Recording your research: Calendar, Log or Journal?

Any experienced genealogist knows that you should record research that you've done, whether you found anything or not. A list of steps taken and reasons for those steps will help you prevent doing the same research in a few years once you've forgotten what you've done before. It will also provide documentation, so that anyone else could pick up where you left off. The sound reasoning you might include in such a written record will also help substantiate your conclusions, and help them withstand peer review.

This article is not about the purpose of a written research record. It is not a discussion of how to create one either. This article focuses on what to call such a record.

Highly respected professional genealogists and organizations use various words to describe this type of research record. The most common titles include: Research Calendar, Research Log, and Research Journal.

There is also a form you can create called a Research Planner, but that functions as a detailed to-do list. It is similar to a calendar/log/journal in the instance that each must include the source citation and objective (before or after research is completed).

Research Calendar is a preferred term for the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen). 
Research Log is a preferred term among average genealogists in the U.S., and the term is often used in teaching classes at genealogical conference, or in other educational settings.
Research Journal is the preferred term of ancestryProGenealogists, the official genealogy research firm of Ancestry.com.

Most genealogists suggest creating your own table or spreadsheet to record your genealogical searches. During this process you may want to decide what to call it.

First, consider the actual definitions of the various words. It seems practical to choose a word that fits the style of your particular design (the fields you choose to include in your table or spreadsheet). Before you do this, it will help to have a significant genealogical research background, and a list of items you feel are essential to your written record of research. I suggest putting that together before you read on.

Okay, now think about that list as you proceed.

Definitions

Calendar

"1 :  a system for fixing the beginning, length, and divisions of the civil year and arranging days and longer divisions of time (as weeks and months) in a definite order — see month table

2 :  a tabular register of days according to a system usually covering one year and referring the days of each month to the days of the week

3 :  an orderly list: as

a :  a list of cases to be tried in court

b :  a list of bills or other items reported out of committee for consideration by a legislative assembly

c :  a list or schedule of planned events or activities giving dates and details

4 British :  a university catalog" 

Merriam-Webster, Inc., Dictionary, (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/calendar : accessed 17 August 2014). 

Log
"1 :  a usually bulky piece or length of a cut or fallen tree; especially :  a length of a tree trunk ready for sawing and over six feet (1.8 meters) long

2 :  an apparatus for measuring the rate of a ship's motion through the water that consists of a block fastened to a line and run out from a reel

3 a :  the record of the rate of a ship's speed or of her daily progress; also :  the full nautical record of a ship's voyage

   b :  the full record of a flight by an aircraft

4 :  a record of performance, events, or day-to-day activities"

Merriam-Webster, Inc., Dictionary, (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/log : accessed 17 August 2014).

Journal

"1 a :  a record of current transactions; especially :  a book of original entry in double-entry bookkeeping

   b :  an account of day-to-day events

   c :  a record of experiences, ideas, or reflections kept regularly for private use

   d :  a record of transactions kept by a deliberative or legislative body

   e :  log 3

   f :  log 4

2 a :  a daily newspaper

   b :  a periodical dealing especially with matters of current interest

3 :  the part of a rotating shaft, axle, roll, or spindle that turns in a bearing"

Merriam-Webster, Inc., Dictionary, (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/journal : accessed 17 August 2014).

Okay, now stop and think about which best fits for your purposes. What term best describes the fields and format of your table or spreadsheet? You could even make your record of research in a free-form word document, a database, or cloud program like ResearchTies. There are pros and cons to each. For example, a free-form word document may not be deemed acceptable by genealogist peers who are accustomed to tables and spreadsheets. It does, however, allow more flexibility than a table with pre-set headers.

You may have a different format for your genealogy clients than yourself, and you might have a different format for your ICAPGen application (because they require certain data) or other submissions to specific organizations. The important thing is that you choose the most efficient and effective format and fields for each type, as well as ensuring that your forms are clear to the reader.

Have you decided? Okay, maybe later I'll tell you what I did.

RootsTech 2014: My Thursday thoughts

This article includes the following topics:

• My experience in the expo hall with my wife 
• Are some worn out and bitter?
• Moving toward preserving the world's records
• FamilySearch is aware of features we need, be patient
• Ancestry.com and FamilySearch, together forever
• RootsTech's major theme: We can't do it alone

Creating and preserving our memories as a couple at RootsTech

Today my wife attended RootsTech for the first time, with a free expo hall pass. I highly recommend that for anyone who can afford to come to Salt Lake City, Utah. It was a special experience for me to share some of this time with my wife, at my favorite annual genealogy event.

There were classes in every time-slot that interested me, but I took some time away during one of the class sessions to enjoy the hall with my wife. She had been walking around the hall for awhile already, doing random activities, and she even won a free membership to MyHeritage.

When I was there, I took her to the FamilySearch family story recording booth where we took a ten minute video of ourselves talking for ten minutes about our time so far as a couple. I've already watched it and I can say we look great together. Creating and recording memories for posterity is an interesting new dynamic of our family history journey.

We also used the phone call interview computers provided in the FamilySearch Discovery Center section. My wife was able to call some of her relatives in Mexico, and I spoke to some of mine in the United States. They instantly e-mailed those conversations to us upon the end of each call. I've listened to part of one I had with my mom's mother, and am glad I was brave enough to try it.

Are some of us becoming worn down and resentful?

