FamilySearch Obituaries, RootsTech 2014 preview

At the beginning of September, I looked at the list of RootsTech 2014 classes and found one about "FamilySearch Obituaries"

This is what it says: "Everyone deserves to be remembered forever, for free. FamilySearch Obituaries allows everyone in the world to publish and share the obituaries of their friends. They also allow everyone to be a part of the grieving and memorial experience."

I noticed some days or weeks before, when you upload a story @ https://familysearch.org/photos/stories, that has some identifying word like "obituary" that the story was now being referred to as an obituary. See the screen capture below from one obituary I pasted into the system. Notice the words: "Edit Obituary." The system typically says "Edit Story" in that same spot. The system is recognizing certain stories as obituaries and categorizing them as such.

Categorization seems like a good idea, but it must just be a sign of even more features to come. I imagine that a future feature will be to choose the story type manually. Maybe someday another story type beside obituary will be defined. I also imagined that there would be some ability to sort, search, or put in order stories according to category.

We know that categorizing photos will be a thing. Tim Cross, manager of Photos and Stories has confirmed that photos will be able to be categorized as either person photos or documents. This will change minor things about the experience. He said, documents will be tagged with rectangles instead of the circles used for persons. In addition, photos already uploaded will be able to be categorized as documents in the future. Tim said not to wait, but to upload them now.

Tim Cross will be teaching the class being held at RootsTech, about FamilySearch Obituaries. I presume that he will explain, in detail, his vision for this new stories category. I am always very interested in FamilySearch products that are under development. Unless this class conflicts with another I need to attend, I will be giving you a report afterward.

You do not need to wait until RootsTech 2014, but can see the landing page for FamilySearch Obituaries today at https://familysearch.org/obituaries

 

Sometimes typing key words after http://familysearch.org/, in your browser, will take you to pages that are being developed. That is how I found this one.