Genealogy's Star

Nearly 3.5 million digitized books added to Digital Public Library of America

2013-06-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

On June 18, 2013, the Digital Public Library of America announced a partnership with the HathiTrust.org to provide access to nearly 3.5 million digital books online. The DPLA's blog states:

“HathiTrust’s joining the Digital Public Library of America more than doubles the size of our unified collection, and—as so many have asked for—fills it with millions of books. We couldn’t be more delighted. Over the last five years, HathiTrust has built an incredible digital infrastructure to store the scanned holdings of its many university and library partners, and we in turn look forward to providing a large general audience for these valuable works, and new pathways into them,” said Dan Cohen, DPLA’s Executive Director.

The HathiTrust has a genealogy collection of 2760 of which 2685 are available for full view online.

Descended from an Indian Princess

2013-06-18T19:48:00.002-07:00

I hear all kinds of things from patrons at the Mesa FamilySearch Library about their ancestors. This week one of the patrons was excited to get going with researching her family because she was going to connect with a Cherokee Indian Princess. Well, along with the Three Brothers, this is one of the most common genealogical myths. Now, it wasn't appropriate for me to say anything to her at the time for a number of reasons, but it is still interesting to hear these common myths repeated as fact, especially when the princess is always a Cherokee and not an Apache, Navajo or Shoshoni.

Here is one explanation concerning how this myth may have started from About.com Genealogy:

During the 20th century it was common for Cherokee men to use an endearing term to refer to their wives that roughly translated as "princess." Many people believe this is how princess and Cherokee were joined in the popular Cherokee ancestry myth. Thus, the Cherokee princess may have really existed - not as royalty, but as a beloved and cherished wife. Some people also speculate that the myth was born in an attempt to overcome prejudice. For a white male marrying an Indian woman, a "Cherokee princess" may have been a little easier to swallow for the rest of the family.

If you have any kind of similar family tradition, I would suggest you go to your local public library or get online and find a few books on the particular Indian tribe mentioned. One of the common issues I hear is that they ancestor came from a tribe that never lived in any of the places where the ancestors lived.

During the past years of helping people who claimed Indian ancestry, I only was able to verify the claim one time when we traced the family back to a grandmother who lived on a reservation in Oklahoma. Of course, Indian ancestry is not an issue if you are an Indian. It is also commonly believed that you cannot trace your Indian ancestry. Like any ancestral line, there will come a time when records are no longer available, but in most cases, especially in the western part of the United States, there are more records than most people know about or can possibly search.

For specific information, I suggest searching in the FamilySearch Research Wiki for native american or Indian articles. At last count there were over 3,700 articles about Indians and the various tribes across the United States with numerous links to additional resources.

Time Constraints?

2013-06-17T07:20:00.001-07:00

We all die. This is neither a very original or insightful observation. But it does impose some absolute time contraints on our genealogical research. Here is an interesting comment received from my dear
friend Anonymous (one of my most frequent commentators):

I have focused on the direct family lines in my own research for a simple reason: it results in a more manageable # of people. Though I have generally kept the names and birthdates (and sources) for siblings, my trees and summary documents leave them out. It's a difference of about 1,000 person (direct line) versus 10,000 people (siblings)... or many more if you get into the siblings' children.

I do see the value in recording everybody. But time constraints require tough choices.

Does this mean when you find a family, you skip recording the children because of time constraints?

I guess my point in commenting about researching individuals as opposed to families was completely lost on this person. We all make choices based on time contraints but it is the value of those choices that is important. One saying, handed down in my family, was, "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing right." In genealogical research, is the goal to accumulate as many names as possible? Or perhaps the goal is to get as far back in time as possible? Obviously, our goals, expressed or unexpressed, determines how we view the time we spend on any project. As genealogists is our goal to "manufacture" our product as cheaply as possible? Or are we crafting museum quality products that will last forever? Is our product the disposable and biodegradable packaging or the high quality contents? Yes, time constraints require tough choices.

My point as simply as I can express it is this, families should be the goal of genealogical research. It may be emotionally satisfying to "prove" your relationship to some famous person or enable joining a genealogical society such as the Daughters of the American Revolution or the Mayflower Society, but the real value in doing genealogical research is in the families you discover. Who imposed this time contraint on you forcing you to ignore family members in favor of pushing back your "direct family." The whole idea of a direct family is based either on our artificially imposed idea of a surname family line or on an even more destructive idea that only male ancestors count. Why is your "direct line" more important than any other part of your pedigree?

In my own family, I never knew my paternal grandparents. They both died before I was born. I grew up knowing, visiting, talking to and staying with my maternal grandparents. One of the ancestors I saw most frequently was my father's mother's mother, my Great-grandmother. For reasons unknown, our family never associated closely with anyone in particular from my father's family. The two genealogists in my family were both on maternal lines. As I have written before on occasion, the amount of material transmitted to me from my family is enormous. Talk about time contraints, it takes me a whole day or more just to back up my files, which I am doing right now and the two hard drives have been running since yesterday. But given that background and many other factors, I have spent a huge amount of time on my "collateral" lines rather than just focusing on my direct lines.

Most of my research has been in correcting the errors that have accumulated over the past 150 years or so. Filling out the families is a top priority.

Focusing on families and their background, history and culture is not just more satisfying, it is also essential to discovering additional information about more remote ancestors. The most common situation I encounter in helping people with their genealogy is that they are trying to find a remote ancestor without knowing anything at all about that ancestor's descendants or family. In many cases, they have no documentation at all about the children who are the connection to the ancestor. How do they know they are researching the right person?

Let's re-evaluate our goals. We all have time constraints. Let's jointly craft museum quality research rather than throw-away, disposable research that will have to be redone in the future by someone else (like me).

Bothersome minor issues with FamilySearch Photos

2013-06-16T20:46:00.002-07:00

OK, the FamilySearch Photos program keeps evolving (if that is the word) from day-to-day. I have noticed several changes this past week and my YouTube video on the subject is still sort-of accurate as far as I went at the time it was made. Now there are some more nuances in the process of choosing a default image for the FamilySearch Family Tree program. As it turns out even if all of the photos are a named exactly the same way, you cannot choose some of them because they all have to show the same thumbnail. So you choose the options not by name but by photo. The names can all be the same, but if the thumbnail photos are different then you cannot change the default.

This really is more complicated than it sounds. In FamilySearch Family Tree, the default photo is called the "Portrait Photo." Each user can select a different photo for each ancestor. You will see the photo you select and they will see the photo they select. See, no conflicts. You can choose photos even if you did not upload them. The first photo uploaded will be automatically selected unless changed.

Here are the instructions as of today, but you have to do exactly what the manual says:

1. Go to either the Photos section of FamilySearch.org or to Family Tree:
• To change a portrait using the Photos section, click Photos, and then click People.
Then click the person that you want.
• To change the portrait photo of a person using Family Tree, click Family Tree.
On the fan chart or pedigree view, click the person’s name. On the summary card,
click Photos.
2. Click the current portrait (the picture that appears in the circle).
A popup containing all of the person’s uploaded photos appears.
3. Click the photo that you want to use.

If this sounds confusing, it is because it is. It took me a couple of times to figure out what was really saying. Good luck. I might do the video over after a while when I figure out how to duplicate the issues.

The way to tell if all the photos have the same thumbnail is to go to the People view in the Photos programs and see if you have more than one photo showing for any individual. If you do, you have selected different thumbnails and/or names for the people in the photos. You have to delete the tags and re-tag the people with exactly the same name and the same thumbnail photo. Good luck again.

