FamilySearch – Portal To Many Wonders

Long enamored with the films, books and documents at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, I’ve lived long enough to enjoy the library coming to me.

I first visited the library as a youngster when it was in the office of the LDS Church Historian on 58 East South Temple in Salt Lake City. 

My mother and I used to make regular day trips to search for our ancestors.  At first I enjoyed the photos in the books but was soon filling out family group sheets and pedigree charts with the information I’d gleaned from the books. 

Learning to use the library catalog wasn’t difficult, but I seemed to spend more time looking through it than through the books that referenced my family.

When the library moved into the Church Office Building in 1971, the card catalog was still in existence but the years of training at the old building had made the finger-walking quest much easier.

When a dedicated building for the library was built in 1985, I frequented it constantly.  Eventually, the catalog migrated to a digital format.  The quest for ‘That’ record was shortened dramatically.  Life was good.  Very good.

Then the books and films entered the digital library domain.  I don’t visit Salt Lake very often now.  Increasingly, the Library comes to me on the monitors in my office at home.

FamilySearch has become a portal to all things genealogical.  New titles and record groups seem to arrive to the portal daily.  The Pilot pages of FamilySearch have become a favorite friend.  http://pilot.familysearch.org

This week, I’ve reveled in the Massachusetts Death and Burials pages.  Death information about my ancestral families has emerged from the pages.  I thought I had covered every source document related to this area, but new information is pouring off my screen. 

Decades of microfilming records by the folks from the the Library is now is being followed by the digitization, indexing and publication of the records on FamilySearch. 

Genealogists everywhere benefit from this work. New records are added to the site daily.  If you haven’t visited for a while, do yourself a favor and stop by today.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Life today is not just good -– It’s Great! –- Thanks to FamilySearch!

 

 

Technorati Tags: FamilySearch,FamilySearch Pilot,FamilySearch Indexing,Genealogy

FamilySearch – It Just Keeps Getting Better

I stopped by the FamilySearch Pilot site for a ‘week’ yesterday.  The visit was planned for only a few minutes to look for a birth record for one of my ancestors who was born in New Hampshire.

Browsing directly to that collection, success was almost immediate.  That was easy!  While there, why not refine my search and search for the rest of my ancestors who were born in New Hampshire too?  That’s when the ‘week’ started.  Success, success, success, mixed with some failures.

The success continued all the way back to the mid-1600’s.  Thinking the ‘touch’ was with me; I started looking for the children of my direct ancestors.  A lot of their records were there too.

The saved images were added to each source entry in my database as I went along.  A quick preview of family group sheets for the families looked great with the primary sources and their related thumbnail sized images included.

“One more family”. “Just one more family” I murmured as the sun of the new day came over the mountain.  Of course I didn’t need to work all night. The records will still be there for a little while until they are removed when the indexing of them is complete.  Eventually, they’ll be included in the rewritten FamilySearch.org site, but when will that happen – exactly?

It will happen.  The WHEN is the “I Can’t Wait For It” question.

The same is true for most if not all of the records that are being Indexed by volunteers like you and I working on that massive project at FamilySearch.

If you haven’t searched the primary source records on the Pilot site yet, http://pilot.familysearch.org, give it a try this week.

FamilySearch Wiki

The FamilySearch user community is contributing excellent knowledge articles to help all of us in our ancestral quest. See it at:  https://wiki.familysearch.org

If you are having problems in your research, be sure to stop by the site and see if there is a posting to help.  If you have knowledge about any specific location research tools, hints and tips, sign in and add an article.

The wiki grows daily. Don’t forget to add it to your browser bookmarks.

Community Trees

Well documented family and regional family trees have been added as yet another FamilySearch site.  The site uses my favorite web based genealogy software – Darrin Lythgoe’s “The Next Generation.”  Take some time to look through it and see if information about your family has been included in the database. http://histfam.familysearch.org

Technorati Tags: FamilySearch,FamilySearch Indexing,FamilySearch Labs,FamilySearch Wiki,FamilySearch Pilot

FamilySearch Research Wiki

The LDS church as started a Wiki specifically focused on Family History Research.  The Wiki allows the publication of research related materials to be significantly faster than hard copy.  Additionally, the Wiki opens the opportunity for subject matter experts to easily publish their articles and related images.

See the Wiki at:   https://wiki.familysearch.org

The front page of the Wiki describes its use and function:   “FamilySearch Wiki is a large, on-line library where you can find thousands of articles and how-to instructions about doing family history.”

Last night, someone asked for help in doing research in their Armenian ancestry.  The Wiki had the information!

Information and aids on the Wiki will grow rapidly in coming months as users contribute information to the knowledgebase.

While you browse the Wiki, watch for not only articles, but maps, links to other sites and even upcoming events.

The Wiki includes a user group, user forums and technical support along with location specific current events links.

Visit the Wiki today.  If you have information to contribute, read the policies and create a user account.  Sign in, write your article and post it.  Everyone in the family history community wins when we share our knowledge, our tips and research related images.

PS. there is a bonus if you can tell me how many times I’ve included the word Wiki in this note.   A word or concept repeated over and over is remembered and this is a site you don’t want to forget.