She was one of my favorite singers.

As a tribute, I wanted to explore her family history. It was exciting to learn that she had inherited a family gift in her voice. Her ancestry included African, Dutch and Native American roots.

Houston's mother was Grammy Award–winning American soul and gospel singer Cissy Houston. Her successful career included backup for Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, Wishbone Ash and Aretha Franklin - she is now a solo artist. One of Cissy's great-great-grandfathers was Dutch.

Cissy's father Nitcholas Drinkard was born to Susan Bell Drinkard (maiden name Fuller; born 1876), who was part Dutch and part African-American. Nitcholas's father was Native American John Drinkard, Jr. (b. 1870).His ancestors included a family of African-American landowners in Blakely, Georgia, where three of Cissy's siblings were born.

The Drinkards owned a large tract of farmland when it was unusual for blacks to own large portions of land. The property gradually decreased as small portions were sold, over time, to resolve a close relative's legal troubles.

As a child, Cissy Houston joined sister Anne and brothers Larry and Nicky in the gospel singing group - the Drinkard Four - in 1938. Her sister, Lee (mother of singers Dee Dee and Dionne Warwick), later joined the group - renamed The Drinkard Singers -  along with Ann Moss and Marie Epps. Houston and the Drinkard Singers regularly performed at New Hope Baptist Church and later recorded a live album for RCA called A Joyful Noise.

Whitney grow up surrounded by stars; Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin was her godmother. The family voice was also inherited by her cousin, American singer, actress and TV show Dionne Warwick.

View Whitney's family history entering here.

Click the image to see the family tree.

Source: wikipedia

Tomei's story concerned her murdered great-grandfather, and the false belief held by her family about the event's circumstances.

Her odyssey takes her from Brooklyn to Tuscany, Elba, Castiglioncello and Lucca to find the truth about the event, and her mother's BIANCHI and CANOVARO families. Her father, Gary, had already done extensive research on the TOMEI family tree.

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A photo from Marisa Tomei's family album [Credit: www.nbc.com

The story takes her from Brooklyn – where she grew up in a large Italian family – to Italy to find the truth about her great-grandfather’s death.

A family legend relates that her great-grandfather, Leopoldo Bianchi, was murdered in 1910, possibly shot at a bar for an affair with a married woman or perhaps owing money to a man.

She arrives in Cecina in Tuscany to investigate the story. In the Municipal Cemetery Archives, she finds the 1911 (not 1910) death record, which lists "illness" as the cause of death. The clue now is the Island of Elba – made famous by Napoleon’s exile – origin of the Bianchis and Canovaros. There she visits the ancient church's archive and finds the Canovaros listed in registries back to the 1600s.

At the Elba Historical Municipal Archives, she sees Leopoldo and Maria’s marriage certificate and learns they moved six years later to Cecina. There’s a local newspaper article reporting Leopoldo’s death, shot by Terzilio Lazzereschi on March 7, 1911.

In Castiglioncello, she discovers another article with more details. The well-off Terzilio, a kiln operator, met Leopoldo outside a café and shot him in the head, in revenge for having been beaten the previous night by Leopoldo and his brother Tito. More documents reveal the two men were business partners in a successful kiln business, but an altercation ensued when Terzilio fired Tito for reasons listed only as "disloyalty."

However, the expert consulted says it was a manner of honor. Being charged with disloyalty in a culture operating on honor could have consequences. People might think the family couldn’t be trusted and business might be impacted. This was a serious charge, which Leopoldo and his brother must have felt needed to be addressed. The results are known, but not what the exact charges – if true – were against Tito, resulting in his dismissal.

Court transcripts in Lucca reveal that Terzilio was acquitted by reason of self-defense, because he hired the town's defense “dream team.”

She even discovers a relative, now 83, who knew her great-grandmother and writes a letter detailing the widow's second marriage after her husband's murder, and how Tomei's grandfather arrived in America.

Back in Brooklyn, she shares the details with her mother, who had always believed her grandfather to be a philanderer or villain, andwas relieved to know it wasn’t true.

If you missed last night’s episode, you can see it online here until September 2012.

