I am in a state of disbelief. How could this happen? How could I forget her?
I'm always thinking about genealogy, investing significant amounts of time and money to find my own ancestors, and carefully thinking through the problems. How could I have completely forgotten to look for my great grandmom? She is actually my 4th great grandmom (Veronica Schuermer), but that is no excuse because I have a large 9 generation chart on my wall which I often stop to look at. There she is, one of the remaining lines that stops before the chart stops--my questioning gaze almost ignores her, I set her aside.
I remembered that I had worked on her husband's (Blasius Grein) line not long ago and figured I did not have the information I needed to go any further. I knew that I had extended her husband's line, but just assumed that I did not know where she was from and there is not much to do when you don't know where someone is from. At some point, I found that she and her husband immigrated together with the same surname. That means they got married before coming. Somehow I forgot about this important fact, and was still assuming that I did not know where she was from. When I wrote my July 4th list of immigrants, I started thinking about it again. When I finally realized that Veronica was probably from some place near her husband--if not the same town--I pushed the thought to research her aside, thinking I must have already looked at her husband's town (or else, how could I have found his ancestors?). And, if I looked at her husband's town, I must have looked for her. Although I could not remember doing it, I knew I couldn't have overlooked such a task--at least I thought I knew that.
It turns out that I never did look at the Boxtal, Germany microfilms--a realization that I only had today. I ordered the films a few days ago, but did so still thinking that I was going to be "more" thorough this time, and make sure I take my time in looking for Veronica--not just Blasius' family. I did not realize all of this until I searched my digital genealogy folders, and my e-mails for all mention of the surname Grein. There was very little to be found, and certainly nothing that indicated I had ever searched the Boxtal microfilms. I still had a hard time believing it. How could I possibly forget to look for my great grandmom? I think about my ancestors all the time, and who I can find more about--especially any immigrant lines that are not documented yet.
Then I started to put the pieces together. I read a post that I wrote back in August 2011. My parents and I ordered some films for a close-by town in early 2011 because we knew someone named Blasius Grein appeared there. Many Greins were in those films, but within a few months I found that our Blasius Grein was actually part of the "Germany, Births and Baptisms, 1558-1898" collection on FamilySearch.org. That collection revealed that he was from Boxtal. I actually used extractions on FamilySearch to extend the line multiple generations, but it said nothing about Veronica. At the time, I may not have known she was married to him before they moved to the USA. I never ordered the films. I was in college at the time, and became sidetracked. I suppose that I was satisfied with the extracts, and over time I forgot exactly what I had done. In 2012 I visited the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah several times, having much success. At no point during that time did I decide to look at the Grein microfilms. I am not sure why. Perhaps because of the major success for finding other new names, or forgetting about it.
What makes it even more perplexing is that I've spent a couple thousand dollars this year to hire experts in countries of origin and towns that have not been filmed by the LDS FHL. It has been very successful, with hundreds of direct ancestors resulting. I believed that I had exhausted the resources for my German immigrant lines, as far as what has been filmed for Germany and available through the FHLC. This was all based on faulty memory.
I'm not sure that Veronica will be from Boxtal, but at least now I am not working on false assumptions anymore when it comes to her. I know that I can at least start with Boxtal and then look at surrounding parishes. At least now I am back on track.
I have a very similar story that happened to me with another immigrant line, where I never did order the films. This other example was another one that I started to review because of writing my July 4th list. I realized that I had overlooked it so many times, thinking that I must have already viewed the films or something. Needless to say, I've ordered that film too.
I'll let you know how it goes. Moral of the story: even if you are a genealogist 24/7, you might be forgetting one of your relatives. Pull out a 9 generation chart, make a detailed list of certain types of people that you like to research (immigrants, military, etc), and then carefully verify that you really have pursued all the leads that you think you did.
Okay..., your request is a fair point. I did not explain the realities
of this new FamilySearch Groups yammer site. I was simply making an
announcement so that people who wanted to check it out could do so. I
agree that it is better if we can understand what it is actually for. :)
When I say it is like a replacement for Forums, I am not making an
official statement. I am simply expressing the thoughts of some of the
FamilySearch staff, that they are trying to see if this can help fill
that void in some ways. I agree that it is significantly different than
forums, and for some people will not fill the same need.