I'm not as excited to share news as I was in previous years. There are a few reasons I think. Perhaps it feels less new and exciting, now that I have been for a couple of previous years. Perhaps I am too accustomed to ground-breaking advances in the field. Perhaps I am mentally preoccupied with my own responsibilities, and how much work I will have to catch up on when these blissful days end.

Many of the things that are coming to the genealogy space in the future are really not that new of an idea for me, or I have already been hearing about the developments for so long that further news is not exciting. I feel myself moving toward a more practical viewpoint. I am interested more in news that will help me in my volunteer or work roles immediately, instead of 1-2 years from now--when promised features may come. Don't get me wrong. I recognize that meaningful features have recently been released and more are coming all the time. I'm simply less excited to talk and hypothesize about the future. Sometimes things in development never make it past beta, or are totally different by then.

That being said, there was a lot of exciting news so far at RootsTech. Ryan Heaton and Ron Tanner gave talks about GEDCOMX and Family Tree respectively. I mention these two together, because they both had an unfortunate resentful tone. GEDCOMX and FHISO were questioned a lot last year about their value or true openness. Much of Ryan's entire presentation seemed to be anticipating similar lines of questioning, and it felt defensive. Ron presented in a similar style, especially at certain points. Even his body language and expression was less moving than in previous years. It felt like they had been worn down by having so much critical feedback in the past and were trying to defend their products. Don't get me wrong, these were the only 2 presentations where I noticed this kind of resentful tone, out of all the presentations so far. It is just unfortunate.

Good news

Note: Various speakers or employees mentioned the news items below, but some may be incomplete. These items are not meant as official announcements and deals may not be final.

Several things were said that show FamilySearch is moving forward in preserving the world's records.

• They have an agreement with the Shanghai Library to share all of their Chinese records collections both ways. Each one will give access to the other, to their collections. 
• Through the partnership of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch, Ancestry.com will be able to put more of the Mexico census records online (the 1930 Mexico census is the only one currently online). FamilySearch will grant Ancestry.com access to the Mexico collections currently on their site. [I specifically asked an employee about this because it would help us a lot in researching my wife's family.]
• Vital/church records are currently in process of acquisition for Venezuela and Guatemala. Guatemala is providing many of their own camera teams, while FamilySearch is offering their volunteers to index, and website to host the records. 
• FamilySearch has multiple partnerships that will allow them to publish many more obituaries online in the future.
• FamilySearch recently met with five of the largest Native American tribes in the United States to discuss ways to help them set up family history programs or centers. The response was positive. No timeframe has been announced. 
• FamilySearch has made major progress with agreements in India to preserve records just recently
• FamilySearch gets more offers to allow them to digitize records than they could possibly meet right now. The planned increase from 267 to 500 camera crews will help, but collections will still be prioritized. FS can't do it all. They have limited resources. UK and Germany are in high demand right now, and places like South America, Africa, and Italy are also high on the list.

Several things show that FamilySearch is aware of the features that users want and need.

• Some of the conflicts with dealing with living people on FamilySearch Family Tree or Memories may start to be resolved around May.
• In over a year and a half, we should begin to see ways to share groups of living people through granting permission with Family Tree.
• Index corrections may become possible some time in 2015.
• Due to tighter partnerships with genealogy companies, syncing Ancestry.com trees, Findmypast trees, and MyHeritage trees to FamilySearch Family Tree may become available later this year (or partially).
• FamilySearch is accepting sign-ups for beta testers on the new indexing system, and the new Family Tree/Memories mobile apps
• In Q2 2014 we should see the ability to merge new persons from a source, into our FamilySearch Family Tree
• The FamilySearch Memories app will allow users to record audio and upload it to their FamilySearch accounts. This will be in beta along with the Family Tree viewer app, anticipated in March.
• Video support is on the roadmap, but far to little has been done to suggest a timeline. 

More details about the Ancestry.com and FamilySearch agreement

Members of FamilySearch's sponsor donate funds to the work of FamilySearch. Part of the deal with Ancestry.com requires that these LDS members have free access to at least portions of Ancestry.com. We should see the initial integration along these lines in or after second quarter 2014. I'm being intentionally vague, as this is the kind of thing that is easy to spread rumors about. It is best to wait and see how it plays out.

Ancestry.com and FamilySearch no longer will compete in trying to get contracts to digitize collections. This was the case before, and this new policy will save resources and effort, so that more can be accomplished.

Miscellaneous

GEDCOMX is currently in use among any/all of FamilySearch partners who are exchanging data with their services, whether they know it or not. They welcome developers to create conversion tools, make recommendations, and partner with them.

FamilySearch CEO, Dennis Brimhall said that sometimes he promises too much. He paraphrased what his staff would probably tell him: "How did you dare say that? We're not going to do that." Perhaps one of those things was when he mentioned a text-to-tree feature that would be developed. Brimhall mentioned this in a small unconferencing session at RootsTech 2013, and this year he mentioned it more prominently. Developers clarified that they are only in the research phase of this product. The intent is to open up the family tree to use from those without a regular Internet connection. Many in less developed countries have text-ready cell phones, but no computer or Internet.

One of the major themes this year is that we cannot do it on our own. There is too much work to do in the field of genealogy, and we need all the biggest players as well as all the individuals to have a synergistic result (example: 2+2=5). We need more business partners, we need more developers, we need more indexers, we need more new people to become interested in Genealogy etc. Each of these points was covered well in the conference so far.

Thoughts on genetic genealogy and health history

For the past couple months, I've had an increased interest in my family's health history.