Note that the video may only be available to those in the US. That link includes the full episode, highlights and even scenes that were deleted due to time limitations.

Did you enjoy this episode? If your family comes from Italy, did you learn useful information about research there?

The next episode of WDYTYA features Blair Underwood on Friday, February 24. His search into his roots takes him to the American South and to Cameroon to reconnect with his African ancestors. There's a DNA component to this episode. See the link for more on the upcoming episode.

Share your views in the comments below, on Facebook and Twitter.

The article is based on Australian nurse Bronnie Ware, who spent several years working in hospice care with patients in the last few months of their lives. She included the patients' comments in a blog, Inspiration and Chai and authored a book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Among the common regrets:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected.
2. I wish I had not worked so hard.
3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish I had let myself be happier

I believe many people also hold the regret of not having explored their family history. Often we rush to work on family history  as our most senior relatives can be lost at any time.

But, what about us? It can happen to us independently of our own age. Perhaps now is the time to begin or to continue our family history exploration. Tomorrow may be too late.

What are your thoughts?

Let us know via comments below, Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Image Source: http://free-extras.com/

Traditionally, most people research their own family, or one that that they have some connection to - but college student Emil Johansson is different.

Johansson has chosen a more peculiar family tree. He recently received international attention when he published his gigantic tree focusing on most of the characters in “Lord of the Rings”.

In his own words, Johansson is “overly enthusiastic about Tolkien's Lord of the Rings,” leading him to create a project where he has attempted to collect all Middle Earth’s characters and creatures in one giant family tree.

Emil's "Lord of the Rings" Family Tree

Eighteen months ago, he began studying chemical engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, but it wasn’t an easy choice:

I have a passion for photography and was faced with the choice between engaging in it full time or studying and reading the school subject [in which] I have always been most interested. Together with my girlfriend, I moved to Gothenburg and found myself quickly [involved] in student life.

In the fall of 2011, he and some good friends organized some activities for newly admitted chemistry students. The month long program took up much of his time, so  when it was over, Johansson found he had a lot of free time to work on other projects.

Many would probably describe me as a creative person who likes to work on projects and, in November last year, [I began] my new project to complete something I started six years ago.

He read Lord of the Rings for the first time when he was in third or fourth grade, just before the movies were made, and he was immediately hooked:

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For someone with such a vivid imagination, [it] was wonderful to come up with stories about the characters in the books. Soon I discovered Silmarillion and all [the] works published after Tolkien's death. These are worlds so well described that it could be quite real. If I'm honest, I do not remember how it was that I started on the family tree. I worked longer than I want to recognize and completed my first version on a large sheet of paper. It contained more than 600 characters.

The project was originally entirely for himself and was never meant to be published:

The idea that it would be fun to show your family tree struck me, of course, but I did not know how to go about it, until last November. Maybe it was the problem-solving spirit of Chalmers who made me realize that it was actually possible to make a web version.

On January 14, he decided to buy a domain name - lotrproject.com - and published the tree there. By then, he had included 646 characters. To share updates on the project, he created a Twitter account. He never thought the page would get much attention, but then it took off. On January 21, he sent news of the family tree to major blogs and news sites.

There remains a great deal of work. Since publication, I have received a stream of feedback with both corrections and suggestions for future features. My guess is that there are about 100 characters left [to include]. The publishing of the tree was probably one of my smartest moves. I received valuable feedback and it has also motivated me to continue the project. Now I hope to be finished within a month, but I said that before about a month ago! Much work has been [spent on] programming to reduce load time and add new functionality.

At the current 700 characters in the database, it provides a fascinating insight into Tolkien's world and shows many interesting details. No dwarf women are mentioned, but the dwarfs – in terms of races mentioned in the books – are least known, so it isn’t surprising, says Johansson.

The gender distribution is about 18% women, 82% men with the highest percentage of women of the Elves. Many responded to the fact that Sam and Rose Cotton had 12 children, each named after significant people from all over Middle Earth.

Many of the books on Middle Earth were published byTolkien's death and consolidated by his son Christopher. In good faith, he attempted to interpret and decipher his father's many notes. Many records were contradictory and show how the world evolved since the books were written. This makes it difficult to compile a family tree that is true, and my plan right now is to develop some sort of reference.