Individuals vs. Families -- an interesting observation

2013-06-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

I have noticed a rough correlation between the number of photographs and sources of an individual in online family trees and their "standing" in the family. Well, duh, you say. What did you expect. More prominent family members will automatically acquire more attention from descendants. We all want to be related to "important" people and so it is natural that the "important" person gets all the attention. But I think there is more to this issue than just ancestral prominence.

It is also common to find that pedigrees record only "direct line" ancestors, such as father to son or mother to daughter relationships with scant attention paid to the spouse. This often follows surname lines. I have written about this previously raising the "equal opportunity" argument that all of our ancestors deserve equal attention. But now, as I see this pattern in online family trees of adding sources and photos only for the prominent or direct line ancestor, I think there is more to be said about this issue.

First and obviously, your own surname plays a major part in determining your genealogical research interest. This is natural and is wrapped up with issues of identity and family traditions. But how we form our predilection to one family or another is a little more complex. In some families, I am certain that present-day interest in certain family lines is determined by the amount of genealogical interest in the past. We tend to follow the lines of least resistance and use information gathered by others and naturally follow those lines former researchers were interested in. In some cases, this interest has been established for hundreds of years looking back to the first immigrant or the first whatever in any particular family and this comes about as a result of looking at individuals, as individuals, and not focusing on families.

For example, it is not too uncommon when I mention being a descendant of the Mayflower passengers, to find someone who also claims that relationship. Many of these people can name the Mayflower passenger, especially if they have done any genealogical research, but few, if any, could name the wives of those same passengers or the names of any of the children outside of their direct line. What is ever more interesting is that many of these same people would have a difficult time explaining how or why they believe that this relationship exists with those same Mayflower passengers.

Now that I have become aware of it, I have certainly identified that tendency in my own research. I am finding that I have scanty evidence about the family members of even families that are close to me in time. So, it turns out that for the most part, genealogical research seems to be very narrow in scope. We focus on individuals rather than families. We tend to dismiss "collateral" relatives as outside our realm of interest. In fact, I have gotten into discussions recently about whether or not we should even care about these other "collateral" lines. But I see the same attitude applying to all the other lines that are deemed uninteresting, usually because there is no prominent family member.

I have referred to this phenomena when talking about doing the genealogy for those family members you like as well as the ones you don't like. But it is interesting to see that in online family trees apparently all of the family members make the same decisions about the same few family members and ignore the rest.

One thought that comes to mind is that genealogists tend to run in families according to some as yet unidentified family trait. In some cases, interest in genealogical research clearly arises because of contact with an older relative with the same interest. But in some cases, there are certain family members who become involved in the family history, not because of any contact with the older family member but for their own particular reasons. In my own Tanner family, there have been a succession of people who have written and published about the family starting back in the 1800s. I didn't know any of these people and didn't even know they existed until I started doing my own research.

Not only does this interest seems to run in family lines, it is also interesting to note that some families seem devoid of any interest at all for generations. There are no surname books, no histories, no records to speak of at all.

In my lines, we have a huge amount of information about some of the lines and no information at all about others lines. The lines with information attract more information and those with no information lie idle on the family trees. In my lines, for example, the contrast between the amount of information on the Tanner line and the lack of information on the Springthorpe line are polar opposites.

I guess the challenge we have as genealogists is to attempt to level the playing field, that is, to find information on all of the family members so that the family gets its genealogy recorded and not just certain individuals.

Requiem for Genealogists

2013-06-15T17:10:00.000-07:00

In the last two weeks or so, two of my really good friends and genealogists passed away suddenly. One was 88 years old and we kind of expect that sort of thing. The other, one I worked with almost every week for the past eight years, passed away in one day without warning at the age of 62. The older of the two had worked regularly at the Mesa FamilySearch Library for over 37 years. The other had been an LDS Ward Family History Consultant for as long as I had known him. Because I saw both of these fine men regularly, I will mourn their passing for a long time. The older of the two was LeRoy Andersen. The younger was Russell Jorgensen.

It is thought provoking to realize that there are many unsung, almost unknown, dedicated genealogists who teach and serve others day after day for years without worldly pay or recognition. Neither of these fine genealogists had any online presence, although the younger of the two had more computer experience, both were up to date on the technology and programs. Both spent many years of their lives dedicated to expanding their own family history and helping others find their own ancestors.

LeRoy Anderson was a Certified Public Accountant and Russ Jorgensen was an anesthesiologist. Both were highly competent in their chosen profession and both had served me in their professional capacity as well as being friends and fellow genealogists. LeRoy's wife had predeceased him, but Russ leaves a widow. Both had married and unmarried adult children and a number of grandchildren.

I will miss more than words can tell.

I have recently begun wondering what kind of a reception genealogists receive on the "other side." I have decided the reception likely depends on the nature and quality of their genealogical research and service. I am sure that both of these men received a royal welcome. For my part, I was privileged to know both of them for as long as I did.

Dealing with contradictory evidence

2013-06-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

This past week or so helping patrons at the Mesa FamilySearch Library raised some interesting issues. One patron, who was just beginning her research to extend her line, began finding records on her ancestor and almost immediately found a death record that gave her ancestor's parents. The record was interesting because the parents on the record were different than those she had on her "inherited" pedigree. A little more research showed another death record with an entirely different set of parents. At this point, she was ready to quit her research cold and go back to watching TV or whatever. Exactly contradictory evidence can be overwhelming.

Does contradictory information just create a situation of "take your pick" or flip a coin? Is genealogy more than just making arbitrary choices between equally possible alternatives? Of course, I began explaining to the patron that all she needed to do was more research to find additional information about the family that would likely settle the controversy of the contradictory parent information. But my suggestion was just that, a suggestion. There was always the possibility that we would not find any more information than we already had found. It was my opinion that the probability of running out of sources was pretty slim, but the patron quit for the day and I never did find out the end of the story.

But the issue still remains: what is the best way to deal with contradictory evidence? From the standpoint of experience, the simple answer is the one I gave to the patron; keep looking. All instances of contradictory evidence are merely an invitation to further research. It is almost inevitable that you will encounter contradictions. How you handle those contradictions will determine the ultimate validity of your research.

In the above situation, there are really several possibilities. One or the other of the two sets of parents could be the correct set. But both could be wrong and both could be right also. Let's suppose that the patron had kept searching and found one more piece of evidence agreeing with one or the other of the first entries? Is that additional evidence the "tie-breaker" and the agreement automatically wins? Not really. All evidence has to be evaluated on the basis of a series of considerations. You must evaluate both the record and the source of the information. One key point I left out of my example above was the fact that both of these records found by the patron were extracted records, essentially indexes. So neither of the records was in anyway conclusive of the facts, a difficult point for the new patron to understand.

All records need to be evaluated as to their relevance, their category and their format. A record is relevant if it was created for the purpose of preserving the information you are seeking. For example, a census record is relevant to the issue of where the people lived because that is the reason the record was created. Records are found in categories based on the type of information preserved. The format of the record is also important because it determines whether or not the information is accessible.

As to the record itself, you need to evaluate the following:

the origin of the information
the facts given in the record
the events described
whether or not the evidence is direct or indirect

The FamilySearch Research Wiki suggests asking the following set of questions or other similar questions:

When and where was the record created?
Who created the record?
Why was the record created?
Who provided the information for the record?
How was the information recorded?
How was the record preserved?
What kind of information is missing or incomplete in the record?
Are there any other records that are usually associated with the record?
Which records came just before and after this record and would they give further information?
Is the record part of a series of records that may contain further information about the family?
Where are other associated records located?
How reliable is the information contained in the record?
What other information is suggested by the record but missing?

It is too bad that the patron above, did not stay long enough for us to find some other more relevant and conclusive evidence. She might have had a more positive experience. Further research would likely have revealed more direct evidence of the identity of the ancestor's parents.