I ordered a few death certificates to verify causes of death for grandparents or great grandparents. I've got one more to order before I'll have them for all my great grandparents. I've known their close genealogy for awhile, so wasn't motivated to order theses more recent certificates as genealogical sources. I finally paid out the $24 fees for a few certificates from Maryland (they're too recent to get from the state archives).

I even started to think about the potential benefits of testing with 23andMe for a report on my health history. Unfortunately, that was just about the time that the FDA ordered them to stop offering tests that were marketed as medical information. To comply with the order, their DNA tests no longer report on medical matters. See an 23andMe announcement about the change (click).

That is why I was interested when I read Roberta Estes' post about Promethease. (click)

Turns out there is a free version (available here).

I ran my file. I'm running a few of my immediate relatives raw autosomal data through it too. Many of the so called "good" or "bad" just balance each other out, but it is interesting. It met my needs and satisfied my curiosity without costing me any cash.

Random inspiration, when contemplating ancestral research

It is always remarkable to me, the moments of serendipity, when I'm pondering my family history. Through a mix of hard work and these events, over time I have come to know that I'm getting research help from the other side.

One simple instance of this happened today. Taken alone, it may not even seem noteworthy to the genealogical novice, but I knew it was a communication from the divine.

As I was sitting at my computer, wondering what genealogy lead or genealogy site to click on next, and while not following anything about the Schilling family, I had a very small thought that I should go to ProQuest and search the Baltimore Sun. I dismissed it for a moment as my own wishful thinking, but it seemed different than my own thinking so I then went to the page. I had the thought to type a certain string of words, and the name Schilling. There I found two articles that I do not recall ever seeing before about my great great grandparents Thomas and Margaret Schilling.

They were simple news articles. In one, Thomas told a pier diver that she must ask permission before jumping (he was a watchman at the pier). In the other, Margaret was named as the President of a local Women's Club. No big new genealogy finds, just a small glimpse into the lives of some of my most elusive ancestors.

I was happy that I followed the impression and felt peaceful about having found the articles.

Extract from one article:

The genealogy websites I subscribe to: wrapping up the list

See the first post in this series:
The genealogy websites I subscribe to: Ancestry.com's new World Explorer Plus Membership

I also carry current subscriptions to the following sites:

GenealogyBank.com, until 03/03/2014 (renews annually)
This site has proven valuable to what I do on a consistent basis, and will likely stay in my subscriptions for a long time. I wish the major historical Newspaper websites would buy each other up, so I could get everything I need in one place. This newspaper-specific site has proven the most useful though, for a wide range of localities. Other major newspaper sites include NewspaperArchive.com, Newspapers.com (part of World Explorer Plus), and ProQuest. If I needed to cut back, I would drop Newspapers.com first. I hope that carrying a subscription will help fund them to acquire more papers.

MyHeritage.com, data and site, until 03/1-2/2014
To be honest, I subscribed to this and never put enough time into it to even try getting my money's worth out of it. I do genealogy about every day, but just haven't had a compelling reason to use this website yet because there are not any services or collections that I need for my research. If I was a beginner, I'd seriously consider dropping the other subscriptions and going with just this one though.

Formerly, I've also subscribed to NewspaperArchive, Findmypast.com, and several people finder websites (I still subscribe to one of those, but you can pick any you like).

Actually, I hope you don't use my list to make up your mind about what to subscribe to. This has not been meant as a review, just a list of my subscriptions.

Sometimes I subscribe because there are records I need to search, and once-in-awhile I subscribe just to support the website and test it out for a year or two. I also do pay-per-view on RootsIreland.ie and ScotlandsPeople.com as well as other sites. A couple of the societies I belong to also have online content I can access as a paying member such as the Ulster Historical Foundation and the Maryland Genealogical Society. 

The websites I use the most are FamilySearch.org (free) and Ancestry.com. You can access Ancestry.com for free at Family History Centers and many libraries. The majority of my research for personal and business purposes is actually offline though. I do a lot of in-person paper and microfilm research, as well as requesting other genealogists to search records on site in far away locations. For the first few years of my research efforts, Ancestry.com helped me a ton to piece together my recent ancestry. It was well worth it, and I still need them enough to keep the subscription. These days though, all the census records and many others are free on FamilySearch.org and available under other conditions on many more websites.

Brainstorming my 2014 goals

Over the last few amounts of time, inside the corners of my mind, I've been pondering what directions to go, when to start, and how to know. It strikes me just now that a narrative would do, to write my thoughts out for review. And so I start...

This year should I wait until after RootsTech, when I've have time to get more inspiration, to put my goals into writing. Or rather, shall I write them now? What are some of my ideas?

Well, I've got to make some serious progress on Spanish. I've got to make some serious progress at work with all the things I do for business and research. I'm looking toward the future for my wife and I. I want to buckle down more seriously about genealogy credentials. I've set the goal before, but never gotten any genealogy-specific credentials. I'm interested in it for myself and my own learning, but now I've got to be more serious about supporting my family so credentials mean more job security for us.

I've got to take care of my body. I haven't been exercising enough. I know I like to walk and jogging makes me feel good. I've even got an inside elliptical machine that I play on sometimes, but need to be more consistent. I need to be more consistent in my private prayers and reading scriptures, meditating on the word. I always feel better when I do all those things with full purpose and meaning. Even when I'm not consistent God blesses our family infinitely. The prayer and reading is so that I have a closer connection with him, and let me tell you, it works!