According to Johansson, “Some characters are little known, such as Tom Bombadil. Who he is, where he comes from and why the ring does not affect him remains a mystery.”

Tolkien left many loose ends throughout his books Perhaps this is what makes them so fascinating to many fans. Just use your imagination.

MyHeritage thanks Johansson for telling his fascinating story. We wish him luck on finishing the family tree.

Are you a Middle Earth fan? Do check out his website and share your comments with us below, on Facebook or Twitter. We look forward to hearing from you.

Of those who responded, 33% said that they, or someone they knew, had paid a genealogist; 67% said they hadn’t.

The idea that 1 in 3 people are paying genealogists to research is an interesting one that we’d like to explore further.

Have you ever paid a genealogist and, if yes, what was it you wanted them to help with that you couldn’t access yourself through MyHeritage or some other genealogy source?

Why did you use a researcher? Was it for access to unusual records? Was it because you didn’t have time to do it yourself? Did you have a brick wall you were trying to smash through with expert help?

Was the genealogist you used a certified professional genealogist?

We’d like to read your answers about working with professional genealogists in the comments below, on Twitter or on Facebook.

Although she came to the throne on this day in 1952, her coronation took place on June 2, 1953.

Queen Elizabeth II is the male-line great-granddaughter of Edward VII, who inherited the crown from his mother, Queen Victoria. His father, Victoria's consort, was Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Queen Elizabeth is a patrilineal descendant of Albert's family, the German House of Wettin. This princely house claims other notables, such as King Albert II of Belgium and former King Simeon II of Bulgaria.

Elizabeth's male-line ancestry goes back to Conrad the Greatof Meissen; see Patrilineal descent of Elizabeth II.

Through Victoria - and several of her great-great-grandparents, Elizabeth is directly descended from many British royals:

House of Stuart: Mary, Queen of Scots, Robert the Bruce, and earlier Scottish royal houses.

• House of Tudor, and earlier English royal houses as far as the 7th century House of Wessex; one member of Wessex was Aethelflaed of Wessex's younger sister, Elfthryth.

As Queen Victoria's great-great-granddaughter, she is related to the heads of most other reigning and former European royal houses. Via her great-grandmother Queen Alexandra, she descends from the Danish royal house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, of the North German house of Oldenburg, one of the oldest European lines.

Glücksburg also claims Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; Margrethe II of Denmark, Harald V of Norway, Queen Sofia of Spain and former King Constantine II of Greece. All of them descend from Queen Victoria. Elizabeth has many cousins, including King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Victoria's great-great-grandson.

She's also descended from Johan Willem Friso, Prince of Orange (1687–1711), the most recent common ancestor to all reigning European royal houses.

Her lineage ethnicities include Armenian, Arab, Chinese,  Cuman, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Monegasque, Norwegian, Old Prussian, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish and Yugoslavian.

The Diamond Jubilee weekend celebration - June 2-5, 2012 - is coordinated by Buckingham Palace, which is also responsible for her program during the entire year.

This year, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will visit England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while other Royal Family members will also travel throughout the UK and overseas.

Click here to see Queen's family tree (screenshot below).

Click the image to see the family tree.

Sources: wikipedia

Schelly, Steve Morse and Mark

A large audience heard Dave Barney of Google present the many uses of Google for genealogy. He demonstrated various features, ranging from Google Maps and  how to pinpoint your ancestors on a street level view map and how to zoom in to their historic homes, churches and more to show your family’s living history. He shared a photo of the Swedish church – still standing - where his ancestors were married more than two centuries ago. The building was shown in Google street view.

Tonight was a special Late Night at the Family History Library, which remained open until midnight (hundreds of people were there until the library closed!). Every computer was occupied on all floors, while many attendees arrived just in time to watch the third-season premiere of “Who Do You Think You Are?” featuring Martin Sheen. The show was broadcast in rooms - packed with viewers - on several floors.

Additionally, “rock star” geneablogger Thomas MacEntee (see photo left) celebrated the first anniversary of his very popular Geneabloggers Radio in a third-floor conference room, complete with party hats and a delicious cake!