Updated Webcast on FamilySearch Family Tree and many others

2013-06-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

We are still busy having new Webinars and making webcasts for the Mesa FamilySearch Library. My latest webcast was just posted online and updates the one I had done previously in 2012. I guess it was about time. Anyway we have a whole selection of webcasts on topics ranging from Southwest Native American Research to Using Maps in Family Research. Check out our selection and just think, if you wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep, you can always listen to my webcasts or videos and they will put you right out. It is always in my interest to provide a broad spectrum of uses for my presentations.

Methodology vs. Proof in Genealogy

2013-06-14T07:35:00.001-07:00

Proof is a slippery subject. How do I prove anything to a person, if that person does not want to accept or believe the proof I offer? The world if full of people who believe all sorts of things based on their own concept of proof such as Aliens, UFOs etc. So how do we approach the idea of "proof" in genealogy? Doesn't all proof come down to who is convinced of what?

Currently in the greater genealogical community, proof statements are in vogue. The process of producing these "proof statements" is summarized a FamilySearch Research Wiki article entitled
"Evaluate the Evidence":

Evaluating the evidence takes place in several phases. It starts as soon as you find a document that must be evaluated to see if it is relevant to the family you are researching. It continues as you transfer the information from the source to your genealogical records and compose a source footnote. In that phase you are evaluating in two ways: (1) a preliminary evaluation of the reliability of the source, and (2) a comparison and contrast of data on the source with other information about the family to see if it corroborates or contradicts other sources. Later, after research on the family is mostly completed, carefully make a final, well-reasoned re-evaluation of all the sources compared to each other to help you reach a reasonable conclusion and write a proof statement subject to the Genealogical Proof Standard.

There are essentially five elements to the Genealogical Proof Standard:

A reasonably exhaustive search has been conducted.
Each statement of fact has a complete and accurate source citation.
The evidence is reliable, and has been skillfully correlated and interpreted.
Any contradictory evidence has been resolved.
The conclusion has been soundly reasoned.

See also: Board for Certification of Genealogists (Washington, D.C.). The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual. Orem, Utah: Ancestry Pub, 2000.

Now, we are back to where we started; differentiating between methodology and proof. When I say "methodology" I mean that we are establishing a "fact" by simply looking for "evidence." The "fact" is found by a "reasonably exhaustive search" which is an entirely subjective measure which is further defined as assuming "examination of a wide range of high quality sources." Stripped of the verbiage, all this means is that you look at sources and when you feel you have looked enough, you quit and write about what you have examined. That is a methodology.

Proof means something completely different. I question whether or not the concept of "proof" really has any place in the area of genealogy at all. In one sense, proof is a logically based argument that establishes the truth of a given statement. This is the mathematical approach to proof. In order to establish a proof in this context it is necessary to have a formal system of logic that defines each term used and is rigorous in its application. I don't think genealogy has ever approached this definition of proof. It is a social science based on historical evidence, not mathematics or physical science. The polar opposite definition of proof involves presenting arguments in favor of a proposed fact and convincing the "average" person of its validity or truth, if you will.

The second definition of a proof is a little more closely related to the genealogical concept except the judge and jury are missing. There is no "average genealogist" who can be convinced or not convinced of the truth or falsity of any given fact because the adversarial process of convincing the average person is missing. In genealogy, all of this evaluation is left to the individual researcher. To repeat, there is no genealogical judge or jury other than the inertia of those who might be interested in any given "proof statement." In addition, genealogy is not per se adversarial. Although there are situations where individuals disagree on the evidence, ultimately, there is no way to resolve such disagreements if the individuals never change their opinions.

You could go through each step of the proof standard, including writing your published proof statement and I could come along and do more research and shoot down your whole argument. Genealogy is methodology and cloaking it in the robe of proof does not accurately reflect the processes. Finding a reliable source does not prove anything, it merely adds one more level of evidence. Your conclusions are your conclusions. My conclusions are my conclusions. We may agree that there is no basis for questioning any given proposition, but we may both be wrong. The idea that we have proved anything is an illusion based on semantics not proof.

Time for a hypothetical to illustrate the idea. Ronnie Roe is born and lives with her two parents until they die when she is 40 years old. All of her life she has known that Robert and Jane Roe were her parents and she even has a birth certificate to prove it. Two years after her parents' death, she finds out that contrary to all of the evidence she had, she was adopted. My point: all genealogical proof is methodology and subject to revision. We can set up an arbitrary system of proof that depends on evaluating all of the evidence we have found so far, but we must always be ready to revise our entire set of proof based on subsequent evidence. If you take any other position, you are deluding yourself.

Current proof statements may be widely accepted by the academic genealogists but are only true so far as no one else has challenged them. We are not talking about science here. I can't conduct an independent experiment and validate your findings. In genealogy, I have to rely on your integrity and ability. How do I know when you wrote your genealogical proof statement that you didn't just make up the entire thing or ignore obviously contradictory information? How many such proof statements are there that exist in family trees merely because no one has every challenged them? Genealogy is methodology not proof. All proofs are tentative.

I am sure there is more later especially about the issue of whether or not I have to review all of your sources. Remember, genealogist have long been known to have made up or falsified facts to support their positions. Not to question the integrity of today's experts, but to show that relying on past records is not a science at all.

Swimming in the stream of history

2013-06-13T07:21:00.001-07:00

Some of us older folks have lived enough history to have an appreciation for the impact of events and circumstances on our lives. It seems to me that many genealogical researchers are so busy swimming in that stream of history, they tend to ignore it. They fail to see the impact past events may have had on their family. I have written before about the effect of ignoring wars and such but it is not just huge national and international events that affect families but also the very local historic events.

My maternal grandfather's family is a good example of the impact of an international event. The family seemed to move around a lot and I finally found out that they lived in a series of rental houses after losing their primary residence to foreclosure. Now why do you suppose this was happening? Well, do you think that living during the 1930s in the depth of the Great Depression may have had an impact? I have handed down comments about my grandfather's money management ability, but I might also guess that he wasn't making all that much money during the depression as a newspaper reporter.

Local events can also have the same type of impact on a family. For example, my paternal Great-grandmother had twin boys and one of them was killed in a tragic accident at the age of nineteen. From the record, she also lost a child in childbirth or shortly thereafter. She never seemed to me to be a very happy person and looking at those and other tragedies in her life, such as losing a husband at a relatively young age, may have explained a lot of what I observed. Unfortunately, most of these facts were unknown to me because people didn't talk to children about such things.

Now project those types of experiences back into the past. How many small and great historical incidents went into making your family what it is today? What happened to make them move? Why did they change from farming to cattle or whatever? Why did they move to the city? Why did they leave the homeland and come to a different country? All of these questions, when answered, help to explain and give life to your ancestral story. It is always amazing to my how few genealogists have read a county history of the counties they are researching. It is not uncommon for me to point out several county histories to researchers who are surprised to learn they exist. As a side note, I suggest that you look at the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki for links to county histories.

One of the most valuable aids to integrating your research into the local, state and national history is doing a timeline of events. Some of the genealogical database programs will automatically do this for each person in your file and also overlay national and international events. It seems almost elementary, that if your family lived in the United States during the years of 1860 to 1866, that some family members might have been involved in the U.S. Civil War. But it is always surprising to me how many people ignore something as obvious as this. Every area of the United States and every country of the world has some of the same types of great historical events that affected nearly every family in country.