I've had a lot of success in recent years with extending direct genealogical lines on my own ancestry, but I wonder if I should change that goal now. Rather than make a goal to extend lines, might I set a certain number of ancestors who I want to add (with documentation) to my tree this year (for example: descendency research)?

I've also been thinking about something my oldest brother told me a few months ago. He said I should start to give genealogical lectures. I've been teaching small groups of 1, 5, or 25 for years on and off, but never gave lectures to larger groups. I've given a speech to a group of perhaps 100. This past year I had the chance to teach small classes at a local LDS stake workshop, and help organize a family history fair that is happening sometime this year. Working on arranging speakers for the fair, and knowing others who speak at larger conferences, has given me more confidence to perhaps apply next time that a conference I will be attending is looking for speakers.

I've also been more interested in DNA towards the end of 2013. I read a lot more blog posts about it than before, and purchased tests for several relatives. Some of the tests will not be processed until February, but when they are finished I will review the results. I've also had a few professionals who thought that is what I study. When you tell someone you're a "genealogist" for a career, they sometimes think you mean DNA. That made me want to know more about DNA, in the context of genealogy of course. Perhaps someday I will know enough about genetic genealogy to speak on it in a small setting. I think I'll leave it to current experts to speak on that at larger conferences.

As far as education, I've been thinking about something a little different. I've been wanting a masters degree for awhile, but instead of going straight into that I am considering doing an associates in genealogy this year (even though I have a BSc in History already).

So these are some of my thoughts about goals this year. I think I'll wait a little more before making the list of goals to hold myself accountable to.

My FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder results and my Ancestry.comDNA

Yesterday I wrote about my early attempts at DNA testing in "An intro to my DNA and the tests I've been taking." That post introduced my Y-DNA and mtDNA, using testing I took from Ancestry.com in 2008 and 2010.

Those were the only genealogical types of DNA tests I was aware of up till that time, but then in 2010 Family Tree DNA brought autosomal DNA testing to the market. It totally supercharged the value of DNA testing for genealogists. Instead of following only the direct paternal line (Y-DNA) or the direct maternal line (mtDNA), this test covers all ancestors DNA as inherited within the last 5-7 generations. Ancestors who were farther back than that may not have passed any measurable amount of their DNA on to you.

I ordered the "Family Finder" test in late 2010, and received my results in February 2011. I got some DNA matches and an ethnicity estimate. Unfortunately, I haven't taken the required time to learn how to use all the match tools they provide. There are plenty of other bloggers who explain this all much better than I will even attempt.

Ancestry.com released a similar test in 2012 and I took it too. Ancestry.com's user interface doesn't have so many tools to analyze matches, but Ancestry.com's test is more beginner friendly. My closest matches on F.T.DNA's Family Finder are five matches that apparently fall into the range of 2nd-4th cousin. Then there are pages more in the 3rd-5th cousin range. My closest matches on Ancestry.com's autosomal test are a few relatives who took the test for me, and sixteen in the 4th-6th cousin range at a 96% confidence. Then there is like another page full of the same range at 95% confidence before the rest which are all "distant" cousins with only a 50% or less chance of being related within any historically documentable range. With this review, it looks like there may be more matches on Family Tree DNA. Family Tree DNA may have more analysis tools, but in reviewing my own matches I have seen that the users are less likely to connect their tree to their results. Overall, I'd probably recommend starting out with Ancestry.com's test.

If you decide to get deeper into DNA testing, Family Tree DNA allows you to transfer your results in for less than purchasing the test again--although it does not work the other direction. For that matter, they have more specialized testing too (such as more detailed Y-DNA and mtDNA, as well as specific DNA marker tests).

These are just some general observations and I will forgo revealing any specifics about matches. Suffice it to say that out of all the suggested matches, we've been able to document the connections to only a few of them thusfar. More often I can see that we match a certain area or surname, but in many cases I can't find a surname that matches my tree either. It may take more research to document many of the suggested cousins.

One more interesting thing about my matches: Both of my grandmothers took the AncestryDNA test for me. One of them shows up in my matches as "Close family" (2-4 degrees of separation) and the other grandmother shows up as "1st cousin" (3-5 degrees of separation). A grandparents is actually 2 degrees of separation. Looks like I inherited less DNA from one of them than the other, which is totally believable and scientifically possible, though you can research that more elsewhere. For us, it is just a potential conversation piece to say I am more genetically like one side of the family than the other. If we are fortunate to know some of our ancestors, we can often identify a physical or personality trait we have inherited without a DNA test--although taking the test can sometimes be an interesting confirmation of things like this.

DNA ethnicity estimates are a fun conversational piece. I'll attach mine below.

Family Tree DNA

Ancestry.com

These percentages fairly well follow what I know about my ancestors from research, except for a few major discrepancies. I do not have any documented ancestors from the Middle East or Scandinavia. My own research suggests I have several more lines from Western Europe than from Ireland. There are several reasons why these kinds of percentages cannot be exact, although many in the genetic genealogy community believe the results will get more reliable with future developments. Again, I leave many questions unanswered. If you're curious to know more about genetic genealogy and don't know where to look, I'd be happy to point out some resources. Just leave a comment below.

Visa overstay and marriage, Is it lawful to do well?

I usually post about genealogy on this blog, but as any genealogist understands... it is all about families.