Geneabloggers Thomas MacEntee (left) and DearMyrtle

In a radical departure from the normally busy but very quiet library, the sacred universal library rules of “no food” and “quiet please” were ignored, as there were delicious cookies, brownies and other edibles available.

The festive atmosphere of this special night incuded numerous genealogy world notables including outgoing FamilySearch CEO Jay Verkler.

The Who Do You Think You Are? third-season premiere of actor Martin Sheen’s quest provided a real zinger at the end. Sheen, who provided the narration for his episode, found out that his great-great-great-great-grandmother’s descendant and his great-great-great-great-grandfather’s descendant had married. The female ancestor had been prosecuted by his male ancestor (a judge) for an indiscretion - likely with a cleric - yet 150 years later, the descendants of both married. It was quite a shock for Sheen.

RootsTech Developers Challenge

We met with the second place winnter of the RootsTech Developer Challenge, Brooke Schreier Ganz of Los Angeles, whose LeafSeek, which helps you turn your genealogical or historical record collections into searchable online databases. It includes such features as built-in geo-spatial searches, pop-up Google Maps, Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching, name synonyms and language localization to help you turn your spreadsheets of names and dates into a full-featured genealogy search engine.

Comments from visitors

One visitor thanked WorldVitalRecords for the unique way it displays the US Social Security Death Index. “Along with the SSDI information, you provide “Historical Events” that happened on the birth and death dates of the individual. I love to read them - I have learned some great facts.”

One of the best things about these conferences is the opportunity to talk to MyHeritage users and those to whom we introduce MyHeritage. On day two, I met several people whose stories were so interesting that we will soon bring them to you in interviews.

Lisa Kudrow in the episode on her own family (Season 1, Episode 3)

Lisa Kudrow, executive producer of the US version of “Who Do You Think You Are?” was the guest for a group phone interview on Friday, January 27.

I was honored to participate in the call which focused on the show’s new season, which begins at 8pm, Friday, February 3, on NBC.

This year"s celebs are Martin Sheen, Marisa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Reba McEntire, Rob Lowe, Helen Hunt, Rita Wilson, Edie Falco, Rashida Jones, Jerome Bettis, Jason Sudeikis and Paula Deen.

Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch, my own questions could not be answered. However, the others asked some great questions, and Lisa responded in kind (see below).

Other geneabloggers on the call were Thomas MacEntee, Lisa Louise Cooke, Angela Walton-Raji, Kathryn Lake Hogan and Diane Haddad, along with newspaper and entertainment industry magazine writers.

Here are some questions and Lisa’s responses.

Q: What advice do you have for people who become frustrated or stuck in their research?

Lisa: There doesn’t have to ever be an end. That's what makes it such a great hobby. I think there's always research you can do on different branches, different cousins and you go back. And then it's not just names and dates. Then you start looking at where they were living, what was happening there at that time, you start looking at historical documents. And you can maybe draw some conclusions or guesses about what was motivating some of their choices in life.

Q: What happens if you come across bad news?

Lisa: Most people go into it understanding that they just want information, whatever it is. They already understand that if somewhere in their ancestry there were some unsavory people or they did bad things then, that's not who they are. And you can just focus on how the family turned itself around.”

Q: In the UK, the show is huge and there will be another WDYTYA family history fair soon, with nearly 20,000 attendees expected. Do you see the US version tying into a US national conference for family history?

Lisa:We're invited all the time, our researchers and as executive producers to different events, pertaining to genealogy and ... historical archives ... so it happens. But that hasn’t come up yet.

Q: The opening episode this Friday is on Martin Sheen. Can you share anything on what he finds?

Lisa: There are two segments in Spain. The first segment is in Ireland. But the first segment in Spain is his finding out more than he ever knew about his uncle - his father's brother - who was the only Estevez sibling in Spain who didn't leave the country. He was actually stuck there, got caught up in Franco's coup and he was involved in trying to put it down very early on. He was imprisoned many times for that. It's also something that Martin really related to because he's an activist, he's been in jail, he's been jailed a couple times, and he could absolutely relate to and be proud of families who sacrificed for their beliefs in social justice.

