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Searching on PhotosSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.05.04 I was merrily scrolling through posts from the Facebook groups I’ve joined, looking for something interesting that did not have to do with a specific part of the world, and stumbled into an intriguing idea. An Organization called Family History Fanatics claims that it is actually possible to find information on your relatives and ancestors by issuing searches on, of all things, Photos. So how, you ask, can you search on photos, meaning the kind someone else may have stored? In FamilySearch, there is a menu item called Memories. If you go to […]

See the Bigger ViewSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.04.27 As the field of Genealogy progresses, people are starting to realize that the view of the Family Tree we’ve been presented in the past is far too limited. Traditionally we could only see a few people at a time, even with a four or five generation chart. Trackuback has come up with an innovative solution to that problem. They now have a way to display a traditional Pedigree chart with all ancestors at the same time. Their display allows you not only to see everyone, but to zoom in until you get […]

Verbal Histories with TranscriptionSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.04.20 One of the things I enjoy when attending RootsTech is to review all the new up and coming Innovations in the area of Family History. This year, one of the companies featured for innovation, stood out because of one salient feature they offer. The name of the company is Rakonto and they can be found at www.rakonto.io. Their offering in the Family History industry is to record and share Life Stories. You can sign up for a free account and immediately start uploading videos of your life stories, either prerecorded or on-the-fly […]

The headline above should read: The Grumpy Old Man Starts a Journal, AGAIN. I bet I have started “Journaling” a dozen or more times. Now, at 72, it’s time to get serious. One of the first things you should do in Genealogy is to ask your relatives. Usually that means getting information from a Grandparent or a relative that has lived a full life, and has a lot to remember. But what if you are the Grandparent or relative that has lived a full life, and no one asks? The reason I have had so many starts and stops was […]

New Indexing CapabilitiesSubmitted by Dale E. Lee2022.04.06 FamilySearch recently announced some exciting new capabilities which will exponentially speed up the data storage of Family History records. They call it HRAI: Handwriting Recognition Artificial Intelligence. For many years the LDS Church has been collecting, digitizing, transcribing and storing records. Millions of records were originally microfilmed and afterward digitized. But accessing the data was difficult as users had to scroll through rolls of microfilm to find the information they needed. As technological capabilities grew, the records were then digitized and stored on digital computer media. This next step in the transformation of […]

Understanding Data RelationshipsBy Dale E. Lee2022.03.30 The prior article on Understanding Data was written from the standpoint of Family History data stored on a computer and how it can be displayed out to the user. This article is written from the standpoint of entering Family History data into a computer and how it is stored in the computer. When a user enters data into a computer, cell phone, or other device, it is normally presented on the screen in a user friendly manner so that the data and the relationships are intuitive. However, when the data is stored in the […]

Wait… Say What? Family Trees can be seen in 3D? Yes, of course. There are software developers that are now starting to display Family Tree information in three dimensions and in a network format. But why would we need network formatting? Aren’t the old Pedigree Charts, Family Group Sheets and Descendant charts good enough? We’ve been using them for years and years. Well no, they aren’t really good enough. If you’ve read the prior articles on Understanding Pedigree Charts, Fan Charts, and Descendant Charts, you’ll see a reoccurring theme, they have one very big gotcha. And the gotcha is that […]

Understanding DataBy Dale E. Lee2022.02.23 One of the first questions people ask in Family History is which desktop utility should I use? The answer is, it depends. It depends on the functionality you would like to have for inputting, searching and reporting on data. But a more important question to answer is what data is being stored and how is it stored. If you understand how data is stored internally it makes it easier to understand how the desktop utility interacts with that data. All data is stored in computers as either objects or as relations. Data can be stored […]

The Grumpy Old Man has a New Perspective Genealogy and Family History. Are they the same? Yes and No. I read an article and it gave me a new perspective. Genealogy is the research side of the Adventure. Family History is the story side that brings the Adventure alive. Both are equally important. I fell into the Genealogy side. I was looking for information to fill in the blanks. I would look for a name to place on a branch of my tree. Once I got the name, on to the next. What I missed is that there’s a lot […]

RootsTech is coming… and it’s still FREE and ONLINE! For those of you that know what RootsTech is, you’ll definitely want to sign up as soon as possible and get ready for another rousing session of all things Genealogical! Sign up for free: https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/next/ For those that are not aware of RootsTech… mosey on over to last years article on what RootsTech is all about. http://www.seekerz.net/2020-09-18-what-is-rootstech/ RootsTech is “The world’s largest celebration of family has gone virtual! Explore 1,000+ breakout sessions across eight different tracks. All in your browser and on-demand.” All you need to do is to register and […]