We fell in love and she looked at me with sadness in her eyes. Then came her warning: "I'm here on a tourist visa, and have overstayed: we will have a rough road ahead." She questioned whether I would still love her after seeing the difficulties of immigration, and I assured her that I would stand by her always. Neither of us believe in breaking the law. I pondered what it was that brought her to her decision to overstay her visa. She was serving a faith-based mission in the United States for more than a year and had no practical option to travel to her home country as required. She also was not successful in getting any other type of visa, so here she was in the USA doing faith-based service work, and because of the overstay many would consider her an "illegal." She completed her mission honorably and we both ended up in the same church congregation where we served in various assignments and became fast friends. We married, and now we live in two different countries due to problems with waiver law. We need American Families United. We need H.R.3431.

Action point: Contact your representative today and ask them to COSPONSOR H.R.3431.
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

The title for this post is a play on the New Testament book of Matthew 12:12.

RootsTech 2011-2013: new old thoughts

This morning I was thinking about how fun it would be to be an official blogger for RootsTech 2014 so I looked back over my old posts about RootsTech. To my surprise, I noticed that I didn't have posts commenting specifically about my experience in 2011 and 2012. I only had brief mentions in a couple articles on specific topics.

I've done much better in 2013 with a nice post for each day:

My RootsTech 2013: Day 1 - FamilySearch reveals website beta and vision, BillionGraves tech plans

My RootsTech 2013: Day 2 - Ancestry.com breaking news, FHISO and GEDCOMX, handwriting recognition

My RootsTech 2013: Day 3 - I attend LDS training all day

Enduring Legacy blogger Michael McCormick featured in FamilySearch video @ RootsTech

Read my "new" old thoughts about previous RootsTech years:

RootsTech 2012: My experience

RootsTech 2011 (watched online): My highlights

Let me know what you think.

I forgot to look for my great grandmom

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.

Reader Comments: FamilySearch Groups (my thoughts)

In response to my post, FamilySearch Groups, child of FamilySearch Forums, I received the following feedback. The author was concerned about whether FamilySearch Groups could replace forums, and what the real practicalities are. She also mentioned a previous attempt at Groups on another platform that FamilySearch chose to discontinue.

Feedback

There was a 'Groups' site put up for a while on a sort of simplified MySpace platform with irrelevancies such as popularity votes (do not belong on a genealogical-information or technical-information discussion board), photo albums (ditto), options to 'join' groups on a narrow range of topics. The 'group' *owners* could edit or delete others' posts. There was no geographic-location (such as country/state/county) or topical hierarchy and no way to do a subject search. Separate registration was required, but there was no statement on the pages as to site ownership, privacy policies, etc. It is long gone. ... the 'Groups' site I described was very short-lived, an experiment for feedback, announced to Forums viewers. It was not designed in such a way as to be able to fulfill the functions of the Forums.

A 'social network' would not be a replacement for the Forums (or what they could have been if given a chance, publicized and un-buried). There is also the FS Facebook site, which can not fulfill the Forums' function. Perhaps you or someone could share what the purpose/organization is of the Yammer-hosted site -- actually in practice, not dreamed-of goals. Then someone reading it might be inclined to ask for an invitation.

My response follows:

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.

Feedback author's response

Michael, thank you for the explanation.

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

Happy Independence Day? - A Nation of Immigrants

http://bit.ly/19Y7YkE

Warning: This post contains opinion about our broken immigration system along with a little history and genealogy.

Unfortunately, in our 237 years as a nation, we still have not learned to treat all immigrants fairly and with compassion.

history.com states:
"in the Mid-19th Century...The influx of newcomers resulted in anti-immigrant sentiment among certain factions of America’s native-born, predominantly Anglo-Saxon Protestant population. The new arrivals were often seen as unwanted competition for jobs, while many Catholics–especially the Irish–experienced discrimination for their religious beliefs. In the 1850s, the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic American Party (also called the Know-Nothings) tried to severely curb immigration, and even ran a candidate, former U.S. president Millard Fillmore (1800-1874)..."

I am a full 1/8th Irish.

Today, many of the same people who have Irish ancestry are proud of their heritage. I am. Some of these same people are now speaking out against other ethnic groups such as Latin Americans. This behavior is a sad example of the natural man who repeats the pitfalls of our bigoted history.

I always knew that many of my ancestors must have struggled to get here, but I feel this much more clearly now that I am helping my wife to immigrate. She is from Mexico and has felt the sting of prejudice in things as simple as thoughtless comments that others give about our country being "overrun by Mexicans." Such thinking is entirely bigoted and should not have place in the heart of any American. Shortly after we married, we went to Mexico. She only had a visa and we were not well prepared for the difficult immigration system. They border patrol made her stay in Mexico and I had to come back to the USA to keep my job. You might argue that we made a mistake in going to Mexico, but even if you feel that way, I hope you have the compassion to be sympathetic. Should people be punished for wanting to visit their parents? The fact is that my wife and I have been apart for over 9 months in our first year as a couple. I did not set out to marry a foreign born person, but to me it was not a factor. I knew it would be hard to do the paperwork, but it is turning out harder than I expected. I never regret marrying her for a moment, but I am saddened that our great country can't process such a family sensitive case any quicker.

A person should be judged by their personality and not by their ethnicity. They also should not be given unjust or overbearing consequences such as large amounts of time away from a spouse. This Independence Day, may we all remember that God loves everyone just as much as he loves you or me.

