Kreative Blogger Award
Thanks to Heather Rojo at Nutfield Genealogy, Angela at What Was Their Story and Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings for nominating me for the Kreative Blogger award. Apparently, this is sort-of a chain letter kind of thing but I'll go along for the ride. Here is my list of seven things about myself:
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Added by James Tanner on November 23, 2009 at 8:31pm —
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During the recent upgrade of my operating system from Windows XP to Windows 7, I began transferring files from my old computer to a new one. As part of the transfer, I checked one of my old journal files. Now, there needs to be a little bit of an explanation here. I started writing a weekly/daily journal about 35 years ago. The first few years the entries were handwritten, but over time, I changed to keeping my journal on the computer. Printed out, my journal would be thousands of pages. A few…
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Added by James Tanner on November 23, 2009 at 8:35am —
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If you already have a copy of RootsMagic 4 on your computer and you try to download the new RootsMagic Essentials, you will end up with an update to your existing program but not a separate copy of the program. So if you want to see how the program runs, you left looking at the feature's list. I guess I will have to find someone without the program, since this is what happened to me when I tried to look at the new program for evaluation.
From the features list, it looks like the…
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Added by James Tanner on November 20, 2009 at 8:30am —
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In the Beta version of the FamilySearch start page there is a link entitled "Learn." The link takes you to a new "Learning & How To's" page. I am impressed with the links provided on that page which lead to the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Although I am well aware of the huge amount of information pouring into the Wiki, it is apparent that FamilySearch is finally getting to the point where all of this information will become more accessible.…
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Added by James Tanner on November 19, 2009 at 8:48am —
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For some time now, on Labs.FamilySearch, there has been an alpha version of the new homepage for FamilySearch. An announcement on November 17, 2009 introduced the beta version of the new homepage. The announcement was made on the FamilySearch Labs Blog. As explained in the announcement:
The FamilySearch Beta is a project that will eventually replace the current
www.FamilySearch.org website with a new site at the same address that integrates all of…
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Added by James Tanner on November 18, 2009 at 9:01am —
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Well, not really the end, just the end of the longest software introduction in the history of computers. The Salt Lake Temple District will be completely given access to New FamilySearch on November 23, 2009. They should probably declare a national holiday. Oh, they did. Only it is three days later on Thursday, November 26, 2009.
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Added by James Tanner on November 16, 2009 at 7:48pm —
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Record Search added a new collection of Massachusetts Marriage Records from 1842 to 1915. The collection is presently (November 15, 2009) only 19% complete. The collection includes the name index and images of Massachusetts statewide marriage registers. The marriage registers are in numbered volumes arranged by year then by individual town. Currently only marriages for the years 1906-1915 are available.
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Added by James Tanner on November 15, 2009 at 6:53pm —
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New FamilySearch -- the end is in sight
Members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Salt Lake Temple District will have their first official access to the New FamilySearch program on November 16, 2009. Thirty Stakes will gain access on that date leaving approximately 38 remaining Stakes for a future date. This may well end one of the longest, if not the longest, software introductions in the history of computers. It has been over two years since the first Stake…
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Added by James Tanner on November 13, 2009 at 6:00pm —
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I recently had a discussion with a patron at the Mesa Regional Family History Center who was trying to learn more about genealogy to help others with their research. She indicated that she was sort of serving by default as the Ward Family History Consultant in her LDS Ward. During the discussion she mentioned that a member of her Ward was teaching classes and insisting that everyone had to use Personal Ancestral File. Apparently, as I have mentioned in the past, some people think their is a…
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Added by James Tanner on November 12, 2009 at 8:52am —
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Having spent a goodly portion of my life in libraries, both as a patron and a library employee, I am aware that there are a lot of things about seeing books on shelves and having them to read that are lost when the books are digitized. The greatest loss is the synergy of having books grouped together. No catalog or index can give you the perspective of reading the shelves, that is, looking at each book in turn about a particular subject. Whatever the limitations of the Dewey Decimal System of…
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Added by James Tanner on November 9, 2009 at 8:34am —
