Stakes encouraged to hold Family Discovery Days

For the past two years, FamilySearch.org has recorded classes presented at #RootsTech, the large family history conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah for replay at local Stake sponsored events previously referred to as Stake Family History Fairs. This year, 2015, there will be another push to extend the concept of a local family history event through the use of Family Discovery Days. A flyer about the event is being sent to Stake Presidents from the Area Family History Advisers.

The Stake leaders are invited as follows:

Host a RootsTech Family Discovery Day in 2015 Your stake is invited to join with hundreds of other stakes in hosting a RootsTech family discovery day (formerly family history fair). A family discovery day event is a great opportunity to hear messages from Church leaders that will inspire and assist members to find the names of their ancestors, prepare to take those names to the temple for ordinance work, and teach others to do the same. 

Participation of the Stakes in the Family Discovery Day can help the members increase their participation in family history related activities:

A Family Discovery Day Can Help • Inspire members in your area to take family names to the temple through talks by Elder Quentin L. Cook and Elder Neil L. Andersen
• Strengthen family ties—past, present, and future—with messages from Bonnie L. Oscarson, Linda K. Burton and Brother Tad R. Callister
• Protect youth and children with the promised blessings of participating in family history
• Help new converts and investigators to learn more about their own families and the eternal nature of all families through temple ordinances 

There are four steps for Stakes to get started:

1. Sign up your stake at www.lds.org/hostfair 2. Add the date to your stake calendar
3. Review the training and promotional materials at www.lds.org/planfair 4. Plan and host a fun and exciting family discovery day in your stake  

Support from the Family History Department includes:

• Prerecorded classes and lesson materials
• Customizable promotional materials
• Planning and technical guides
• Activities for all ages 

How Effective are Family Tree Green Arrows in Promoting Family History?

Green Arrows have been around for a long time. They first appeared with the introduction of New.FamilySearch.org and then migrated over to FamilySearch.org Family Tree. The real question is how effective are they in providing real opportunities for taking ancestor's names to the Temples and further, how effective are they in promoting further involvement in family history? These questions need to be raised because the use of these Green Arrows (and now Green Temple Icons) has been promoted as a fast and easy way to do family history and provide names for ordinance work.

Many seasoned family historians (i.e. genealogists) believe that clicking on Green Arrows promotes duplication of Temple work and fails to provide a real family history experience. There are those who discount the issue of duplicate ordinances and believe that the "Temple Experience" provided by taking a "family name" to the Temple outweighs all of the other considerations. In the past, I have written about 14 blog posts about Green Arrows in one context or another beginning back in 2009. However, I have not written on this subject since 2012.

Why am I returning to what may be an old issue? Because lately, I have heard a large number of comments both in favor of and adverse to Green Arrows. In the remote possibility that you do not know what I am talking about, here is a screen shot showing a Green Arrow:

I have blanked out the names so that this Green Arrow will not be a target for someone to take a name to the temple. The Green Arrows have been supplemented by Green Temple Icons in the Descendancy View. Here is another screenshot showing the icons but not the names:

The Green Arrows and Green Temple Icons indicate that ordinances may be available. However, there is a warning on the screen for reserving the ordinances that states, "Possible duplicates exist. These ordinances may have already been completed." Many people think that these warnings are ineffective and that people simply proceed to do the ordinances without checking.

I decided to see how may of the Green Arrow/Green Temple Icons ended up being valid names available for Temple ordinances. The first name I checked, a wife, had four duplicate entries but was listed as available for all ordinances to be requested. When I finished the merge, the wife had additional children. The only ordinance available was a sealing to spouse. But now there were duplicate spouses. The husband had six possible duplicates all of which appeared to be valid.

I went through the process with the husband, merging the duplicates. As I began the process of merging the husband's duplicates, I immediately found additional duplicates not found on the first go-around with the wife. I also began to find duplicates for the children. I added in the duplicate wives so that I would not lose them in the process. At this point, Family Tree allowed me to do the sealing to spouse for both the duplicate wives. All the other ordinances were marked completed as long ago as 1962.