These are issues that effect our families, our history, and us

In a recent post on the FamilySearch Blog I read the words: "Hooray for immigrants!" This was an encouraging note for volunteers and potential volunteers of a FamilySearch Indexing project to type the names of roughly 500 million immigrants. Besides the fact that all Americans have an immigrant ancestor, how does this apply to my life today?

My wife and I are in two different countries due to compliance with current immigration law. She is in Mexico preparing for her immigrant visa interview with the US Consulate there. We have been apart for four months that have felt like an eternity and do not know when we will be reunited.

In this situation, I began to ponder: How does this all fit together? As genealogists, do we need to be involved in modern day issues? A powerful, motivational answer for that question can only come from each of us as individuals.

Is a genealogist a politician? Is a genealogist a lobbyist? Is a genealogist a dreamer, a lover, a faithful idealist? Is a genealogist a member of a family today, here and now? In my not so humble words: Of course! Of course, we must be involved. We must open our eyes and see our individual lives and families within the context of an eternal family chain. As genealogists, we should be able to see this eternal perspective more clearly than most. We are not confined to dark corners and dusty books. We are not constrained to the technology which facilitates our search for data.

We must "arise and shine forth." We are the salt of the earth, each of us. Everyone who has a desire to serve is called to the work. Let us more often put aside our individualistic natures. Let us more often live in the present. Let us share what we have. We can share our beloved genealogy. We can write our legislators in support of open records legislation. Can we not take the beckoning call to do more, to be more? We have the power to change the world.

We are changing the world. We are enlightening our friends and family with a glimpse of eternal perspective, a feeling of belonging within a larger family, a feeling of belonging within the human family. This understanding hopefully leads us to greater love for all humankind, and a deeper desire to live today--in our families, in our communities, in our work, and in all ways--to be all that we can be. Let us always be involved.

Ancestry Insider: Required Reading for FamilySearch (my response)

This post is a response to Ancestry Insider's post from this morning: Mailbox Monday: Required Reading for FamilySearch. You may want to read that first.

I generally have a battle in my mind about whether it is appropriate to speak like this about FamilySearch. I sometimes sense an attitude with some involved with FamilySearch that the organization is the genealogical hand of God and cannot be wrong. It is more perception than reality. I actually support FamilySearch in its religious role as the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I also feel that it is important that employees of FamilySearch are honest among each other about what the public really expects--and are not getting.

As Ancestry Insider mentioned, FamilySearch has many good employees who are working in the direction of fixing these issues. Sometimes things move slowly there... and that feels like an understatement.

To understand why FamilySearch is so far behind in tree technology, it is important to understand the real priorities and resources of FamilySearch. As a non-profit, sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, FamilySearch runs on the premise that all genealogy work is to be done to the end of taking those names of deceased ancestors to temples where ordinances such as baptisms for the dead can be accomplished in proxy as a religious benefit to ones self and ones ancestors. In making temple work submissions easier, FamilySearch has come leaps and bounds with both nFS and Family Tree. These programs provided the first time that this preparatory phase could be done at home--with no use of special Family History Center software. FamilySearch had met their goal of improving the ease at which members of their sponsor could take names to the temple.

Before I continue, let me set out a few "facts." Ancestry.com is a for-profit company that was recently valued at 1.6 billion USD. Their mission is to make money, which motivates meeting the needs of the user. I am not suggesting that they are greedy people without your genealogy at heart. Simply, I ask you to ask: "What are FamilySearch's resources?" And here, I mean: How much money does FamilySearch have to put into making the world's best Family Tree? I don't know, but I think it is less than 1.6 billion. They use thousands of volunteers to provide customer support, hundreds to digitize the historic records they put up each week, hundreds of thousands to index their records, etc. Because of being a non-profit, using volunteers is the only way they have the capacity to get so much done. It is also an organizational decision. As a church sponsored unit, FamilySearch would logically want to give people the good feeling that comes from being a volunteer.

Don't get me wrong, FamilySearch does pay people. I believe they pay all their programmers and engineers. Of course, they have thousands less of those than they have of support staff. Each time they pay anyone to do anything it requires approval of the organization as a church sponsored unit--with the purpose of getting people to the temple. It is hard to shell millions of tithing dollars and donations into the pockets of programmers and engineers.

On a positive note, I have spoken with, or heard comments from many of the employees at FamilySearch who have the same goals for the system that we do. They want it to be a good experience. One thing I often hear is that one project pushes out another. That is a resource problem. For example, at RootsTech 2012, Grant Echols said that FamilySearch Linking would probably be released sometime after the 1940 Census. When I was an intern with FamilySearch so many people seemed focused on the 1940 census. Other projects received less attention until it was over. The same thing happens for all projects. Since 2011 or earlier, FamilySearch employees in top engineering positions have been talking about wanting to link photos to Family Tree. FamilySearch Photos has just recently become a closed beta, open to members of the sponsor organization. The FamilySearch Indexing mobile app released at RootsTech 2012 was pulled offline in December and put on indefinite hold due to this same lack of resources. There appear to be too few programers and engineers to do the work that we want to see done. It isn't that the employees lack our vision as much as the fact that they must prioritize to a smaller amount of projects.

Anyone who is a follower of FamilySearch will realize that as a whole, their website offers a staggering amount of resources. Much has been done in the past year--just not in every area.