More than just the interest value of learning about your family's place in history, is the research value. Events create records. Anytime something big happens to a country, state or region, there are unique records that were created that might contain a more detailed record of your particular family. For example, in my own family, the Tanners lived in a small agricultural community in Northern Arizona as subsistence farmers. They could barely exist on the poor land and strained water supplies of this desolate area. Beginning in 1880, the railroad started across this stretch of Arizona Territory. It was the salvation of the communities by providing first work for the young men of the community and second, giving access to less expensive supplies that kept the communities alive. Ignoring something such as the impact of the railroad is not just a historical problem, it ignores all the records accumulated about the railroad construction and those who participated.

Think about your own family and start reading some history books today.

Pennsylvania Project Highlights Value of Research Wiki

2013-06-13T06:58:00.003-07:00

Likely very few genealogists realize the slow but extremely effective additions to the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki. Volunteers are continually adding information, links and explanations about how to find valuable genealogical records. No where is the improvement noted more completely than with the Research Wiki Projects. One of these massive projects has just recently been completed for the Pennsylvania articles. There are several ongoing Projects in addition to this one that was just completed.

Of course, there is a Research Wiki page listing the Projects. I am currently, and have been for the past couple of years, working with the Utah Project.

This is probably one of the most low-key, uncelebrated aspects of genealogy that exists on the Web. Adding information to the Research Wiki takes time and meticulous effort. Except for your immediate co-contributors, no one knows what is being done and there is seldom, if ever, are recognition for a job well done. In addition, you are working on a program that is all but invisible on FamilySearch.org and hardly mentioned by the online genealogical community and all but unknown by everyone else.

At the Mesa FamilySearch Library, I am continually asked questions about how to find resources. Frequently, I will simply sit with the person asking the questions and show them the Research Wiki where their question is immediately answered. Time after time, the researchers expresses surprise that this valuable resource exists. It is almost as if everything I have said and taught goes in one proverbial ear and out the other. Maybe instead of a white shirt and tie, I should be wearing a T-shirt that says: BEFORE ASKING ME, LOOK IN THE RESEARCH WIKI!!!

The Pennsylvania Project Highlights include:

It is still evident, when you browse through the Research Wiki that there is always more work that can be done. For that reason, at the bottom of the State articles and in other places in the Research Wiki, you will see this plea for help with adding information:

This link takes you to a Help Wanted Page that looks like this:

As the Research Wiki says, "Everyone knows at least a little bit about something or someplace. The information you contribute could be exactly what someone else needs to connect with or add to their family history."

If you haven't explored the Research Wiki, do so today. If you are familiar with this resource, spread the word.

Where is Everything in the redesigned FamilySearch.org?

2013-06-12T16:55:00.002-07:00

This Quick View of Genealogy focuses on locating the resources in the redesigned FamilySearch.org website. In this brief overview I show you how to find all of the major resources of the website, including the Historical Record Collection, the Research Wiki, the FamilySearch Catalog and other important resources. I am constantly being asked to show people where all these resources went with the revision of the site and so here it is.

How do the online family tree programs compare?

2013-06-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

There are dozens and dozens of online programs allowing people to either enter or upload their family information. Most of those programs store the information in the form of a modified pedigree format based loosely on a traditional family oriented pedigree. Here is an example of a standard-type format for a pedigree which is also called an ancestor chart:

This particular chart came from some free forms online from the Mid-Continent Public Library. This format is very efficient and it would be hard to improve on this basic form. a few of the genealogical databases have experimented with variations, some more successful than others. I thought it would be interesting to see how three of the major online family tree programs approach this issue (with my usual comments, of course).

I had to stop for a minute and think about which program to talk about first. So I decided to start with the newest one, FamilySearch.org's Family Tree. Arguably in setting up the tree, they would have had the cumulative experience of all of their predecessors. Here is the first screen shot showing the basic FamilySearch Family Tree format.

The design is clearly adapted from the basic pedigree or ancestor chart. The main difference is that the basic chart starts with a single individual with space for a spouse. Family Tree has a space for a husband and a wife. I find this to be somewhat confusing and even disconcerting, for single people who look at this chart for the first time. Those never married or widowed often question what they are supposed to do with the blank spaces, particularly with the admonition to "Add a husband" or "Add a wife." I have had several comments questioning the form for that reason. I think you can emphasize the family without making singles feel left out.

This format is also confusing to people for the first time, because they have to sort out which line they are following. It does an adequate job of allowing users to navigate as long as people realize that the families are represented by the parents and that not all parents are showing. Navigating up the pedigree is fairly easy and the layout is clean and uncluttered, if that is a virtue.

FamilySearch Family Tree most recently added a fan chart view of the pedigree. Here is a screen shot of the fan chart view of the same person:

You may already know from my pervious posts that I am not a fan of fan charts. But it is a nice display and certainly gives a graphic representation of the families in the file. It is interesting that in this format the individual is treated as unique and no spouse in mandatorily shown next to the center name and there are no blank spaces for the missing spouse except at the bottom of the chart.

Next is Ancestry.com. Here is a screen shot of the same individual that I used in the Family Tree examples:

It is readily apparent that the Ancestry.com Family Tree is about the same as the roughly equivalent FamilySearch Family Tree. The major difference is that it starts with an individual and has a spouse, if there is one, in a pull-down menu. The problem of how to depict the family is then solved by putting the spouses in different boxes. If for no other reason, I like this view better because it shows a sensitivity to those who may not have and have no hope of having a spouse's line to work on. The lack of a spouse in not then emphasized. When navigating with both FamilySearch Family Tree and Ancestry.com Family Trees, you are forced to navigate up through the tree unless you happen to know the name or ID number of the person you are searching for.

Ancestry.com has another even more traditional family tree view called the "Family View." Here is a screenshot of the Family View"

Of course, you can zoom in and out on this format, but I find it relatively more difficult to use and seldom go to this view on purpose. Rather than being informative, it is mostly confusing. I am glad Ancestry.com has provided a different pedigree type view. I am sure that this is a matter of personal preference.

Next, I am going to MyHeritage.com which also has two different ancestor chart views to choose from. Here is a screen shot of the Modern View:

As you can see, MyHeritage.com has a view similar to Ancestry.com's Family View. Both of these suffer from a difficulty of finding ancestors and navigating around the huge chart when the words are large enough to read. I resort to using the search function rather than trying to find anyone using the family tree view. The Classic View is almost the same, except it is more compact and easier to navigate. Here is a screen shot of the Classic View:

Neither of these views is particularly easy to use. I would prefer a horizontally oriented chart, but that is a personal opinion. As with most of the other examples, if a spouse is missing, there is no line shown. In fact, to save clutter, the spouse's tree, if present, is not shown unless selected.

There are, of course a multitude of other forms of family trees, but combined these three trees probably contain more individuals that there presently are alive in the entire world: not to say everyone is represented, counting for duplicates, of course. With those large numbers it is extremely important to have an interface that is easy to navigate. Both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch Family Tree fall into that category, but there are other concerns that make each of the trees strong in some features and views and weak in others.

All that said, I would not make a decision to use or not use a family tree program based on the user interface alone. The other features of the program are much more important to me.

More changes coming to FamilySearch.org?

2013-06-12T06:29:00.001-07:00

I think I can safely say that the answer to the question in the title of this post is yes. There seem to be major and minor changes a couple of times a week. Spotting the changes and figuring out how to do things is becoming an interesting job in itself. One of my online colleagues working on the Research Wiki provided a link to an article, "Managed Print Service Cuts Red Ink at FamilySearch." There was a very interesting statement at the end of the article that says:

FamilySearch is currently developing an app that will allow visitors to scan documents and photos directly into their online family tree without using a computer interface. And it is continuing to roll out the MPS devices. At present, the organization has deployed the printers at approximately 1,900 locations, and it will roll them out at another 550 over the next year.

