here is to move the Indexing program from the desktop to the Web. The new program will be available some time in 2014. Moving the Indexing program to the Web will also open the program to mobile technology, but because of the nature of the program, Indexing will not work on the small screen of a smartphone and will be confined to tablets including iPads and Android.

One development to come is the ability to correct indexed entries already in the online indexes on FamilySearch.org's Historical Record Collections.

Many of the instructions and procedures involved in the program are being streamlined and communication between arbitrators and volunteers will be opened up.

In some limited cases when the articles are of interest to both areas, I am sharing blog posts on both Genealogy's Star and Rejoice, and be exceeding glad...

New.FamilySearch.org Goes Read Only

It is official, New.FamilySearch.org is Read Only. Here is the proof:

It is time now to see how those who have yet to switch over to FamilySearch.org Family Tree react to this development. The Mesa FamilySearch Library is closed over the holiday for a while and I don't have any classes. So it might be a while before I get any feedback.

Using the Family Group Records Collection

The FamilySearch.org Historical Record Collections contains an archive of millions of user submitted Family Group Records. This database consists of digitized copies of the records submitted by LDS Church members to the Genealogical Society of Utah, now the Family History Department, for processing prior to performing proxy ordinances. The completed forms were filed in the Family Group Records Archive collection in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The online collection is called the Family Group Records Collection, Archives Section, 1942-1969. As discussed in the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki:

Whenever possible, FamilySearch makes images available for all users. However, ultimate rights to view images on our website are granted by the record custodians. The Family Group Records Collection, Archives Section collection is available only to members of the supporting organization, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 There are currently 5,337,178 images in this collection. The forms are filed in alphabetical order by husband's surname, given name, and date of birth.

Usually, I'm very skeptical of the value of user contributed records. However, the Family Group Records Collection is an exception. These original records often contain valuable notations giving sources and details about the family which have otherwise not been preserved in subsequent transcriptions of these records. Many of the notes made on these early family group records were on the back of the records. The backs of the records are reproduced in the digitized versions of the files online.

The records contain the following information:

• Names of husband, wife, and children
• Dates and places of birth, christening, marriage, death, and burial
• Parent's names
• Husband's occupation
• Relationships
• Additional marriages of family members
• LDS temple ordinance information
• Submitter's name and address at the time of the submission
• Family representatives
• Sources of information

For members of the Church, referring to the original  family group records that now appear in transcribed form in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, may give insight into the research done by the original submitters. The Research Wiki gives the following cautions for using the records:

• Use this information as a guideline. Be aware that the information has not been verified and may have come from the submitters memory or from family records.
• These are compiled records so each sheet may have many sources of information.
• If you are unable to find your ancestor look for various spellings of the names.

I would add that it is highly advisable to copy the records as they appear. If you see a source citation, you should go to the original source and record the information rather than rely on the ability of the submitter to have transcribed the information from the source correctly.

The advantage of these records is that the submitters or likely one or two or more generations closer to the ancestors being reported than we are today.

Gospel Topics talks about Baptisms for the Dead

LDS.org has posted a substantial series of gospel related topics covering a huge variety of subjects. The section of topics is located in the "Teachings" link on the startup page of the website. The topics are organized alphabetically and it is relatively easy to review all the titles. No one is required to sign into the website to see and read these relatively short essays and links. They are available to anyone going to the website.

I was interested to see an article on "Baptisms for the Dead." There are other related topics on Family History and "Temples." Quoting from the Deseret News in an article entitled, "LDS Church enhances web pages on its history, doctrine" it says:

The improved pages are intended to use scholarship, historical perspectives and outside resources transparently to help parents answer questions children might come across online, church leaders said.

This is an interesting go-to place for authoritative statements from the Church on a variety of subjects, some very controversial in the past.  

What is the effect of the Read Only status for New.FamilySearch.org

British Library Flickr Photo Stream

In light of the imminent change of New.FamilySearch.org to Read Only status, I thought it would be a good idea to review some of the effects of this change and what it might mean to those trying to process names for Temple ordinances. First, an explanation of the change to Read Only status.

Essentially, by putting New.FamilySearch.org (NFS) into Read Only status that means that the program will be unavailable to make any changes or other functions. It can only be looked at or "read" online. However, since the program is still online, the database for FamilySearch.org Family Tree and New.FamilySearch.org will still be "shared." This means that the problems caused by the limitations of the New.FamilySearch.org program concerning the number of combined records will still be in effect. The solution to the inability to work with individuals with multiple combined files will still be off in the future when the two programs are finally separated "sometime next year (2014)" or whenever.