Another example as per your desire to let FamilySearch download sources and media to your computer software like Ancestry.com already allows: http://www.gedcomx.org/
Like I said, FamilySearch is aware of many of our needs and has concepts designed to work toward a solution. The GEDCOMX concept wants to create a new GEDCOM that will make transfer of media objects, sources, etc easy. After a couple of years they still are having trouble doing anything really significant with the community. FamilySearch has been criticized for their lack of official position with the FHISO for example. There is an insightful article from last year on the GEDCOMX blog that talks about it.

So, what do I think the future will bring? Who knows? I have the utmost faith in the concepts that FamilySearch employees have. The turn around is unbearably slow, but at the same time, FamilySearch adds new value to their website and worldwide network every day. I don't think I will ever stop loving FamilySearch, and I don't think that I will ever stop wishing they would hurry it up.

I donated a FamilySearch Historical Records collection

The collection I donated to FamilySearch is online! I donated images of my 2x great grandfather Frank S. Rowland's Church register from his 30 years as a Methodist minister. I'm excited that his record keeping can now be a blessing to anyone descended from those listed herein.

New York, Frank S. Rowland Church Register, 1889-1917

www.familysearch.org

Digital images of a church register kept by Frank S. Rowland (1859-1917), Methodist (Episcopal) minister. Reverend Rowland served congregations in Hornellsville, Hartsville, Rochester, Buffalo, and Olean, New York; Detroit, Michigan; and Winona, Minnesota. The register contains marriages and burials...

For now, I simply want all of you to know my ancestor has a collection on the website of the largest genealogy organization in the world. It feels like quite an accomplishment. I hope that anyone else out there with a special collection of genealogical value will consider donating theirs as well.

Donating a collection to FamilySearch was not a self-explanatory process, so I plan to explain it in some detail in future post(s).

Thoughts on unwieldy offline personal genealogy databases and online trees

Disclaimer: This blog post consists of a few thoughts about large unwieldy databases, the benefits of online trees, and managing it all. It is not meant to teach the right way, but to share some general feelings of my own.

As I was going through some older messages which I never answered on my Ancestry.com account, I came across one message that asked why a name was missing from one family group on one of my Ancestry.com family trees.

• "I notice that you have not included ____ as a child of this couple (see 1860 Census). Is there a reason?

I'm sure this response I sent was  little more than they bargained for.

• "Sorry for taking so long to reply. I'm catching up on a few older messages. I really appreciate all the work you do on the genealogy.
  
  There is no reason. Although my trees might give the impression that they are thorough because I add sources and photos, they really aren't anywhere near complete. I don't really have a complete file anywhere. It is more like a bunch of trees in progress. Thanks for pointing out ____. When people like you point out things it sometimes gives me motivation to do a little work on a certain family and sometimes leads to fun discoveries.
  
  I usually try to make sure I get data I have typed into FamilySearch Family Tree little by little and in the process I sometimes learn new things. Back when I started I began to put everything in PAF. I know there are syncing programs that work with online and offline. I have used Ancestral Quest 12 and RootsMagic with new.FamilySearch. Most recently I have considered getting Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 and using my Ancestry.com McCormick Family Tree as a starting point to pull all my research of interest back into one master tree. That is another project though so I am putting it off currently. My old PAF/Ancestral Quest and RootsMagic files are so huge with so many thousands of people that are only in there because of the times I imported whole files from RootsWeb.com... Cleaning those up isn't even something I want to do because of how out of hand they are.
  
  I know you didn't ask for this big of a reply. Thanks for humoring me.

FamilySearch for Archives - No more budget problems for your archive?

FamilySearch offers their more than 100 years of records preservation and access expertise to archives worldwide--for free.

© 2012 Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

With the budget cuts in state and national budgets necessitated by these hard economic times, there are many archives nearly forced to shut their doors. A most recent example is that of the Georgia state archives.

FamilySearch is working hard to let all archives know that they are available and willing to help. The primary purposes of any archive are records preservation and access. With funds being cut so low in some places, both are threatened.

Any archive who is willing to consult with FamilySearch is being offered free help in any or all of the following:

• Image Capture
• Digital Conversion of Microfilm
• Indexing
• Access 
• Preservation

In return, FamilySearch would like to keep a copy of the records to preserve indefinitely at no cost. They would also like to make it available for free on FamilySearch.org. For organizations who want to restrict records access to a specific group, or location, they are happy to create a customized contract. It sounds too good to be true, but as a result of earlier partnerships billions of historic records are already on FamilySearch.org.

To learn more, simply go to FamilySearch.org and click on the Archivists link in the RESOURCES section on the bottom of the page.

FamilySearch is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources for free at FamilySearch.org or through more than 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The heartwrenching Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland

In 2005 we walked into the cemetery which just recently had been bought by new owners after many years of overgrowth and see the typical sunken graves with their toppled stones clothed in foliage.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/therepository/2669919235/in/set-72157605073713977/

I recall seeing some piles of stones bulldozed aside at the time, but back then I did not have the confidence to speak up. I feel bad that I have not done more, sooner. I also regret not getting more pictures than what I have. Sadly, this same process has continued all the way into the present and there are no signs that it will stop.

In a day and age when a Facebook petition can end a story telling stroll through a local cemetery, it is sad that this unethical, disgusting, bulldozing treatment of our ancestors final resting places on O'Donnell Street can go by with only a faint cry--with no definitive action and nothing has changed.

Several people have voiced their disdain for the treatment of this once majestic cemetery.

It is remarkable that even a paranormal activity group has begun to speak up online regarding the terrible condition and care of the cemetery. The slideshow is rather long. Minute 5:00 and 5:50 showcase some of the piles of rubble commonly seen.