Hmm. This would be interesting. I wonder how many copies of the same photo will go online among other issues? It will be interesting to see if this prediction is accurate. The article is also interesting as it gives some idea of the huge scope of FamilySearch services through the FamilySearch Libraries and Centers.

How to change the default photo in FamilySearch Family Tree Photos

2013-06-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

Recent changes in FamilySearch FamilyTree and FamilySearch Photos have altered the way to change the default photo. This segment of Quick Views of Genealogy shows how to change the default photo that shows in the Details view of FamilySearch Family Tree. Both programs are changing steadily at the time this video was done and so I expect further changes will bring me back to this subject in the near future.

BillionGraves.com introduces FamilySearch Family Tree Connect

2013-06-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

In a blog post from BillionGraves.com, they introduced a new FamilySearch Family Tree Connect feature that allows you to attach BillionGraves images to their corresponding FamilySearch record. These images aid family members by giving them another source to draw valuable information from. The short video above introduces the new features.

Importantly, BillionGraves.com is now expanded to include additional information about the deceased, including personal history and relationships. The link to FamilySearch Family Tree goes way beyond simply looking for one individual, the program will search all of the entries in your FamilySearch Family Tree for connections to existing BillionGraves.com grave pages. The program will also add a source link directly into FamilySearch Family Tree for any ancestor you find in the database.

The Future of Online Genealogy

2013-06-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

In a recent post, I talked about the future of genealogy software. In this post, I decided to peer into the future of the online genealogical community. One of the most remarkable aspects of the recent changes in genealogy is the accessibility of original source records. The real question is whether or not this availability will actually impact the way people record and remember their families or will the rift between the social and popular aspects of genealogy and the more academic versions simply widen as time goes on.

It is hard to come up with a terms to apply to the more documented aspects of genealogy that are not loaded with historical baggage; such as scientific, academic, professional, source-centric and others. I choose the term "academic" as somewhat neutral. What is most prominent in this particular area of the persuasion is a passion for accuracy and documentation. This area of genealogy is epitomized by the American Society of Genealogists and their journal, The Genealogist. For an example of this type of writing and study, see Leslie Mahler, "Samuel1 Levis, Quaker Immigrant to Pennsylvania: His Descent from Edward III," The Genealogist 13(1999):30-36.

There is no doubt that scholarly or academic genealogy is confined to a very small number of dedicated individuals. For example, the Fellows of the the American Society of Genealogists is limited to 50 people at any one time. It is interesting that none of the names of the people on the list have a significant online presence and with only one or two exceptions, none of them are well known to the greater genealogical community. The academic genealogists also include the various accreditation and certification efforts which by their very nature are exclusive rather than inclusive.

The polar opposite of the academic genealogical community is the fast growing and lively online genealogists involved in social networking and blogging. Interestingly, the two types of activities do not seem to cross paths much. In my case, I have met hundreds of genealogists but in reviewing the list of the Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists, I recognize only a very few names. It is not likely that many, with perhaps a few exceptions, of those on that list are aware of Blogging, Facebook, Google+, Twitter crowd of genealogists. There is no clear line of demarcation between the various levels of interest in genealogy. The academic genealogists dominate some genealogical publications and conferences but become less apparent towards the family tree gathering end of the genealogical spectrum.

Overall, the rise of the academic genealogists from such notable names as Joseph L. Chester, William Whitmore, Donald Lines Jacobus and their genealogical heirs, has had little impact on popular genealogy. Although the standards of genealogical scholarship have been raised significantly over the past few years, The vast online community of "family tree genealogists" is likely entirely unaware of the existence of this level of genealogical interest.

Currently online "family trees" number in the millions with billions of named individuals. The activity in this particular area of genealogy or family history is an enormous influence on the future of genealogy. If organizations such as FamilySearch.org are able to maintain a working model of the Family Tree and if the other large online companies such as Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com continue to attract the numbers of people anticipated, the main stream of genealogy will revolve around online family tree programs. It is unclear how the academics fit into that overwhelming online presence. Especially since it is clear that few of the online family tree participants are at all interested in adding sources or documentation to their trees despite the ease with which this can now be done.

Online genealogy will dominate the entire spectrum of genealogical interest. The academics cannot ignore the popularity of the family tree gatherers although they may decry the lack of documentation and the errors and omissions, they cannot stem the tide. The number of online participants will continue to grow and the task of sifting through myriad duplicate family trees, absent some unforeseen technology, will dominate the near future of genealogy. Most of the genealogical community will see genealogy as a participatory activity, through online social networking, with suggested connections and possible "new relatives" as commonplace.

Efforts to turn the tide of the family tree gatherers and turn them into story tellers and family historians may have some effect on a minority of the online community, but the evolution of genealogy will largely be shaped by the ad hoc specialized interest communities formed on the social networking forums and as reflected by the family tree gatherers rather than by the academics.

Is there any hope for relief from the vast duplication and inaccuracy of the family tree gatherers? I don't like to be pessimistic, but I see even more polarity in the future. There is presently no technological, social or cultural way to stem the tide of names going online or to avoid lack of documentation and duplication. The availability of sources will benefit the academic community as well as the rest of the genealogical community, but there are few pressures on the community to move towards the academic viewpoint. There will always be careful, meticulous researchers outside of the inner academic circle, but there is nothing in the online structure that makes the academic approach attractive.

There will always be those who aspire to the "inner circles" of academic genealogy but the vast majority of the family tree gatherers will remain unaware of their very existence.

What will genealogy look like in ten years? Fifty? The digitization effort will increase. The commercialization of the large collections will increase. The availability of online sources will allow more people to have access to do serious research, but the future for most genealogists will be largely determined by online social networking.

I do see some ancestral lines as becoming fully documented. But at the same time, I see that making this documentation known to the family tree gatherers will be an insurmountable problem for any foreseeable future.

Now, the future for the serious genealogist is rosy. Ease of access to sources will provide a gold rush of activity in documenting ancestral lines. Depending on the skill and dedication of the researchers, there should be a huge amount of very valuable genealogy done in the next few years. But the number of people participating in this end of the spectrum will remain vanishingly small.

Experiences with a Google+ Genealogy Hangout

2013-06-10T16:06:00.001-07:00

Google+ Hangouts seem to be a really good idea. Is the concept as good as the execution? This last week was my turn to find out. I spent about an hour with Family History Expos working out the mechanics of setting up a Hangout and getting a number of people online to participate. Our goal was see if we could use Hangouts for company teleconferences. I also had another reason, to be ready to hold a Google Hangout for a group of young potential genealogists in Tucson, Arizona last Thursday. It seemed like a good idea to avoid the cost and time of spending almost five hours in the car for a half hour presentation.

Google has spun off the Hangouts as an app separate from Google+. They still have the same 10 person limit and work with computers, tablets and smartphones. Interestingly, you can move almost seamlessly from one device to another. So if you were talking on your smartphone and sat down at the computer, you could switch over to using the computer as soon as you logged in. One feature we planned on using with the Tucson presentation was the ability to share your screen with those on the call.

The plan in Tucson was to hav me on the Google+ hangout on one of the presenter's computers and then project that computer screen so that those in attendance could see the presentation in real time. If we had thought ahead, we might have had me use headphones and a microphone. As it was, we had a significant amount of audio feedback. It would have helped to have a audio speaker on the receiving end that was separate from computer. Not only would the participants have been able to hear better, but likely we would have been able to avoid the feedback.

The whole thing has a great potential. Today, we had another hangout for Family History Expos to plan our Northern California Family History Expo on June 28th and 29th in Sacramento, California. The Hangout went a lot smoother than the first one, but we did have some trouble with the initial invitation being sent and received. I would say that the technology is not flawless but adequate and should continue to progress and become more valuable over time.