I still had five duplicates of the husband to go. Every single one had almost exactly the same information and there was no real doubt that they were duplicates. I had another duplicate wife with each of the duplicate husbands. I also had duplicate daughters. I began to wonder how many people would continue to try to find all these duplicates and not just give up and take some of the names to the Temple again. This would be a real possibility if they were under some sort of duress as far as producing names for Temple work.

At this point, I was totally convinced that if I kept looking I would keep finding duplicate entries for both the husband and the wife. After ten or so duplicates, I began to wonder if the whole process was worth the effort. Every time I searched I found duplicates for either the husband or the wife or both. There seemed to be no end to the duplicates. Remember, I just picked this particular Green Arrow issue at random after about one minute or so of looking.

Finally, about the sixth or seventh duplicate merger, all of the available ordinances appeared as done and the Green Arrows etc. disappeared. Oops. Did I say the disappeared? No, they showed that the husband had been sealed to his wife twice but there was still a duplicate wife with a Green Arrow. So the program would allow me to do the sealing a third time and relied entirely on my "honesty" in continuing this seemingly endless task. Every time I merged another duplicate, there appeared yet another copy of the wife with a sealing to spouse available.

So now I had five more duplicate copies of the wife that did not show up in the first round of duplicate mergers. Each time the new wife would be available for an ordinance and the previous ones would show the ordinance as completed. All of these candidates had exactly the same names and most of the same dates with some variations. Meanwhile the duplicate children began to pile up.

After continuing the merger, finally something new showed up: a wife with the same name but with the warning that "This person's record needs a standardized place in a birth, christening, death, burial, cremation, or marriage event." All of these spouses had unique PID numbers. Even though I kept merging and merging, I still had at least one wife with the same name and dates etc. that showed an available sealing ordinance.

I finally ended up with five copies of the same wife (remember I did the merger for the wife already) and two showed the sealing to be done and one still had a Green Arrow.

When I got to this point, I chose one of the duplicate wives and looked for more duplicates. I found three more wife duplicates all with the exactly the same people and same dates. I cannot believe that anyone who was looking for a name to take to the Temple would have kept going this long. I had been combining names for over an hour and still the program was producing more duplicates and telling me I had clear sailing to take a name to the Temple.

Finally, after more than an hour and probably more than twenty duplicate searches, I had no Green Arrow. By this time, the people showed that their ordinances had first been done in 1929. I am not sure what I have learned from this experience. But when I went back and checked on the husband, the Green Arrow appeared once more.

You might begin to understand why I am skeptical about the efficacy of the Green Arrows and the Green Temple Icons. I am absolutely sure that most inexperienced members would have simply clicked on the Green Arrow or Temple at the very first and taken the name to the Temple again. I am pretty sure very, very few people would keep clicking on duplicates for over an hour while the Green Arrows continued to appear.

Perhaps, just perhaps, there is a flaw in this system and the Green Arrows do what I thought they did many years ago; they facilitate duplicate ordinances. If I had not believed that this entry was a duplicate and that the work had been done, I would not have kept looking for duplicates for over an hour.

What's going on with FamilySearch?

The FamilySearch.org website is in a constant state of change. In this the website is really no different than any other active website. I even get comments when I post more than one or two posts in a day that people cannot keep up. Considering that millions of users view and use the resources on FamilySearch.org every day, it is no wonder that the content changes. In fact, the website in undergoing a significant surge in popularity. Where are the areas that see the most changes?

Your perception of the answer to this question depends on how you use the program and how closely you watch the changes. The section with the most consistent changes is the Historical Record Collections. The number of records added runs into the millions almost without fail every week. The change is so constant that it has become almost a background chorus to the activity on the rest of the website. Here are some of the collections that have been added or updated in the last week:

• New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1891
• United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014
• BillionGraves Index
• Hawaii, Honolulu Passenger Lists, 1900-1953
• United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925

Many people are aware and some complain about the changes being made to the Family Tree program. But this perception is probably due to the users adding, correcting, changing and merging information on the Family Tree. There are frequent changes to parts of the program but few of these changes affect the content and many go unnoticed by users. The reality is that the program is still under active development and it is very likely that development will continue for the foreseeable future. Some of the changes are merely cosmetic but others add new features. I understand that there will be some feature enhancements in the near future. I will be reporting the changes as soon as they are announced.