If this doesn't work, try the link: http://youtu.be/wtzYkCzNauM

The Paranormal Research and Investigation Society who produced this film has some insightful comments one the YouTube page with this video, which includes the following:
"Maryland's Department of Corrections brought prison trustees out to help clean some of the cemetery. But this place is an utter disgrace. As new burials are accepted, odler sections are bulldozed haphazardly, and without reason."

There are several complaints about the cemetery on the Find A Grave message board.

There is a negative review on Yellow Pages.

There is a negative review on Google.

One of the best sites to reveal the community's feelings is actually a photographer's website.

A flickr search for pictures of this cemetery reveals several hundred results, many of which reveal the poor conditions.

This has been a problem for many years and many people have complained. Again I ask, why does a stroll around a cemetery get shut down while bulldozing our ancestors graves is overlooked?

If you agree please leave comments here, on the sites mentioned, write your own blog posts, go to the cemetery and save your ancestors headstones before they all get bulldozed up... do something!

Is the Internet an Unreliable Repository?

Several times this month I have come across websites that were temporarily down. In at least three of those I was trying to learn more about genealogy. The GenealogyGuys.com, BillionGraves.com, and Baltimore County Public Library websites were all down for different reasons at different times. The last website mentioned is down at the time I'm writing this post due to power failure during hurricane Irene.

So is it time to give up on Internet research and go back to the caveman days of visiting these places in person? No. That will not work. These websites are compilations of data not easily accessible in any one physical place. As far as I know, the Genealogy Guys do not have their own public library of knowledge at any physical address which I can visit. BillionGraves is a compilation of the collection efforts of thousands of volunteers visiting cemeteries world-wide. The Baltimore County Public Library has a ProQuest portal which my library card gives me free access to. There I can get more digitized issues of the Baltimore Sun for free than I can anywhere else... okay there is an "easy" fix for that one. I could go to the Maryland Law Library in Annapolis to look at the microfilms of the paper. That is what I did before ProQuest. My point is that the Internet provides resources that not only make access easier, but provide access to data in ways that make the old way almost obsolete.

With the prevelence of researcher dependence upon the Internet along with a higher demand for records access, is it really acceptable for a website to go down for a few hours? I do not think it is. Granted, there may always be more disasters (natural or otherwise), but there are some good ways to at least alleviate the hosting problem. First, we must determine what the problem is. In the cases I am aware of the root problem was a power outage or a hosting service failure. In our day of cloud computing, with scalable hosting services, websites can maintain an online presence on servers in multiple locations. That way if one host has a server go down for any reason--including power outage--another server can pick up the slack. Then there is a question of cost effectiveness. Perhaps is should be the responsibility of cloud providers to offer back-up hosting at a price within reach of small businesses, two man teams, and public libraries. Maybe the Congress should make legislation requiring websites to have at least one back up server online which traffic would automatically be directed to in case of an outage. Some of these thoughts may seem a little extravagant, but after all we are in an age of convenience.

At least I can still go to the Facebook page for each website and ask if anyone else noticed the website failure. I did that in all three cases unless it was already explained on the Facebook page. That is a nice way to keep informed of the issues, assuming Facebook isn't down.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Promotes Family History

Many genealogy enthusiasts are aware that the largest genealogy organization in the world--FamilySearch--is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Have you ever wondered why?

I received a notice today about updates to the family history initiative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [LDS]. More direction is being given to the younger generation of missionaries regarding family history and genealogy work. LDS missionaries as young as 19 are sent to locations determined by revelation through church leadership. Generally these young missionaries are known for their proselyting and service to the community. Those leaving on missions will now watch training videos which encourage them to talk about family history with those whom they share the gospel with. From 2005-2007 I served such a mission in Virginia and had the opportunity to participate in a pilot program called "The Gift of Family History." Family history enthusiasts within the LDS Church have long recognized the spiritual connections that family history helps to develop within individuals and families. Many individuals of other faiths likewise recognize a certain spirituality about family history research. Within the LDS Church I personally have learned to see the spirituality of family history from many different directions.

Family history teaches us that we are children of God.
When you start to get involved with family history, and progress backwards through the generations, your view of time changes. You begin to see that the 1800's, 1700's, 1600's... really weren't so many generations ago. You might think about how you know your parents or grandparents. They may have known their grandparents. Already from the memory of living people you may have jumped back into a world which you previously felt only existed in history books. While you are doing the hard work that it so often takes to prove your family line, you begin to feel a connection to your ancestors. When you serve people, you learn to love them. You've spent hours trying to find an ancestor so that they are not forgotten and somehow remembering them makes you feel as though your time on earth is more worthwhile. These feelings are not mistakes, they are not coincidences. God, our Father in Heaven, has set in motion a plan by which all his children can be remembered. In the Bible we read: "And he shall ^aturn the ^bheart of the ^cfathers to the ^dchildren, and the heart of the ^echildren to their fathers..." Malachi 4:6. Christianity is about love, Christianity is about service, Christianity is about family, Christianity is about eternity. Those who have gone on before us are just as real as we are.

I know that I have felt the blessings of family history in my life. Heavenly Father wants us to know we are his children and a Christ-centered effort to document our relationships going back to the time of our ancient forebears is all about that. I believe when we get to the other side we will have opportunities to complete our family pedigree charts all the way back to our Father in Heaven, but in the mean time it is the current of spirituality in the work of family history that makes the sometimes difficult work worthwhile.