Q: More people are doing DNA research and medical history. Will we see any  on the episode with Paula Deen and her recent diabetes diagnosis?

Lisa: We're still working on the research for Paula Deen and it hasn't come up as something that we'll be looking into. But we do - not with the health aspect of genetic testing, but there have been big improvements on, you know, on - for Blair Underwood's episode, there have been a lot of improvements in what you can find out, so he submitted a DNA sample that would track his father’s Y chromosome. There are a lot of samples gathered in Africa to hone in on the closest matches and provide a better indication of where they're from, something more precise. And it's pretty precise.

Q: Why is genealogy important to the immigrant experience?

Lisa: I think it's important because so much gets lost once a family moves their roots. There's a lot that gets lost. Maybe it's just a human thing that there aren't a lot of stories passed down if there was tragedy and difficulty.  To keep moving forward and coping, you'd rather not dwell on those periods of hardship and victimhood. Otherwise it's hard to press on. So I think that's why there's no information that gets passed down. I think it's important to know where you're coming from.

Q: When people want their genealogy or ancestry traced, are they interested in their culture or is it one or two individuals they want to look into, and then find out more information?

Lisa: It's a mixture. Everyone has something different they want to know. Sometimes it's a specific story that got handed down and they want to know if that's true. Sometimes it's very general because they don't know anything. A lot of times it's just “I want to do this for my mom, she's interested.” It's partly what you were talking about. As they're doing this for their mother or their father, they realize they get caught up in it as well and  feel a strong connection themselves.

Q: I'm curious about your team and the complexity of research into persons of African-American ancestry. As genealogists, we research our families to 1870, and hit a brick wall. If we get to the point of identifying a slave holder, then we have to research their history. Do you have two teams - in the case of Blair Underwood - did you have two teams of people, some researching the slave holder and then researching the family found in freedom?

Lisa: Our team of researchers are usually history majors and they know how to conduct research. There's usually one person assigned to a subject and then we have another person who's helping on that. But they reach out to experts in different areas of history, especially around those time periods or African-American slave history.

We don't have one person dedicated to this area. For example, this season we have 12 people. There's such a variety of ancestry that we can't possibly have experts on staff in all those fields.

Q: How long does the research process take from the time a person agrees to be a subject?  

Lisa: It varies. Marisa Tomei and Rob Lowe, that's been going on since Season 1. We couldn't find information. And then there are people where it's incredibly lucky. I think Blair went really fast.

Q: What are some of the biggest improvements over the three seasons?

Lisa: The first improvement came after the first season when we didn't have that music video montage. That, to me, was a great improvement, because then we could have more time to actually tell a story - the drag for us is that it's only 40 minutes total. We would love to get into more history for context for what was going on. In Helen Hunt's episode, I think that helped tremendously and helps you get invested in the people that we're looking at because we can see what was going on at the time and how it motivated what they did. You feel like you understand them ... more than just a name and a date.

Q: Could give some highlights on this season’s stars, such as Jason Sudeikis, Rob Lowe, and Rashida Jones?

Lisa: We haven't shot any of them yet. I think I know the most about Rob Lowe. That's going to start shooting very soon, if it hasn't already. But that's an unbelievable story. And I can't talk about them at all because none of them have shot. They don't know what's coming. It's always a surprise until they actually shoot it.

Q: Have you noticed any common elements as to why each person has become so successful in their own life?

Lisa: I haven't thought about that because we've been focusing on people who are not famous, that came before [the celebs]. It's generations later that someone happened to become famous for whatever it is that they're doing. For every famous person, they've got 100 other relatives that aren't famous and who came from the same ancestors.

Q: Are celebrities less apprehensive about appearing now than Season 1?

Lisa: Much less. We've got a waiting list now. That’s fantastic. I think they know that we're not trying to catch them at something or make them look bad. That's not what we're interested in. We're really interested in just telling these stories as experienced by their ancestors. And hope that they're engaged because that always makes for a more interesting episode.

Q: What influenced your decision to be the show's executive producer?

Lisa: I had seen it when I was in Ireland - on BBC - and I thought it was the most riveting show I'd ever seen. And what a great way to talk about history and the human condition.