File Naming Conventions for Genealogists

2013-06-10T07:12:00.001-07:00

My rule is to let the computer do what computers do well and let me do what I do well. Most organization schemes intrude on the computer's realm try to make the organizer feel useful. So the question is what do computers do well? The answer is so simple as to be obvious: they organize huge amounts of data. The key here is telling the dumb computer what you want. Pretty colors, folders, lists, charts and all are for our own benefit, not the computer's benefit.

I could spend all day looking through piles of paper and still not find what I am looking for. The answer is letting the computer have a go at searching. But to search the computer has to have something to search for. For example, there are elaborate techniques for searching online which I hardly ever use. My experience is that I can find anything I am looking for, usually in less than two minutes. If I don't find something, I am looking for the wrong thing. Sometimes it takes a while to get educated about what something is called so I can find it. This is not magic, it is experience. Do a few thousand searches and you will see what I mean. My Grandson is presently practicing the piano and he is repeating the same piece over and over, then the same section over and over, faster and faster. This is how you learn to search. When you start to think like a computer or a computer programmer, you find stuff.

Now, that said, how do we organize out piles of genealogy? Well, the computer has to have access to all the stuff and that takes digitizing and labeling, i.e. file names and metadata. Simple is good. Complex is not good. Dates are really good. Names are OK. Attached or embedded is best.

This is why I start with naming files. Most file names in the past were next to useless. But today on any computer system, you can usually have up to 255 characters without a problem. That is longer than a Tweet. Here is my suggestion for the form of a file name:

Date (space) name of person or whatever (space) incremental number

So for example, if I had just digitized a photo of one of my ancestors the name of the file might look like this:

2013-06-10 George Jarvis on porch in St George Utah abt 1900 001.tif

Of course, you leave the extension (.doc, .tif, .jpg etc.) strictly alone. You could leave out the "on" and "in" if you like. Do not use any of the characters such as / , : or any other similar characters because in some programs these are significant to the program and might cause an error. Click here for a list of the operative characters that should not be included. Don't get confused with paths and all that. Telling the computer where to find the file is up to the programmers. That is why you have a computer operating system.

I put all my documents into one huge folder on my hard drive or an external hard drive if I run out of room on my computer (which I do regularly). I currently am using 3 Terabyte external drives to back up my data files. One of the major issues with backing up files is having them scattered all over the computer. You then are forced to backup the entire hard drive to make sure you have all the files. If you want to move them to a new computer it becomes a problem. So everything is in one huge clump and can be searched and moved if needed. I just did this moving of files this last week and it took about six hours to move one file folder of about 63,000 files.

Now, metadata is another way to differentiate files. You add keywords and descriptions to each file to enable the computer to find what you are looking for. Most of todays operating systems will search text type documents on the computer, so adding metadata to text may not be so crucial, but adding metadata to images is. I will come back to a discussion of metadata in another post.

What about folders and such? You can use all you like, but the more you do folders and subfolders, you are only making your life harder for yourself and it makes no difference to the computer at all. You might as well put everything in one huge file. Although there is a an analogy between the computer desktop and drawers and files, it is for our benefit, not the computer's.

An Interesting Comment on Online Privacy

2013-06-09T11:13:00.001-07:00

In response to my recent post on the Illusion of Privacy, I got the following comment:

And the place where lack of privacy is most evident is on MyHeritage.com. All the names, dates, and places of me, my spouse, my children, my sisters, etc. are there. All this popped up after I entered partial names on my part on the living. I don't even know how I am related to the man that has all my personal information and has shared it with the world. I first found this same information a bunch of years ago on Pedigree Resource File, but by the time I found it, it was already burned onto a multitude of CD's. FamilySearch, it seems, has since learned about privacy of the living and now takes it seriously. MyHeritage has not, and I have now found they have very lousy customer service or nonexistent would be better stated. They wanted additional money to be able to contact this person about my own personal self. I tracked down this person by other means and he told me he didn't care. I have cancelled my account with MyHeritage (but unfortunately cannot get the money back I did spend), and I now warn everybody away from MyHeritage that I work with on their family history.

I replied to this comment, but I thought that the comments by my dear friend Anonymous needed a more expansive response.

If I understand what is written above correctly, all of the information about this persons's family (me, my spouse, my children, my sisters, etc.) was previously entered into the Pedigree Resource File "a bunch of years ago." I guess my very first question is why did this person think that information was private or unavailable to anyone who wanted to copy it? What is more important however, is why did this person think this information was unavailable even without the prior posting to the Pedigree Resource File?

This post isn't about online family trees. MyHeritage.com didn't have anything to do with putting this person's information online and she seems to think that they have some obligation to police the names of the people who show up in submitted family trees. I further note, from the comment, that the person was putting the names in MyHeritage.com when she found they were already there. The person is apparently upset that, although she doesn't know how she is related, the man "has all my personal information and has shared it with the world." It seems pretty clear to me that the "sharing" part of all this happened a long time ago. Unfortunately, the person didn't indicate where the other person got the information.

MyHeritage.com, as do most all of the online family tree programs, has a clear privacy policy, however, as is the case with all online content, we have very little control about what other people put online.

Is the composition of your family and the identity of your family members private information? I am aware of any number of apps on Facebook that will go out and look for your family members. Likewise, there is a link on Ancestry.com that will "Find family members on Facebook..." How long would it take me to find the details of your family, if I wanted to do so? Was your family ever mentioned in an obituary? Was there ever a newspaper story about your family? Do you think the banks and credit agencies cannot access Ancestry.com or FamilySearch Family Tree or any other online database?

There is a vast disparity between what this commentator and many people think is "private" and what is easily obtainable online.

Pseudogenealogy

2013-06-09T07:53:00.002-07:00

The word "pseudogenealogy" really does exist, although it comes up in the spell checker as unknown. Sometimes the word is written with a hyphen and sometimes as two separate words. It means exactly what it says: a made-up or make believe genealogy made to look like a real one. Today, some of the most commonly found pseudogenealogies are the dozens of websites that purport to connect your surname to a history and a Coat of Arms. A quick image check online using Google Images, immediately shows thirteen very elaborate Coats of Arms for the Tanner Family. As I have said before, I hesitate to show even one example because of my concern that someone will think it is real and post it on their own website.

When I traced down one of the suggested Coats of Arms, I was taken to the "coats of arms and family crests store" where obviously, I could purchase my own personal coat of arms and/or crest as glassware, clothing, hand embroidered, a cross stitch, a ring, or the standard plaques or shield. Hmm. Quite a selection. I bet I could even have it put on my car or truck. I appears that pseudogenealogy is not only a word, but very much alive and well in the United States and elsewhere. In addition to selling me a Coat of Arms, the store also, gratuitously provided me with an instant history of my family surname with a connection tracing my ancestors back to the Norman Conquest in 1066. Guess what? This genealogy seemed familiar and was almost verbatim the same as the one in my 1943 Tanner surname book! Well, then, I guess it must be right.

I can take my pick of websites offering me instant genealogies. I looked at a couple of them (I am not providing any links on purpose) and this statement about the Tanners caught my eye:

Some of the first settlers of this family name or some of its variants were: Daniel Tanner settled in Virginia in 1618: two years before the "Mayflower": Maurice Tanner settled in New England in 1663: William Tanner settled in Pennsylvania in 1682.

Yes, there was a William Tanner in Pennsylvania in 1682, Pennsylvania Land Purchases-1682 list three Tanners; William, John and Joseph. See also Hazard, Samuel, John Blair Linn, William Henry Egle, George Edward Reed, Thomas Lynch Montgomery, Gertrude MacKinney, and Charles Francis Hoban. Pennsylvania Archives. S.l: s.n.], 1852, page 225.

