James Tanner's Blog – July 2010 Archive (7)

There have been several comments in Blog posts about a news article

reporting a presentation given by Curt B. Witcher, the manager of The

Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library. Unfortunately, my

access to Mr. Witcher's comment come only from a Mormon Times article by Michael De Groote.

Even though I really enjoy attending the BYU… Continue

Several recent conversations concerning genealogy have ended rather

suddenly, on my part, when the person claimed to have his or her

genealogy "back to Adam." I really don't have any polite way to respond

to that conclusion. I have written before about the physical

impossibility of obtaining such a lengthy pedigree, but recent

conversations have caused me to return to the subject. The real question

is where does genealogical research end as a practical and… Continue

When New FamilySearch was introduced to Mesa, Arizona back in October of

2007, one of the first things we all did was to use the dispute

function to tell the world we disagreed with their inaccurate or wrong

information in the file. I literally spent hours and hours searching

through the files, disputing all of the wrongly included children,

incorrect marriages and other issues. Over time, it became apparent that

the program had no real way to make corrections.… Continue

In a comment to my last post, Karen of Genealogy Frame of Mind named

the activity of gathering ancestors from online databases as "Click and

Claim." I like this designation. It summarizes the video game-like

activity of going online and copying names down into a local database

without any discrimination as to the accuracy of the information and

without even knowing the identity of the individuals being added to… Continue

During the past week or so, I had the following conversation with a

friend I was helping with his genealogy. We were using RootsMagic 4 to

look match his pedigree names with those in New FamilySearch. The

following is only slightly edited:



Me: See that green arrow in New FamilySearch? Just click on the arrow.

Friend: This shows that this person needs to be sealed to his wife.

Me: But look, there are three wives with the same name and… Continue

I am now getting used to my new iPhone 4 and I am even more impressed

than I was initially. As a side note, this particular cell phone (if you

can still call it that) is not for everyone. The iPhone is currently

supplied only through AT&T and a required data plan, plus phone

service can cost over $100 a month. We use our phones for our business

and can justify the price for the convenience. I receive calendar items,

E-mail and telephone messages instantly from… Continue

There are still a significant number of people who use only paper copies

of their genealogical data. The reasons for doing so, run from a lack

of computer knowledge, to comments about being better able to visualize

the information on paper. I have long since learned that I do not get

into discussions with these people about using computers. It is not

productive. I was very early in adopting computers for my genealogy,

using an… Continue