Q: What is most challenging in your search?

Lisa: Different countries have different privacy laws, so that's about getting documents, getting permission to look at documents or shoot documents, so that's one roadblock. Obviously slavery is a big roadblock. We've tried to do Korean or Japanese subjects and it's very tricky to get records – access to records. 

[NOTE: Lisa added, "Eastern European Jewish history is a huge roadblock. A lot of the time, you can't even get past World War II. You can get the name of a parent of someone who came over, but there are no records over there. Period. At all. They've been obliterated. So that one's pretty tricky. That's why there haven't been too many Eastern European Jewish stories." Having done archival research in Eastern Europe, I disagree with this. The records are there, they just need to be really searched out. To say that there are no records because they have all been obiterated is not true, and there are many Eastern European Jewish history researchers who have great success finding records in many places.]

Q: Have you spoken to featured celebrities about their experiences, before or after filming?

Lisa: Usually after, if at all. There's a recurring theme: That it was a lot to process and I'm still processing it. It's something that really lingers. And that's usually what someone says afterward.

Q: How do you feel [your experience] changed you?

Lisa: In certain psychological ways, it's made a difference because I usually like to avoid unpleasant things - especially emotionally unpleasant - and that's not a great way to go through life. But I think having to just stay with it when I did my show because that's difficult information to hear and just be there.

You put yourself in the situation and you're walking the same road they walked before they were all murdered.. At one point I remember they said, “It's right up here.” I actually stopped. My instinct was to stop and not take one more step. So I think what was good is to push on and to understand that the good news is that this is not happening to me and now there's a witness for it and it's bigger than me. It's beyond just me having this experience. It's a story that you're sharing with other people.

Q: Do celebrities approach you now about the show?

Lisa: Yes. I saw Blair Underwood at a party and he said, "I want to do your show." And I said, "All right." Done. It all has to start with a conversation with a researcher and then they get going. It can take two years. Martin Sheen was saying, "I don't know, I spoke to them and then six months later, they said all right, so when can you shoot this?" He didn't hear anything. Brooke Shields said the same thing. Maybe we should get a little better at communication. But it can take awhile sometimes.

Q: Is there any big reveal about Martin Sheen’s episode that you can share?

Lisa: I've seen cuts on the first six, only half. They all have big reveals. Blair Underwood has a huge reveal. Reba McEntire does, too. They all do. And Marisa Tomei is looking at her great-grandfather. The story was that he was killed by a jealous lover and that he was a philanderer - that's just how they always saw him. She goes and investigates and finds out that it's a different story and people didn't have to be even a little ashamed.

Q: Touching on the youth question, would you perhaps focus future episodes on celeb teens or eary-20s and help them avoid decades of false assumptions and teach them that family tree knowledge is a great hobby.

Lisa: That's a great point. Rashida Jones is the youngest person we've had do the show. I think it's trickier to get even younger people because they're not necessarily interested yet. Usually it's once a person has children that they become interested. With boys, it seems even harder because they're young men, they're looking forward, they don't want to look back. It's a big generalization, but it comes up. So it's great that we have Jason Sudeikis, because he's also younger. That's why a lot of people do it, they can't wait to tell their kids. And they want their children to know where they came from and what the real story is.

Q: What do you hope viewers take away from the show?

Lisa: That we're pretty strong as human beings. Those of us that are here, it's almost a miracle that we are here. The only reason we're here is because we come from strong stock. So I think that should give us all a feeling of inspiration and strength that we can draw from that, because it's not easy to survive this planet.

Remember to watch the first episode of the new season on Friday, February 3, at 8pm on NBC. The MyHeritage team is now in Salt Lake City for the RootsTech 2012 conference and I will be viewing the opening episode with other conference attendees at the Family History Library.

Do you watch Who Do You Think You Are?, in any version (several countries have their own (UK, US, Australia and others)? Does the show inspire you to check out your own family history? Have you found clues to your own ancestry research during the episodes?

Do let us know via comments below, on Facebook and Twitter. We're looking forward to reading your views.

