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Genealogy Top 10Submitted by Dale E. Lee2022.06.22 Some people find Family History a bit daunting when they first get involved in it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are things you can definitely do that will make a difference. The following is a list of the Top 10 things that will help you in your efforts, in no particular order: Be Organized and document your results. The difference between being organized and not being organized is very great. It takes far longer to accomplish tasks without organization, even taking into account the time it takes to get […]

Family History VacationsSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.06.15 Summer is the time for vacations. But it can also be the time to record memories that will be meaningful in the future. Consider combining your vacation with visits to relatives, family reunions, and other family related events. You can kill two birds with one stone and at the price of only one stone to boot! Time seems to slip by faster the older you get. As you age, you’ll find that loved ones graduate this life and if you are not careful, you’ll loose important information once they pass, especially voice and […]

Companies offering DNA TestingSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.06.08 Title: What company to use for DNA Testing?Question: What DNA Testing company should I use to discover other people that match my DNA?Answer: There are several companies that offer DNA Testing. The following is a list of many of the companies currently offering DNA mapping to the public. Before selecting a particular company, it is a good idea to become familiar with the different kinds of testing available. First see http://www.seekerz.net/dna-testing/. Then, review the offerings of several of the companies before deciding which is best for you. The top four companies are […]

The Importance of FamilyBy D. E. LeeCopyright (c), 1998 When you think back on your life,and remember what you’ve done,You soon begin to realize,the portion your family has won,For when your years at school have passed,and High School’s run its course,Your old time friends will soon depart,with or without remorse,Yet family remains an anchor still,especially when times get tough,You’ll find you’ll need them many times,whether timid or loud or gruff,And when they help you, as they should,remember what they’ve done,For friends seldom have commitment enough,to help unless it’s fun,You’ll loose your contact with your friends,but family never leaves,They’re there for […]

Digitizing Audio and VideoSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.05.18 One of the principle aims of Family History is to preserve items of historic importance. We do this on a National basis by creating Repositories of historic artifacts and documents relating to issues at the Federal level. One such repository is the National Archives of the United States. We do the same on the State (Province, Shire, etc.) level and on the local level. However, the preservation of historic materials is not limited to Governmental and Religious entities. Family organizations can also contribute to the preservation of relevant historic materials at the […]

Searching on PhotosSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.05.04 I was merrily scrolling through posts from the Facebook groups I’ve joined, looking for something interesting that did not have to do with a specific part of the world, and stumbled into an intriguing idea. An Organization called Family History Fanatics claims that it is actually possible to find information on your relatives and ancestors by issuing searches on, of all things, Photos. So how, you ask, can you search on photos, meaning the kind someone else may have stored? In FamilySearch, there is a menu item called Memories. If you go to […]

See the Bigger ViewSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.04.27 As the field of Genealogy progresses, people are starting to realize that the view of the Family Tree we’ve been presented in the past is far too limited. Traditionally we could only see a few people at a time, even with a four or five generation chart. Trackuback has come up with an innovative solution to that problem. They now have a way to display a traditional Pedigree chart with all ancestors at the same time. Their display allows you not only to see everyone, but to zoom in until you get […]

Verbal Histories with TranscriptionSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.04.20 One of the things I enjoy when attending RootsTech is to review all the new up and coming Innovations in the area of Family History. This year, one of the companies featured for innovation, stood out because of one salient feature they offer. The name of the company is Rakonto and they can be found at www.rakonto.io. Their offering in the Family History industry is to record and share Life Stories. You can sign up for a free account and immediately start uploading videos of your life stories, either prerecorded or on-the-fly […]

New Indexing CapabilitiesSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.04.06 FamilySearch recently announced some exciting new capabilities which will exponentially speed up the data storage of Family History records. They call it HRAI: Handwriting Recognition Artificial Intelligence. For many years the LDS Church has been collecting, digitizing, transcribing and storing records. Millions of records were originally microfilmed and afterward digitized. But accessing the data was difficult as users had to scroll through rolls of microfilm to find the information they needed. As technological capabilities grew, the records were then digitized and stored on digital computer media. This next step in the transformation of […]

Wait… Say What? Family Trees can be seen in 3D? Yes, of course. There are software developers that are now starting to display Family Tree information in three dimensions and in a network format. But why would we need network formatting? Aren’t the old Pedigree Charts, Family Group Sheets and Descendant charts good enough? We’ve been using them for years and years. Well no, they aren’t really good enough. If you’ve read the prior articles on Understanding Pedigree Charts, Fan Charts, and Descendant Charts, you’ll see a reoccurring theme, they have one very big gotcha. And the gotcha is that […]