One background part of the program changes frequently. This is the Research Wiki. There is a counter on the startup page and at the time of this post it shows 80,656 articles on genealogical resources. The pace of adding articles has slowed lately, but that is due mainly to the fact that the program has become extremely comprehensive. Don't worry, the program really has no limits and can keep growing indefinitely.

The Memories section of FamilySearch.org also seems to change constantly but this perception is also due to the increase in user submitted documents, photos, audio files and stories. The number of photos on my People section, showing photos submitted by me and others, now has over 220 photos. This does not count the ones I have loaded up and that I am processing. Other than user additions, the program itself has evolved but mostly through the addition of features. It still appears much the same as when it was introduced. 

Additions to the FamilySearch Catalog and the Digitized Books collection go almost unnoticed. The catalog grows as items are acquired by the libraries and added to the catalog. The Books collection grows as more books are digitized and then added into the existing collection. Neither of these would be noticeable unless you knew how many items were added and that information is not supplied by FamilySearch.  

The Indexing section of the website also changes constantly due to the work of the volunteers, but the structure of the website has not changed significantly. FamilySearch has discussed a major overhaul to the website, but that has not yet appeared. 

As I stated at the beginning of this post, the changes to the website are almost constant. This is the natural effect of a vibrant, useful and very much used website. 

The Beginning of the End for New.FamilySearch.org

If you try to connect to New.FamilySearch.org lately, you will see this ominous notice:

new.FamilySearch.org Will Be Turned Off on February 1, 2015

The warning is a long time coming. The body of the notice states:

The next step to fully implement FamilySearch Family Tree on FamilySearch.org is to disable the ability for users to login to and access new.FamilySearch.org. This milestone is planned to occur on February 1, 2015. 

On February 1, all public APIs (application programming interfaces) will be turned off, as will be the ability to access the program. This step is necessary as we enter the final phase, which is to transfer and synchronize all of the remaining data from new.FamilySearch.org to FamilySearch Family Tree. It is anticipated that this final phase of data testing, transfer, and retesting will require a year to complete. Once this phase is completed in early 2016, new.FamilySearch.org will be completely shut down.

This should not be new news to all of the previous users of New.FamilySearch.org. It has been a long time coming. As you can see from the notice, this does not end the process of transferring all the information etc. over to FamilySearch.org Family Tree, it is merely one more step. There is still the vague projection that the final shut down will not occur until "early 2016."

The last part of the notice is the most important. It states:

It is important to note that many highly desired features of FamilySearch Family Tree cannot begin to be developed until new.FamilySearch.org has reached the final milestone and is completely shut-off. Once that has happened, work can begin on features such as:

• Merging of gateway ancestors and other people with large records.
• Highlighting and fixing other data eccentricities, such as when a person appears to have been married before birth, a child older than a parent, a child who is the spouse of parent or grandparent, and so on.
• The ability for users to change the gender of an ancestor.
• The ability to see a spouse’s ancestral line by default.

I note that there are a significant number of people editing these "gateway ancestors and other people with large records" without realizing that there is still work to be done on the program before these entries will be fully functional. Editing is done with the risk that future changes to the Family Tree will cause those edits to be lost. This issue also has an impact on the fact that these gateway ancestors or IOUSs, cannot yet be merged properly. If people are attempting mine "green arrows" among these ancestors, they do so with the risk that the ordinances have already been completed and they are merely duplicating work. There are no notices in the Family Tree program that would let users know they are dealing with one of these individuals.

Alex Boye and Quarter-Finalists from NBC’s America’s Got Talent Joining #RootsTech 2015

#RootsTech 2015 is not only going to be a huge genealogy and technology conference, it is also becoming a major entertainment extravaganza. The latest announcement is that popular musician and YouTube sensation Alex Boye is teaming up with the stars of his popular “Let It Go” YouTube cover One Voice Children’s Choir to perform on the opening day of RootsTech, the world’s largest family history conference.

The two musical talents have collaborated before and will unite for a special performance at the RootsTech opening night social event February 12, 2015. For more information, go to #RootsTech.org.