Many of the frustrations encountered in Family Tree that are attributed to the limitations of NFS will continue until the ultimate separation of the two programs. But, I need to note, that real progress is being made in sorting out some of the IOUS (Individuals of Unusual Size) situations in Family Tree.

Anyone who has used a genealogical database program that accessed NFS and who has not upgraded to one of the newly released and certified programs will not be able to access either database with all of the features of what is now called "Tree Share." See Family History Partner Products.

Those are the immediate effects of the change coming on 18 December 2013. There are some other more subtle changes. In the past year or so, there have been some important changes to the rules applying to the availability of certain classes of ancestors to be submitted for Temple Ordinances. The current rules are substantially more restrictive than those in the past, particularly concerning submitting names for people born within the past 110 years and those to whom the submitter is not related. Some of the problems that have been in the background for over 100 years concerning names submission are now being confronted head on.

One of the main problems lies with individuals who do Temple ordinances for deceased individuals who are not the ancestors' immediate relatives, that is a surviving spouse, a child, or a parent and do this without the permission of all of the living immediate relatives. This is a particularly emotionally difficult problem for members of the Church who are beginning their genealogical research for the first time. They are almost always very disturbed to find out shortly after they go on to FamilySearch.org Family Tree that some distant relative has already completed the ordinances for the new researcher's parents or grandparents. I had this happen this week at the Mesa FamilySearch Library. Fortunately, in the case this week, the ordinances were only reserved and there was still a chance that the patron could do her mother and father's work in the Temple.

The question is whether or not Family Tree will have an impact on this particular, very old, problem? My guess is probably a little. But those who surf the Family Tree looking for ordinances are not likely to be stopped by even the multiple warnings now in effect. I call these people Family Tree Vampires. Rather than encourage newly interested researchers, these people who do work for distant relatives who have living family members, suck the blood (enthusiasm) out of the new researchers. I always instruct every new user of the program to immediately reserve anyone they enter into the program for whom they wish to do the Temple work.

Will the change over to Family Tree have any effect on the problem of clicking on green arrows and redoing ordinances multiple times? Can people still go around the system and create bogus names to take to the Temple? We will have to see, but my personal experience is that it is still remarkably easy to add duplicate names or non-existent people and create a "name" to take to the Temple. I will not go into details lest I be an accomplice in instructing those who want to create names. This practice will not stop until there is either some review process for newly added names or a requirement to provide sources for any names submitted for ordinances. Even then a source would be no guarantee that the source wasn't made up. I would not be discussing this issue if I hadn't seen it happen over and over again and even very recently using Family Tree. This whole system relies on the integrity of the participants and unfortunately, some of those submitting names with Family Tree are sadly lacking in that virtue.

But what effect will Family Tree have on the well meaning but ignorant users who add information found in online family trees, books and other unreliable sources? I am confident that ultimately, it will have a very educational effect, but that depends on the patience of the experienced users in taking the time to educate their less careful relatives. Sadly, I am already seeing the beginnings of revert wars, which I never really expected to happen. We apparently have some uninformed relatives that doggedly and repeatedly insert incorrect information into the Family Tree without a shred of support from any source. Some of these people simply refuse to stop or even acknowledge emails trying to educate them.

Many of the more abused practices of NFS will come to a screeching halt, such as manufacturing a new ordinance request by merely changing the name or a few dates on an existing individual. So, to some extent, we should see some progress in this narrow area.

As to whether the basic problems of NFS will be resolved or reversed, only time will tell. Until the two programs are completely separated this will not likely happen.

Even with all I have said, please understand that Family Tree is a quantum leap in effectiveness over NFS. I certainly have no desire to go back to the older program.

The End is Near!!! Really! New.FamilySearch.org becomes read only

The fateful day is December 18, 2013. This is day that the new.familysearch.org website becomes read only. Here is a screenshot of the announcement:

The long awaited day will finally arrive this week. But when you get into the tangles and duplicates in FamilySearch.org Family Tree, you realize that the database is going to take a little longer to sort out. Turning off New.FamilySearch.org is a huge step, but only one step among many in overcoming the excessive burden of 150+ years of accumulated user submitted family trees.

Many of my friends are despairing that Family Tree can ever be sorted out. I think it can and will. Stay tuned for developments this week.