My own "William Tanner" shows up in Rhode Island about 1680 and there is no known connection to any of the Tanners in Pennsylvania, Virginia or New England from that time period. This and all the other similar websites are in the same-name-makes-relatives category of pseudogenealogy. This particular Coat of Arms website made an attempt to connect my own family to their site by listing as a reference the surname book of my Great-great-grandfather Sidney Tanner.

Even if you have the most common surname in the entire United States, Smith, you can still claim instant fame and wealth with your own Coat of Arms, in fact, there are hundreds to choose from. Just do a Google Image search on "smith coat of arms" to see what I mean. More concentrated pseudogenealogy. In fact, you can have your Smith Coat of Arms tattooed on your shoulder or where ever.

It certainly is comforting to know that so many people here in the democratic United States of America are really latent royalty. Maybe we are more suited to a monarchy than a republic?

Genealogy as a Fraud

2013-06-08T13:41:00.002-07:00

Likely, one of the major reasons for the lack of acceptance of genealogy by academic circles is genealogy's history of rampant fraud and misrepresentation. One of the most blatant and successful fraudulent genealogist wrote dozens of books and compiled dozens of pedigrees for clients in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His name was Gustave Anjou. A quick check in WorldCat.org shows over 150 books and other documents attributed to this man during his whole life was a fraud and charlatan. By no means was Anjou the only fraudulent genealogist. To starting a feel for the extent of the fraudulent material, I suggest beginning with the FamilySearch Research Wiki article, Fraudulent Genealogies.

This practice was so prevalent that almost any compiled genealogy is suspect. Even if the compiled genealogy pertaining to your ancestors was not fraudulent and came from a different time period, the author may have inadvertently included information from a fraudulently compiled earlier source.

Compiling a fraudulent genealogy was often motivated by an expectation that the recipient would be connected to a claim against an estate in England or the rest of Europe. The bogus genealogists preyed upon the gullibility and greed of their clients, giving them what they expected rather than accurate, correctly documented pedigrees. If you think this was just a passing problem of years gone by, you are misinformed. There are still unprincipled genealogists today who will provide a connection to royalty or a Coat of Arms for a price.

One of the problems we frequently encounter in Arizona is people who are trying to "prove" their relationship to an Indian ancestor. The motivation for this proof is a supposed and wished for connection to a reservation so as to get reservation economic benefits. In some cases, because of the huge incomes of the reservations, people are motivated to try to "get a piece of the action" by proving their Indian heritage. Of course, not all such claims are false, but it is interesting to see the number of people over the past few years we have helped who are so motivated.

The mere existence of this problem should be reason enough to examine any such claims, to royalty or Indian ancestry, with suspicion. It is important to carefully document any claim in a compiled genealogy before accepting it merely because it is written in a book. However, as noted by the Research Wiki article, "Armchair historians, family-tree climbers, and professionals are all among the guilty. Many are well-meaning folk who "just got carried away" by imagination, enthusiasm, or inexperience."

Here are some links that will help with avoiding genealogical fraud and scams:

How to Identify & Avoid Genealogy Scams by Kimberly Powell
Beware of Fraudulent Genealogies
The Use and Abuses of Online Genealogy by Gary B. Hoffman
Gustav Anjou, Fraudulent Genealogist
Scam genealogical book
Genealogy scams in general

The illusion of Privacy

2013-06-08T08:05:00.001-07:00

The recent news stories are full of accounts and opinions about the surveillance of U.S. cell phone records. One such story in the Deseret News is entitled "Addressing the illusion of digital privacy." I would extend this concept to all of those areas currently considered "private" and say that there is a general illusion of privacy and that in most practical areas, despite our most cherished beliefs, privacy does not now and never has existed, at least in the way we most commonly think it does.

So what is privacy? Generally, in the United States, privacy includes the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment right to be free of unwarranted search or seizure, the First Amendment right to free assembly, and the Fourteenth Amendment due process right, recognized by the Supreme Court as protecting a general right to privacy within family, marriage, motherhood, procreation, and child rearing. See Wikiepedia : Privacy laws in the United States. You might notice that there is nothing here touching on electronic communications using public carriers. You might also notice that financial, economic, and other related topics are entirely missing.

Genealogy is a very good example of the interface between the illusion of privacy and what is and what is not considered private. Privacy is best understood as dealing more with the mores of societal culture than any real "right." It would seem to be such an obvious fact, but seldom mentioned, that what people believe to be a right is nowhere codified as such. In other words, there are very few laws that address the issue of privacy. For genealogists, the issue of privacy is mostly reduced to access to records. The general rule, not codified as I mentioned, is that privacy extends to living people and not dead people.

Despite the public outrage at the actions of the Federal Government in accessing cell phone records, it has been pointed out with each news article that the practice is apparently fully legal. What most of the people who are outraged over this invasion of their privacy fail to understand is that public communications are not private. In other words, when I communicate with someone else, to that extent, my communication is no longer private. Whatever we may think is covered by our "right to privacy," that so-called right can be compromised any time the public interest deems it necessary. For example, the subpoena power of court discovery is practically limitless depending on circumstances.

This illusion of privacy is even more illusive online. Once you commit your communications to the Internet, you no longer have any expectation that the information found there is in any way private or limited. Whatever you put online, whether marked private or not is open to discovery. What you think about privacy is totally irrelevant to the reality. So let me give some examples.

Genealogist Doe puts his family tree online. But some of the facts are "personal" and he considers them to be "private." He marks them as private but still allows the information to go online. Guess what? No privacy. The act of putting the information online waives the privacy issue.

Genealogist Roe puts her family tree online but marks all the living people as "Living" and does not supply any information about her living family members. She smugly thinks she has "protected" her family's privacy. Wrong. Anyone with the slightest interest in Roe's family could find out all the information they cared to review in a matter of minutes. Almost all the records recorded by modern business and government entities are fully discoverable online. For a few dollars, anyone with a few connections, can obtain exhaustive information about anyone in the United States. Just because genealogists do not have these online tools readily accessible does not mean that they do not exist. I have written a few times in the past about the ease in finding out current information about anyone in the United States. Attorneys, credit agencies, law enforcement agencies, banks and financial institutions, insurance companies, government agencies and many other entities have almost immediate access to this type of record.

Genealogist Doeski's family came from a country outside of the United States. Everyone in her family had to have a government issued identity card and couldn't even buy food without presenting the card as proof of who they were. She is amazed at how "free" the society is in the United States. You don't even have to have permission to move from one state to another, you can just pick up everything you own and move where ever you wish. This situation is not an aspect of privacy. Freedom of speech and assembly are not rights of privacy. People also mistake the ability to hide their identity or to live "off the economy" as the right of privacy. It is true that people can disappear. But what I am talking about here is whether or not, when we commit our communications to the airwaves or Internet we have any expectation that those communications are somehow protect from discovery or invasion by others.

Because we primarily deal with dead people and since dead people have no privacy, little of what is going on today in the realm of privacy directly affects genealogy. The most impact is from statutorily created "privacy" areas that limit access to public records. These limitations provide a barrier to some kinds of research but, as I already pointed out, are not an absolute ban.

The Essence of Proof

2013-06-07T12:11:00.000-07:00

In the past, proving a family relationship in the area of genealogical research has been compared to the methods of both legal and scientific proof. Both comparisons have basic flaws. From one professional standpoint genealogical proof has been characterized as a methodology rather than an absolute. This way of characterizing proof also has its flaws. As yet, I find no completely adequate definition of genealogical proof. I will explain my concerns and my suggestion for a more appropriate definition.