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FamilyInsight is a highly useful add-on tool for Personal Ancestral File (PAF) users who want to do many of the things that PAF won't do, particularly with New FamilySearch. The features of the program give PAF real utility, but unfortunately you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. (Actually, you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but the question is, who would want to?). PAF is not going to be supported in the future by FamilySearch and as time goes on and more and more…
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Added by James Tanner on November 8, 2009 at 6:20pm —
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When I was young and had time to do things other than genealogy, I used to practice archery from time to time. I would set up various targets to shoot at in the yard, which was big enough to use for the activity. Inevitably, I would shoot all of my arrows and miss the target at least a couple of times. In targets, think cardboard box, not the nice straw kind with big circles. Anyway, there were a couple things I did know when I started to search for my lost arrows. First, the arrow could only…
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Added by James Tanner on November 7, 2009 at 6:46pm —
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I have been running Windows XP since shortly after its release. After reading many reviews, I elected not to upgrade my home computer to Windows Vista but some time ago, our office computers were all upgraded. So I have been running both Windows Vista and my older versions of Windows XP for a considerable time. During the past week, I have been working with Windows 7 installed on my iMac using Parallels Desktop. I feel that I have a pretty good level of experience with both Vista and XP to…
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Added by James Tanner on November 6, 2009 at 9:05pm —
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With the Jordan River Temple District gaining full access to New FamilySearch by November 9, 2009, there are only two more Temple Districts left until the introduction process is complete in all of the Temple Districts in the United States. There may still be areas where the program will still have to be developed in non-Roman alphabet languages, like Chinese, but it looks like the introduction is essentially over for the time being. The last two Temple Districts, still waiting for an…
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Added by James Tanner on November 5, 2009 at 3:01pm —
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As of November 3, 2009, FamilySearch Record Search has added a number of new collections. These updated records include the following: [Descriptions from Website]
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Added by James Tanner on November 5, 2009 at 8:36am —
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Everyone would expect California to have a lot of digital resources and they would be right, to a point. In actual numbers of records, they fall way short of Washington State, but they do have some very interesting collections which I have used in researching early California families. All in all, California is long on pictures and short on actual source documents given the large population and long history of the state. There are a lot of records and indexes online on the subscription Website,…
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Added by James Tanner on November 4, 2009 at 8:17am —
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One of the features of the newer genealogy database programs is the ability to regularize or standardize place names. But, the standardized place names are anything but standard between programs. For example, New FamilySearch, the huge database from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has a feature called Standard Finder and according to this source, the place names in the U.S. are appended with "United States." However, there are major database programs, like Legacy Family…
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Added by James Tanner on November 3, 2009 at 12:59pm —
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In teaching classes to genealogists I have found that they are mostly people who can be shocked by the high price of a software program costing $29.95. So it is unlikely that these same people who think that it is outrageous to actually pay for a genealogy database program, would be anxious to upgrade their operating system, especially when the retail price of Windows 7 runs from $50 for the Windows 7 Home upgrade to over $200 for the Windows 7 Ultimate version. Furthermore, if you upgrade from…
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Added by James Tanner on November 1, 2009 at 2:02pm —
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One of the most re-occurring questions asked me at the Mesa Regional Family History Center involves running genealogy programs on a Macintosh computer. Very frequently, during a class on Ancestral Quest Family Tree or RootsMagic 4, someone will ask if the programs can be run on an Apple Computer. The answer is yes, but with qualifications and the solution is not necessarily simple.
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Added by James Tanner on October 31, 2009 at 7:48pm —
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Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Draper, Utah Temple District will be the first in the Salt Lake Valley to have full access to New FamilySearch. The roll-out will be complete for the Draper Temple District on November 2, 2009. This leaves the only the three remaining Salt Lake Valley Temple Districts without online access to the program.
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Added by James Tanner on October 29, 2009 at 8:01am —
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