MyHeritage booth at RootsTech, before the conference began

The team began setting up Wednesday afternoon. Our booth is a real standout with double arches of balloons in the MyHeritage logo colors. Everyone knows where our booth is located as the colorful balloons fly high above the exhibit floor.

MyHeritage Super Search

Today, the opening day, our CEO/founder Gilad Japhet demonstrated the new MyHeritage Super Search technology. The new online research system greatly expands search functionality and takes into account user errors, common name variations, and other important details which, in the past, have not been included in most ancestral searches. There are many options to filter results by collections, via additional refining, advanced search and filtering capabilities as demonstrated in his presentation. This exciting new research system is still under development.

FamilyGraph API

MyHeritage’s chief genealogist Daniel Horowitz presented the FamilyGraph API and its potential uses by developers and consumers

Rootstech Keynote

During the keynote opening session incoming FamilySearch CEO Dennis Brimhall introduced outgoing CEO Jay Verkler who, for 10 years, has helped grow FamilySearch capabilities and partnerships around the world. Brimhall announced that more than 4,200 attendees had registered for RootsTech 2012. Last year’s attendance was some 3,000.

The Modern High Tech World of Genealogy

RootsTech shows that the world of genealogy is entering the 21st century, with flashing lights, loud music and screen animations.

The genealogy world is becoming increasingly high-tech, as we saw attendees using smartphone and tablet apps and online trees, and exhibitors are also joining the revolution. Tweets, status updates and check-ins are in a constant state of updates as users utilize the same technology at the event where they are gathering to learn even more technology.
Attendees represent all stages and skills of research. Many visitors to the MyHeritage booth were new to family history research, while others were well-acquainted with our features and tools. Many attendees represented local family history societies and were planning to bring back the new information to their members. With so many technological advances offered at RootsTech, the conference offers a unique opportunity to see all the latest resources in the industry.
Our booth display offered eight computers, that were all occupied for much of the day. Society representatives learned to use WorldVitalRecords.com and MyHeritage.com more effectively to bring that information back home. MyHeritage offers a complete package at an affordable price. From our 38 languages to the online ability to share resources with relatives via a family website.

Daniel with Tormod Engebu, one of MyHeritage translation volunteers

One woman who visited our booth was so excited to learn that we had international family trees. She said, “Finally, a way to get me across the pond.” She quickly registered to create her own family website, which took only a minute. She couldn’t wait to return home and upload her GEDCOM to the new family tree website that she had created.

Another visitor let us know she is a loyal WorldVitalRecords member and will be so forever. She said that she is named after her great-great-grandmother. Her grandmother's husband died in 1848, leaving her with two step-children, three of her own children and pregnant with a fourth. The woman had searched for years to find out what happened to her grandmother, using Ancestry, FamilySearch and others, with no result. One night, she went to WorldVitalRecords, entered her grandmother's name and - in a small town in Iowa - was an obituary for her grandmother.

US genealogy advisor Schelly Talalay Dardashti talked with a young girl who had been studying her family history for five years, and we will bring her story to blog readers in a few weeks, to emphasize the new generation of genealogists.

It was a great opening day for a great conference. We’ll post Day Two tomorrow, so stay tuned for more of the exciting events.

In the US and Canada, it has been observed during February since 1976. In the UK, it is observed during October.  It is also known as African-American History Month.

Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week so that African American history would be considered more significant within American history. According to historian John Hope Franklin,  Woodson expressed hope that Negro History Week would outlive its usefulness.

The observance is meant to promote awareness of African American history.  It is widely observed through local activities, at museums, at libraries and with television documentaries.

During February, thousands of students at all levels of education, from elementary school through university, learn about this essential part of American history and most American history textbook include black history.

Do you have African American ancestors? Want to learn more? There are some 70 geneablogs focusing on African American genealogy at Geneabloggers.com. Here are just three specialized sites from that list for information, resources and help:

• Afrigeneas
• African Roots Podcast
• Low Country Africana

Are you an African American and a MyHeritage user? We'd like to interview you for our blog. Email us at marketing@myheritage.com

We also invite all our readers to observe Black History Month by sharing a relevant story or photo in the comments below, on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Source: wikipedia