As noted by Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. Baltimore, Md: Genealogical Pub. Co, 2007 beginning at page 18, "Modern family history (aka genealogy) draws heavily from law in its handling of evidence. However, family history standards require a higher level of proof than does most litigation." Mills goes on to state, "Modern standards for family history also require more precision and rigor than commonly applied in the social sciences (does she mean history? My comment), where individual oversights or errors on common folk tend to cancel each other out in the broader interpretations of society." Further on, in the same chapter, she also says, "Unlike science, however, genealogy accepts no margin of error."

On the other hand, in Greenwood, Val D. The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Pub. Co, 2000 beginning at page 8 states, "Genealogy will reach its proper place of respectability among the sciences only as we, its devotees, adopt sound scientific principles in our research." Later on the same page, Greenwood goes on to state, (emphasis in the original) "Thus, to the definition of genealogy given earlier, let me add the word scientific and say that GENEALOGY IS THAT BRANCH OF HISTORY WHICH INVOLVES A SCIENTIFIC STUDY FOR THE DETERMINATION OF FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS."

So here we have the various opposing views of genealogy that it is related to law, social science, scientific history or more "rigorous" than either law or science.

Is genealogical proof similar to (or more rigorous) than legal (courtroom) proof? Analogizing genealogy to law originated with prominent America genealogists who were also lawyers such as Donald Lines Jocobus. Naturally, they saw proof as relating to the process of proving a case in court. However, the analogy is basically faulty. All of the legal rules involving evidence and proof relate to litigation. As Mills observes at page 18, legal proof involves a decision by the court, "then and there." Although that statement is extremely simplistic, the basic idea is sound, proof in court always presupposes that there is a trier of the fact; either the judge or a jury. A decision is usually made, no matter how close the two or more sides may be factually. It is this concept of trying a case to the court or a jury that destroys the analogy of genealogy to the law. There is no genealogy court. There are no "genealogy judges" making a determination as to the winner (prevailing party) and the loser (losing party). As I have noted in various post previously, genealogy is not adversarial. Although disagreements may arise, all of the disagreeing parties can maintain their positions indefinitely with impunity. No matter how much evidence the rigorous genealogist amasses, it can be totally ignored by the most rank beginner with his or her own opinion.

Likewise, any analogies to natural science break down, although there are some parallels, because the essence of science is reproducibility. If I claim a scientific discovery, my fellow scientific colleagues will demand that my results be reproduced. Any scientific discovery must be proved by allowing access to the original. In this way, science deals with facts derived from observations and any similar observation must produce the same set of facts.

How is genealogy different? Does genealogy really accept no margin of error? Is genealogical proof more demanding than court cases?

As a side note, as I look around the genealogical community, I fail to find much in the way of rigor or scientific study and many of the genealogical conclusions that I find are not based on any evidence at all, however derived.

I guess an important question to ask is whether or not we are talking about the rarified atmosphere of professional, journal article writing genealogists or the common generic-brand? Does the existence of a huge number of casual genealogists negate the existence of a rigorous, professional level genealogy? Should we be looking at hobby genealogy as something different than professional genealogy?

After much thought on the subject. I reject the notion that genealogy is analogous or dependent on the legal methodology of proof. I also reject the analogy to natural science. If genealogy is anything, it is social science i.e. history. But it also differs from the current methodology of academic history in some significant ways, but this is a topic for another post.

My question is therefore simple: is there such a thing as genealogical "proof." I fully realize and am well acquainted with the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS). But the Genealogical Proof Standard is essentially methodology. It requires a "reasonably exhaustive search" which is not a method for determining the "truth or falsity" of any proposition but merely a subjective way to encourage investigation. In an absolute sense, I could follow the Genealogical Proof Standard exactly to the letter and be entirely and completely wrong, especially if my initial premise was wrong. I say this notwithstanding the existence of elaborate and well-drafted proof statements that are unassailable.

Before we can go further in investigating proof, we need to know how genealogy defines the truth. So how do we define truth in the context of genealogy? Do we even care about truth? If we don't care about the truth of any genealogical relationship, that is, an exact correspondence with reality, then what do we call the truth and what do we mean by proof?

If you can answer those questions, then you are on the way to understanding what it means to prove something in the genealogical context. If you rely on methodology alone, you will never be assured that you are even seeking the truth.

More later.

The side-effects of digitizing records

2013-06-06T15:06:00.001-07:00

The movement of information from analog to digital format is more than just a convenience or passing fad, it is a fundamental change in the way information is integrated into our society. I heard a comment recently that noted the change from the way people obtained the "news" from newspapers and TV to the Web. Those shifts in the information channels are only a symptom of more basic adjustments caused by the unstoppable force of digitization.

It is obvious also that this same trend is affecting genealogy. For example, when was the last time you looked at a U.S. Census record on microfilm? The answer to this question demonstrates, not just the physical change from viewing images from microfilm to monitors, but also the tremendous adjustments made in equipment and personel. When I first visited family history centers or libraries, one of the most prominent features was the huge number of microfilm readers. Today, those same machines are quickly disappearing into odd corners and back rooms. This is just one visible example of the change. The Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah has become a sea of computers when it used to be a sea of microfilm readers. Our new volunteers at the Mesa FamilySearch Library are shown microfilm readers like they were dinosaurs. It helps to understand this to know that we have digital readers also that will capture images and same them to flash drives. Even the technology of microfilm has moved beyond the simple to the complex.

One of the effects of this digital revolution is the demand it makes on genealogists to become "computer literate." Computer literacy involves a lot more than it did just a few short years ago. Today, computers come in all shapes and sizes, with and without keyboards and the demands of both local and Web based applications.

I am finding that the biggest challenge to advancing with genealogical research is the degree of computer sophistication. At the core of the computer skills is the ability to type or swipe. Because computers require both education and physical practice (like learning to play the piano) there is a steep learning curve. The challenges are only partially age related. Many more students today are required to have keyboarding skills than in years past when not everyone was required to take typing. As a side note, I consider learning to type one of the very few useful things I learned in classes in high school.

As a consequence of this age related shift in required skills there is a general impression that younger people will have an "easier" time doing genealogy and to the extent that they are motivated this is likely true. The accuracy of this observation depends, of course, on the acquisition of the other core skills needed to do meaningful research.

Today, I worked with two different people, both would be considered elderly by our society (like me, elderly). One had excellent computer skills and had worked with keyboards and then computers most of her adult life but had only some basic genealogy skills. The other had years of genealogy experience and almost no computer skills. The contrast was dramatic even though both were apparently equally motivated to do genealogical research. It is my perception or opinion that the patron with the computer skills will have a much easier time than the one without those skills.

So, to some extent, the future of genealogy is tied up with the acquisition of computer skills by the current researchers and those who are motivated to enter the pursuit of their ancestors. As more records becomes digitized, it is a given that the paper records will be come more inaccessible. For example, as books are digitized in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, some of them are taken off the shelves and stored to make way for other books that have yet been digitized. Equally, when microfilm records in the Family History Library are made available online, they cease to be available for rental. Access to millions of records is now limited to those who own computers, have some type of Internet connection and the skills to use both the computer and the connection.

The real question is whether any of the time honored skills needed for genealogical research whether done online or in person have changed or are being eliminated by the shift in technology? My opinion is that they are and they are being replaced by compensating skills enabled by the technology. For example, because of my work background I had developed certain research skills using a card catalog and reference books that I haven't used in years. But now, I have learned how to search catalogs online and in my opinion, I am much more effective in my research than I was when I was tied to card catalogs and National Union Catalog volumes.

I guess there is double challenge; can we help the computer savvy of whatever age to do genealogy and can we teach the genealogists to use computing devices and the Internet. I think we are beginning to make progress in both areas at least, to the extent of examining the issues.