Boye has developed an impressive following through live concerts, numerous albums and YouTube videos. His combined YouTube views are more than 100 million. His cover of “Let It Go” from Disney’s Frozen has been watched more than 50 million times. On that song, he is joined by the One Voice Children’s Choir, and it is frequently listed as one of the best versions of the classic song. He is a prolific composer and known for taking popular songs and “Africanizing” them with African rhythms, voices, and instruments. His songs “Paradise,” “Happy,” and “Royals” are popular examples. Boye is a master at collaboration. In addition to singing with the One Voice Children’s Choir, he has performed with George Michael, Olivia Newton John, MC Hammer, The Piano Guys, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The One Voice Children’s Choir received national exposure over the summer as quarter-finalists on the NBC hit show, America’s Got Talent. They perform dozens of times each year throughout the nation. The choir has also received numerous awards, including the prestigious John Lennon International Music Award, presented by Yoko Ono and George Martin, producer of the Beatles. Alex Boye and the One Voice Children’s Choir will take the stage on Thursday, February 12, at 6:00 p.m. in the Salt Lake Convention Center to kick off #RootsTech 2015. For more information or to register, visit RootsTech.org.

Detach Photos from your own FamilySearch Family Tree view

Are you being bothered by a photo someone attached to your ancestor on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree? You might want to know that you can now customize the photos that show up on your view of the family tree by detaching the photo. This does not remove the photo for other users, but at least you do not have to view it. The detach link appears on the details view of the photo.

Here is a screen view showing the link to detach a photos. Remember, this only affects your view, anyone else will be able to see the photos.

To get to this view, first click on the People link. Here is another screenshot:

You first click on the People link and then click on the tiny arrow. When the entry appears, you will be able to detach the photo from your view of the Family Tree. This is sort of like putting your head in the sand in a way, because the offending photo is still out there on the Memories program, you just can't see it anymore.

Do I need a desktop genealogy program?

The fact that the question in the title of this blog post is even a consideration today is a reflection of the major changes in the online genealogical programs. A year or two ago the answer from nearly all of the practicing genealogists would have been strongly in the affirmative. Today, I am not so sure that the responses might be mixed with some genealogists maintaining that a desktop/personal program is not necessary. The answer might also vary in proportion to the degree of online sophistication of the respondent.

Let's start with some basics. Can you still do an adequate job of researching your ancestors using only paper references and by only recording the information on paper? The answer is probably yes, with qualifications. Put in another context, the question would be something such as, can you still walk across the United States? Again, the answer is yes, with qualifications. The qualifications to both questions would be why would you want to do either one? As far as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are concerned there are additional considerations. The simple fact is that the only way to authorize Temple ordinances is by using FamilySearch.org Famiy Tree. So, if you are involved in this aspect of Family History, the answer is that you will need to become involved in using the computer either directly or through a helper.

Moving along past the fundamental question of paper vs. computer, I think the movement to computers has benefits that far override any of the reasons for avoiding the computer. Now I can move to the question of whether or not you can maintain all of your family history information online or if you still need a desktop program?

To begin to answer the question, we need to recognize that there is a huge disparity between family historians. We have professional level genealogists at one end of the spectrum and brand-new beginners at the other end. I am of the opinion that new users have enough of a challenge with learning an online program such as FamilySearch.org's Family Tree without adding in the additional burden of learning a desktop program. I think that the beginner will be doing well to put all their data on FamilySearch.org Family Tree, Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com or findmypast.com or one of the other large online family tree programs.

The immediate response from the other end of the spectrum is that you need to have an "archive" level copy of your data and that putting it all online is not wise and that you need to maintain your own notes and research etc. Right off, I will say all those are valid reasons for having your own, individual desktop program. But I think that these same reasons go right over the head of the newer family historian.

So do we end up with a double standard? We encourage seasoned users to have their own database on their own computer, while at the same time we let the new users dangle out their dependent solely on their connection to one of the online family trees? I think solving the issue of the new user is like bailing the ocean, it is an unending and unrewarding job. Most of the people my children and grandchildren's ages are so completely entrenched online, they have a hard time seeing the benefit of a desktop program. The exception is for a program that can synchronize automatically with the online family tree and therefore overcomes the need to manually copy information between trees.

I now do not automatically recommend a desktop program. Before saying anything, I explore the level of usage of the person and then make recommendations based on their experience, commitment to family history and several other factors.