I personally find the groups are best so far for insider interaction. In
fact, that is what yammer has tried to provide, a social network
designed for use internally by companies. Each company can have their
own social network and they are not connected to any other yammer
network. Partially, it depends on what the user wants and what they
like. I find it is a decent place to have open conversations with other
Family History Consultants and get success stories and advice about how
to run a local family history program well, and what has worked for
them. It seems great for this so far.
Some of the FamilySearch staff and volunteers over yammer think it will
expand to more than this, but only time will tell I guess.
Caleb Love is the new Community Development Manager and is one of the
people behind FamilySearch existing on yammer. He posted slides that
explain yammer and what it can do, but you can't see them unless you get
into Yammer. https://www.yammer.com/familysearchgr...
I think if they [FamilySearch] want more involvement they should make a blog post or
something, but [in my perception] they are not all on the same page and are not sure if
they are ready to recruit people. It is just another optional place to
talk, and like I said I think it is best for internal-like questions
about how to run a successful effort to serve patrons and stuff like
that.
What you describe was indeed one of the seldom-utilized functions of the well-hidden and now-defunct Forums message-boards formerly hosted on FamilySearch.org.
Some more thoughts from me
Do I really have to log into yet another website to keep up with things?
When I first joined the group, it was not clear to me what the purpose was or how it would work. One of my first worries was whether I had to spend time logging into yet another social site to keep up with things. It turns out that there are several options so that you do not have to log in. Personally, I use the Yammer app on my smart phone to get instant notifications when anyone says something in a conversation I am in. You can also choose what kinds of e-mail notifications you get (and even reply via e-mail to post back to the thread). So that concern turned out to be no problem at all.
What is the void? What was the void?
I have some doubts about how well this site will catch on with the overall genealogical or FamilySearch community. I also have some doubts about the ability to use it to replace forums. Then again, I never thought forums had really established itself as anything worth replacing. In having the Forums beta, I think we were climbing a mountain towards a goal that I don't think we ever reached. I'm not sure that the need was clearly defined, well enough. When I think of forums, the first thing I think of is posting a question that could sit out there for years (about one of your ancestors) until a distant cousin stumbles on it and responds. I have had significant levels of success over long periods of time in reading and posting to such forums on sites like Genealogy.com, Ancestry.com and other more specialized sites (like sites for Scottish or German forums). The forums on FamilySearch never had enough exposure to feel relevant to me--even though I used them--, and I don't miss them. I don't remember ever doing a Google search for an ancestor and seeing a result in a FamilySearch forum. This has happened several times for me in respect to other forums such as the ones I have mentioned (Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com etc.). There are a lot of places online for genealogists to talk to each other, so it seems to me like an internal place (Yammer) fills the only major void we had. It is a great place to encourage each other among volunteers, missionaries, and consultants, to build moral, and share success stories. It also feels like a good place to be heard by more FamilySearch employees about issues related to your volunteer assignment. Because it is more closed, it is good for conversations that might discuss ward family history programs and other more church-specific efforts. The other voids are filled by existing external websites (outside FamilySearch control). Unless I am missing the vision? I would love to have a response from FamilySearch, and hear all of your thoughts too. What are the voids, as far as online communications are concerned? What should FamilySearch seek to provide?
Features I like:
When you view your own profile page, you see all the conversations that you have been involved in. This way it is easier to find things. You also can look back at your unread messages screen, notifications screen, and e-mails in your external inbox (if you have those turned on). It is much better than Facebook in the sense that you can search the site to find posts. Facebook does not allow searching for text inside groups. You can also tag posts to make them easier to find, but I have not been using that. Once you are in, you can invite any friends whose e-mail addresses you know (so that not everyone has to fill out the form to join).
Regardless of my questions/concerns (which I hope will be addressed), I'm excited and pleased to be part of FamilySearch Groups.
To request to join, fill out the official form: https://lds.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_a60ZNWgw39q5nrn